Heather sent me an email the other day telling me a bit of what had happened to her and asked me if I could receive a guest post from her to share it in this blog so that others could read her amazing testimony of a person who has fought cancer and won! :) I hope you feel as blessed as I did when I read her story...
_______________________________________________________________
Everyone experiences a time when they need to rely on others. You
can be assured that a time will present itself when you will need to let your
family and friends help you to get through, and this is something that happened
to me when it seemed like the world was coming to an end. I was just 36 years
old.
My husband and I had family and friends all around us when our
baby girl was born on August 4, 2005. Members of my family, his family and our
cherished friends visited to meet the new addition to our family. It was such a
wonderful time for us, so we were ill-prepared to accept what was about to
disturb our happy home.
I went back to work shortly after giving birth, and this is when
our previously happy existence began to take a turn in the other direction. Weight
began to fall off of me. I was losing between five and seven pounds each week.
I was out of breath, felt exhausted and had no desire to do the things I needed
to do. Being a working mother is very tiring, but I sensed that there was more
to it than that. I decided to make an appointment with my doctor who performed
several tests and discovered what was contributing to my lack of well-being.
The diagnosis came on November 21, 2005 only three and a half
months after giving birth to my daughter Lily. It was malignant pleural
mesothelioma, known to be caused by exposure to asbestos. In my
childhood, I was exposed to asbestos, and, as mesothelioma typically does, it
took almost 30 years for the symptoms to present themselves.
I was in utter shock when I got the news. I could only think of
Lily. The doctor’s words were not very encouraging; he said that I would not
live longer than 15 more months if I did not get treatment. My thoughts
returned to my baby. As I looked into my husband’s eyes, all I could see was
the love of my life and my precious baby surviving without me. At that moment,
I vowed to do everything I could to stay with them.
We decided to fight the disease very aggressively, and my husband
accompanied me for my treatment in Boston. I visited one of the best
mesothelioma doctors, and underwent a very extreme surgery called an extrapleural
pneumonectomy. This involved the removal of my left lung and all of the
surrounding tissue. After surgery I spend 18 days in the hospital recovering,
and then even more time out of the hospital recovering. I eventually went
through chemo and radiation treatments as well. I stayed strong and positive
throughout all of this. I always had Lily on my mind and I was determined to
recover as fast as I could so that I could get back to being a mother.
My parents help us out tremendously by taking care of Lily while I
had surgery. Lily learned a lot while she was living with them. There were some
firsts that any mother would be so sad to miss.. learning to eat solid foods,
and learning to roll over, but I knew that I had to be away from her then in order
to still be here today. This experience, although unfortunate, has shown our
whole family that we must embrace each day, no matter what it throws our way. A
lot of what we received from this experience was good, and I am eternally
grateful.
No comments:
Post a Comment