Cancer Sucks

You hear it a lot and you agree with it, but when you find out you have it, “cancer sucks” takes on a whole different meaning. Yes, I have cancer.

Monday – My doctor and I decided to push little more about the pain/mass in my leg because something felt more off than usual. I have had pain there since mid-July. We have had a series of scans before, but something just seemed to really kick me when the pain began to keep me up at night till 2-3am, crying, making me pace back and forth in my apartment until I was too tired to fight sleep. My doctor decided to have an ultrasound done to look for blood clots in my leg.

Tuesday – I had my ultrasound and good thing my doctor ordered it because that’s when the radiologist came in and told me he found an abnormal lesion in my leg. He wanted an MRI done to get a better look because it could have been a couple of different things.

Wednesday – I went in for my MRI. It was God-given timing because I was not supposed to be able to have an MRI for 2 weeks because of how backed up the MRI schedule was, but I got in that afternoon.

Thursday morning – I received a call from my doctor in the middle of my nonprofit class. She calls and says “you have a tumor in your leg. It’s aggressive and we need to get you into a CT today. You can go there now. Come to my office after so we can call your parents.”

Now that’s not typically something you want to hear in the morning, especially if you’re not a morning person like me. After taking care of missing classes (by emailing professors), I had my CT done and went over to her office to call my parents. We found out that the tumor (also called a bone lesion) is about 5.6-8.8 cm long, and about 2 cm thick and aggressive. It may be a cancer called Osteosarcoma which is a bone cancer. Bone cancer itself is very rare, however, it is the most common type of primary bone cancer (Praise God for this). Next steps we had were to find an Oncologist & Orthopedic Oncologist Surgeon (didn’t even know you could specialize this far in the medical world) to biopsy my bone and to take the next steps.

Where we are at today – My parents have worked tirelessly to find me amazing doctors in Dallas. They have worked so hard that they have 3 different doctors set up to see me on Monday (tomorrow) to find out who we think would be best to care for me. From that, we will biopsy the bone to confirm the cancer and to find out all the nitty gritty of the cancer (stage it’s at, treatment, prognosis and I’m sure more, but I’m new to this whole cancer deal so the terminology is hard but cut me some slack, I have cancer!! (jokes may be too soon, but I am already making them)).

Where I am today – The pain is getting worse/more aggressive and it’s getting harder to walk on my leg each day. Thursday night the top of my foot to a third of the way up my shin has gone completely numb and is swollen. It’s strange because everything underneath my foot and shin I can feel.

However, during the craziness of this time, I am at peace with God’s plan in this. Many people ask me “is there anything I can do?” and I love everyone’s eagerness to help during this time, but we ask that you pray. Pray for my family, Cole (my boyfriend, HOLLA) and me that we have patience during this time; for the doctors to have the wisdom to make the right decision; and for our peace with what may come. These past 4 days we have gone from an uncomfortable pain/mass in my leg to cancer and that is shocking but it’s how cancer works. But I know the Lord will see this through in His way, with His hand guiding us so I see no point to worry.

My hope during this journey is to update this blog so everyone knows what’s going on. I hope that you will enjoy reading this because I will have fun writing it and find that while this time is scary, it is also joyous and such a prime opportunity to turn and lean on the Father.