An Interesting year, to say the least - A 3 part Blog Series :)

Well this year definitely started out interesting. God has a lot planned for us this year and we learned that right away! With a pregnancy to begin the year and then a devastating end to it, we knew God had some plans for us in 2009!

There are things in life that you never really believe will happen to you, and then when they do you realize very quickly that you aren't immune to anything. Good or bad, we all have "big" stuff to go through eventually. This past March I realized it had been a year since my last dermatology appointment and I should probably go back in for my yearly skin check. (For those of you thinking I am one of those people who goes every year, let me tell you last year was my first visit). However, I would get caught up in the business of life and a few days later that little voice would show up again saying "make a dermatology appointment". So after 3 or 4 times of being reminded in my own head, I finally called to make my appointment. I had a couple spots that had been checked last year, but always seemed to concern me a little so I was glad to go and get the clear for another year.

So in I go to see this guy I don't really know that well. As he is looking over my skin he says "hmmmm, I would like to biopsy this spot on your ankle" "WHAT?" I find myself shocked simply because last year I thought that spot should come off, but he didn't. So why the change this year? Well, I know these doctors look at skin all day, so I had to believe if he wanted it off last year it would have come off. I felt my nerves creep in as I told him "I've never had a mole taken off". He seemed shocked that at 25, this was my first mole "experience". So, out came the anesthetic (which hurt far more than the removal itself) and up went my blood pressure as I laid down to get this mole punched out of my leg!! It wasn't horrible, but definitely not comfortable. The doctor reassured me all is going to be fine and people have this done quite often. So, as I left with my 3 stitches in my poor little ankle, I wondered what the biopsy results would be. What is there to be scared of? People have this done all the time, right? Oh of course, it's going to be totally fine. So I went on my way and went about life until March 19th when I got a call....


The biopsy turned out to be melanoma...... yes, skin cancer!! I was sitting there thinking, wait, isn't melanoma the cancer people get when they are like..... ummm.......70 or 80 years old? Well, apparently not anymore. Melanoma is now the NUMBER 1 cancer in women ages 25 to 30. It is the number 2 cancer in women ages 30 to 35 second behind breast cancer. WOW. What 25 year old woman knows that? You see, that's the problem. It's all too common. It can be sitting on your skin and you have absolutely no idea. The scary part; melanoma is the most serious and deadly type of skin cancer. It is the type that spreads. It is the type that kills, sometimes within one year. I was shocked. I had no idea what to think. All I could imagine was that this skin cancer had already spread and this could be the beginning of a very scary end. My faith went out the window and fear rushed in. It was terrible.

I was then sent over to my original dermatologist, who was able to slightly calm my fears telling me that luckily, mine was an intermediate depth, closer to a shallow depth and the prognosis was probably good. PROBABLY. The word probably doesn't really work when you realize you are facing CANCER. Probably just isn't good enough at a time like that. The next day I was sent to another surgeon at Duke University. How blessed I was to live in 15 minutes from one of the best hospitals in the country. God is Good! Still feeling full of fear, once again this doctor was great and tried again to reassure my fears. He told me that this would PROBABLY be the only time I saw this in my life and that the prognosis looked good for a full recovery. Of course he would have to send me to yet another doctor. So after feeling like I was just being sent down the line I had an appointment set up at Duke with the number one oncology surgeon. The scary part: walking into the oncology unit and sitting in a waiting room with people waiting for their chemotherapy treatments. I hope I never forget what it felt like to look around and realize how many people are fighting cancer in this world. I didn't know what to think. I wondered if I would be sitting there waiting for my treatments within the next week or so. What was this doctor going to do? What if I have cancer all over? Never in my life have I had to reach for faith more than during this week long period where I sat in a place I never thought I would be. I wondered if we lost our first baby because I was sick. Was my body fighting cancer and I didn't even know it? Ugghhhhh fear is the worst enemy.

After a long wait, I was finally seen where the doctor felt my lymph nodes to check for any enlargements. Yet another thing you won't think you will have to do at 25. After examining my leg, Dr. Tyler was extremely positive and I had my first slight sense of relief. He said that melanoma is a serious cancer. It is aggressive and hard to treat once it has spread. But, before it has spread, it has a 99% cure rate. He felt as though mine was still localized in the skin and the chances of it already spreading were only 5 to 7%. WOW. Praise God for some FANTASTIC news! Funny thing, the devil knows where your weaknesses are. As soon as the doctor said 5 to 7% of the cancer being anywhere else, I didn't hear him say the 93 - 95% chance of being healthy. All I hear was the 5 to 7% chance of it spreading. I couldn't focus on the positive (which was much bigger than the negative), I could only focus on the chance that I was in the small percentage. Thank God for my amazing husband who has faith as big as a mountain. He and my mom were my constant strength. They were so positive when I just felt like being negative. They never wavered on the fact that they believed I would be just fine. I would find myself lost in that small percentage, sinking into a hole of fear that took over all possibility of complete health. It was the scariest thing I had ever been through.


We left the appointment with a surgery set. I would have a wide excision of the area on my ankle to make sure all cancer cells were gone and would also have a lymph node biopsy done where they check for cancer cells in the lymph nodes. I was right on the edge of where they begin testing the lymph nodes. Lymph node testing begins at 1.0 mm depth. My biopsy came back at 1.1 mm ( I later learned after surgery it was actually 1.3 mm). In the past, doctors would remove almost all lymph nodes that drained that area of the skin. But now, they have this amazing technology that can locate the single lymph node that would have the very first sign of cancer if it had spread. They remove that one lymph node and if it is clear, there is a 97% chance the rest of your body is free and clear as well.

Despite my fantastic statistics, I still struggled with fear for the next couple weeks. It's a strange feeling to know there had been cancer on and in your body and not know if it is anywhere else. All of a sudden, every time you feel a little tired, or get a cough your mind says "is that because I have cancer?" Every little pain reads cancer. It fills your mind with lies and fears that most of the time are very irrational, even though they seem perfectly rational at the time. I felt as though the only time I could escape the fear was when I was asleep. I woke up every morning wishing it was all just a dream, realizing it wasn't.

On April 2nd I went in to Duke radiology to have my lymph node tracking. There were signs all over the door stating "radioactive material in use". I was wondering if this was like standing next to a microwave for months? Haha. Ok, like I said, my mind wasn't in the most rational place. So the procedure consisted of me lying on this table that looked like a CT scanner where radiologists would come in a inject me with 4 injections of radioactive liquid. I'm not gonna lie, I wondered if I would start glowing or metal things would start to float towards my body :) So, the only bad part was the injections had to be placed in a circle around the spot on my ankle where the melanoma had been taken off. Yep, 3 stitches and a sore spot without much padding and I got stuck 4 times and injected without any numbing meds. I almost broke Nathan's hand, but we bot survived. I then had to wait 2 hours to become "radioactive". So we left and ate lunch and returned to Duke after my 2 hours were up. When I returned I laid back on the table and the fun began. A series of pictures were taken which tracked the radioactive fluid up my leg to the first lymph node that drained that area of skin. It was quite interesting to see. At the end of the photos, we could see the lymph node light up and a special wand was used to locate it from the outside of my body. It was like a metal detector that when crazy when it was over the lymph node of choice. I was marked with a big black X and sent home to prepare for surgery the next day......