Work and school

Well I am still waiting to get my release from my doctor to go back to work. I am going to call them tomorrow to make sure that they actually sent it because I should have gotten it already. I am so ready to get back to work, I don't understand why mom wants to just stay at home, it has been a year for me, no school no work and I am going nuts. I have been able to do a lot of stuff around the house, getting things straightened up and organized, sorting through stuff and throwing a lot of stuff away, but I want to get back to work and finish school. Yeah, it will be a while before I am finished with school, but I only have 5 classes left at CTC and then 2 years wherever. I still haven't decided on a school, I have thought about Tarleton or MCC, but most likely it will be Tarleton. I also haven't decided on a major, I will probably just end up going for a Mathematics degree and see where that takes me. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Great news

Well I went to the doctor today and he told me that everything looks good and that he will let me return to work. He said that they consider 5 years the actual "your over it" time, basically I still have to go see him for CT scans and check ups for 5 years. The first 2 years I have to see him every 3 months, years 3 and 4 are just twice a year, and the last year is just once, and then I will be considered cancer free or have beaten it completely. As the years go by the chance of recurrence lessens and they want to make sure that I don't have any bad effects from the treatments. I will finally be able to return to work and not feel like a bum, but then again I will hate work because I will feel like I don't have time to do what I want or keep the house clean...you know how that is. Anyway, I will be glad to get back, it will also help me lose some weight before the wedding.

Gone crazy

Well I think I am officially going crazy, if it's not wedding stuff then it's health stuff, job stuff (going back soon hopefully), or other things running through my head 24/7. Ever since James proposed I have been trying to think of everything that needs to be done and planned for the wedding, I even bought some books to help. I keep feeling overwhelmed and like I'm running out of time, one month has almost passed and I feel like I don't have anything done. James and I still haven't really had a chance to sit down and plan anything, which is a big part of why I'm stressing. Then there is the issue of money, I mean I don't want a huge formal wedding or anything, just something simple that we will all enjoy. But as I'm looking at things I keep wondering how we are going to afford it all and still be able to have a honeymoon and not be paying for it forever. I also, hopefully, will be returning to work soon and that will cut down on the time I can spend checking on things and making plans, and I don't know how that will affect money because I don't know if I will be working full-time over night like I want or if I will still be working days part-time and how it will all effect my pay. Hopefully I will be overnights full-time and my pay won't be lowered by going from cashier to stocker. I have a feeling that working overnights will only last until about August because I want to return to school and I don't think I will be able to go to school and work nights with out getting too stressed. That's another thing I have to worry about money for. My parents did get the Texas Tomorrow thing (I have 3 years of college paid for) but I still have to worry about lab fees and books, which cost almost as much as the classes themselves, plus gas, which my truck is horrible on gas mileage, but James did say that he would let me drive his car. Another thing that has been on my mind is my health. I went Tuesday for my CT scan and I will go this Tuesday (23) to get the results and hopefully my doctor will release me back to work, and maybe then I will quit going crazy from being stuck at home. I know one thing that he is going to tell me though, and that is that I need to lose weight, which I know, but with me being stuck at home bored and depressed at times I tend to eat more often and it is generally junk food so I have gained quite a bit of weight, the heaviest I've ever been. I need to lose weight to help prevent some health issues that run in my family to include diabetes and high blood pressure. I want to lose weight before my wedding because I don't want to be huge (which is how I feel) on my wedding day. I don't want to be a skinny toothpick, but I don't want to be as big as I am. Once I get back to work I know I will lose weight because I will be moving around and not sitting and eating. Hopefully it will help me get back down to where I was when I started at Wal-Mart, if I can get to that weight by my wedding (and if it slims down the right areas, 2 major areas) then I will be happy with that. After that I will just have try to get into exercising and eating better, which I was doing for a while and then durring the chemo treatments my tastes got all screwed up and I started eating more junk and drinking a lot of sodas. I am trying to drink more water, but bad experiences or taste durring the chemo turned me off, but I am getting back into it. Why is it that foods that are suppose to be "health foods" of healthier for you, for example snacks, are more expensive than junk food. And why can't healthier foods taste better, I mean they don't taste horrible, but they aren't as tempting as junk.

2006

Well 2006 was a hell of a year. In December I had started moving in with James, but because of work and this health stuff, it took a while. I went the first week of January to get the results from my CT scan and to find out what was next. I was told I needed to get my spleen removed and so on February 3 I went to get it removed. After my surgery, when I woke my doctor had come in and he told me that I had lymphoma and that he was unable to remove my spleen because of it. It had spread to my stomach (and I later found out my liver too) and that he would have had to have removed my stomach also. I was in the hospital for about a week while they did verious tests and I healed. On February 17 I went for my first round of chemo, I had to stay at the hospital so they could make sure I didn't have any bad reactions. After that I went every 3 weeks for a treatment, they would last all day long, but luckily I would sleep through most of it. After my 3rd treatment I went for another CT scan, but it would only show the results from the first 2, the 3rd was only 2 days before that scan, and the results were good. My spleen had shrunk from 21cm down to 15cm. As the treatments went on they kept getting worse, after the 4th one it was really bad, but the 7th got easier and so did the 8th. I think it was the fact that I knew I would be through before too much longer. While recieving the chemo treatments I was also getting shots once a week, most of the time anyway. One, neulasta, I would recieve the day after my treatment and the other, procrit, I would get once a week, these were to help keep my blood counts up. In May James and I got a new kitten. James had been giving mom a ride home (I had been staying with mom and dad until I felt well enough to be home by myself) and when they got there mom had this little kitten, at first we thought it was female, but it turned out to be a male. Anyway, James told me that if I wanted to keep it to bring it with when I came to the house, so being the sucker for animals, especially baby animals, I did. I named him Lynx. At first our other 2 cats, Trouble and Baby didn't accept him, but they finally did and now they beat him up just like they do each other. On June 14th I went for a CT scan, again, and when I got the results my doctor said I still needed a few more treatments, but my scan looked good. On July 12 I went for my last chemo treatment and then on the 14th I went for a PET scan, which would show where the cancer was and everything. I went on August 1st to see my doctor and see where we were going from there. He said that things looked good and he set me up for my second surgery, which was to be on September 6. After my appointment James and I went to eat and see a movie, and then we made our way down to the New Braunsfel area to a resort. We had a wonderful time, it was a much needed vacation. I have more about it on my myspace page. After going to see the surgeon to find out what all I needed to do to prepare and they told me that the surgery may include parts of other organs and so I had to "prep my colon" and take antibiotics, which was not fun, I ended up being sick the whole day before my surgery. The surgery itself went fine, it took a little longer than they expected, they had to get close to my pancreas, but all went well. When I woke up I was "wired for sound" as James kept saying. I had an IV going in my central line (they had put in during my first surgery since I would have to go through chemo), 2 small tubes (connected to a pain pump thing) going in my stomach on either side of the incision to deliver pain killers to the area, and then I had a draintube on the left side of my stomach to catch any drainage from my pancreas. Once they started me on pain pills they removed my IV, then a couple days later the removed the pain pump. Finally on Monday the doctor came in and asked if I wanted to go home (dumb question). He removed the drain, they brought my discharge papers and then I just had to wait on my dad to get there to take me home. 2 days later I went and had my staples removed and they told me the pathology report came back from my spleen and it was benign. I did much better after this surgery than my first, on the 16th, only 10 days after my surgery I was able to go to the local car show and walk around for about an hour and a half. With my first surgery it was probably a month before I was able to get up and around that well, of course I still had a huge rock for my spleen. The next thing was to get chemo treatments through my spine, they would do a lumbar puncture, remove some spinal fluid and then put the chemo in. I had to get 4 of these treatments, but when they went to do the 2nd one they couldn't get any fluid out, so they stopped and I came back a few weeks later. These lasted until the first week of December. With the first one I had a headache for about a week and I basically laid on the couch the whole time. After the 2nd one didn't go so well they changed it to every few weeks instead of every week and the rest of them went fine. The holidays were very nice. James and I spent Thanksgiving at his mon's friend's house and then we went and visited everyone at my aunt's and then went home and just relaxed, stuffed of course. Christmas was great. A few days before Christmas James' mom wanted us to come over as soon as he got off work, so we did and as soon as he walked in the door all I heard was "Dad." His dad had come down for Christmas and surprised us. Later that day the 3 of us went to Waco ate dinner and then watched 2 movies, we had a nice time. Then on Christmas Eve we went to his mom's house to celebrate Christmas with them, mom, dad and Michael joined us. After we ate we opened gifts, and once we were all done James asked his mom if there were any more gifts. She handed him a small box wrapped in gold paper and he handed it to me. I began unwrapping it and then I opened the white box and then there was a dark blue box, like a ring box. As I began opening it James asked me to marry him and I said yes. Inside the box was a ring with and engraving on it, it said "Always & Forever" and there is a heart around a small inset diamond. Unfortunately the ring is too small and it is the largest size that it comes in so he is going to get me another ring, one that will fit with my wedding ring. They are not actually wedding rings, but they are what I want. Now if I could only get him to decide what ring he wants. Anyway on Christmas day mom, dad, Michael, and James' dad came over and we opened gifts here and then once we were done we went over to Aunt Bernie's house and opened gifts there. After pulling snack stuff out we then played games. Once we were done with the games I took James home so he could get some sleep because he had to work that night, then I came back and spent some more time with my family. It was a great ending to a very stressful year.


Some pictures of my ring.

2005

Well to make sure that everyone knows what is going on and not coming in in the middle I will start with 2005, when most of this stuff started.
In March I went to the ER for sever pains in my left side, which turned out to be a kidney stone, and they did a CT scan to make sure. When they looked at the results they saw that my spleen was enlarged and that I had a kidney stone. They gave me some good medicine and told me to go see my doctor later that week. My doctor gave me a list of things that was not causing my spleen to be enlarged, but didn't say what was so he referred me to a doctor in Waco. I first saw him on June 27, he put me on iron pills and told me to come back in 3 months, to check my iron, and 6 months for a CT scan. After my appointment I went on my first date with James. I returned in 3 months, my iron was up, but my spleen was still enlarged. In 6 months, the end of December I went for a CT scan and then had to wait for the beginning of January (only about a week) to get the results and see what I needed to do from there.

Keep in touch

Well I am going to try this to help me keep in touch with more people than just those on my myspace page, which if you want to check out the address is www.myspace.com/lizza8902. Hopefully I will keep this one as up to date as I do my MySpace. We will see how it goes.