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.
