With two major changes in my life, Health and Career, I wanted to keep the faith and keep moving forward. I knew He had a plan for me and with that belief, things would work out and the pieces would fall into place. To be honest, I felt like this was a puzzle that would take forever to solve, but the pieces seemed to fall into place so quickly. By April I had met my new oncologist, Daniel Lehane, at Methodist. He is current and caring and he believes - no he KNOWS - that I will beat this. I knew that. You knew that. But it sure is nice to have the medical support behind me all the way too. I fell in love with him and Methodist. I also fell in love with Blocker Middle School. A friend told me about a position teaching reading and novels there. My heart just melted when I walked into those doors. I knew that this was the next step for me. Every day with my kiddos has been a blessing. Funny thing is, they really aren't that different from my sweet 1st graders. Just taller and with a more colorful vocabulary.
We had a tiny set back in the summer as we spent the whole summer fighting with insurance to approve stereo tactic radiation so that we could zap the tumors that Md Anderson had left behind in both lung surgeries. This type of radiation is more severe, but it is better than having surgery and has superb results for knocking out the small hard to treat tumors. Finally insurance said yes. For the first two weeks of school (after work) I underwent five treatments; the first one was two hours long and the next four were close to an hour and a half. I rang the bell to show that I had finished, but the next week, I got very sick. I was having horrible headaches and nose bleeds and went back to Dr. Paulino, my radiation oncologist. I had hypertension and pneumonitis. Just to be thorough, they did an MRI of my head and neck and orbits and found a large bone tumor in my C1. It had probably been growing there for the past 3 years. Miraculously at 21mm it was not pushing on my spinal chord, but it couldn't be surgically removed either. Three more weeks of arguing these points with insurance and I was approved for another 5 rounds of stereo tactic radiation. Once again I rang the bell. After a month of healing, I went back to see Dr. Lehane. All tumors are shrinking and should be gone gone gone with in the year!! Next step was to meet my urologist, Graham Guerrero, who is equally caring and compassionate and funny. He shared a lot things about my kidney and about how amazing my body is doing considering all that it has been through (Dr. Lehane was also impressed by how good I looked considering). We learned that it is better for the stent to stay in at this time and I was confident knowing that he was going to perform the surgery himself (Dec. 28th). Surgery was a success and to celebrate, my awesome hubby surprised me with a trip to Disney World. :) We had a wonderful weekend meeting Goofy and Pluto and walking miles on end eating Mickey shaped ice-creams and getting beaten up on all the fast roller coasters...and all the other ones too.
Today we met my nephrologist, Juan Sr. Olivero. His job is to make sure that my good kidney stays healthy. And of course he was also fabulous! I have complete faith in all of my doctors there. They are truly so kind and knowledgeable and make you feel like you are their only patient no matter what day it is. I also love that all of these doctors work together and have met to discuss my case. I feel like I have a huge support team there and that leads to a long and healthy life. The future may be unknown, but its definitely bright and optimistic. Next step; get the lungs back to complete HEALTHY and meet Dr. Carter, our high-risk pregnancy doctor. Praying daily to hear that all this waiting will lead to a new little Hawes.
