Welcome to 2025 Folks
- News from Gerianne
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Hi Folks. It's been a while.
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With our entrance into the second month of 2025 already, I am grateful. I am grateful that 2024 has come to an end, and at the same time I’m very grateful that 2024 wasn’t even worse for me than it was. And yes, I am immensely aware that it could have been much worse.
For yours truly, 2024 was an extremely difficult year. I’ve likely had more medical appointments, hospital visits, gotten to know more doctors and medical staff than I ever have in my entire life.
I used to take great pride in, whenever on the rare occasion, I’d needed to be in Emerge and I’d be asked: “Have you had any overnight hospital stays within the past year?’ I’d proudly respond with: “Nope! Not since 1995, when I had my gallbladder removed!” I’d sometimes add: “The very day that O.J. (Simpson) was acquitted.” (Honestly, I always thought it was very odd that that was the very first thing out of my sister-in-law's mouth as I was waking up from my surgery. Not: “Hi. How are you feeling?” Not: “Ohh good, you’re okay.” Nope! Just: “O.J. got acquitted.” (As if I cared at that very moment.)
For some reason I mentally think of early April 2024 as a starting point of all this medical stuff going sideways, but to be honest it was a few months before that. During the end of 2023, I was under much pressure from government funders and I wound up in Emerge with whatever kind of flu, or whatever it was at that time.
Then one evening in April, as I sat working on stuff, I suddenly felt an extreme pain throughout my abdomen and back. It was a pain I hadn’t felt in several years, but I suspected I knew what it was – kidney stones! (I have an unfinished article about all that) but for now, lets jump to semi-recent events.
As most of you know by now, last September (2024) I was diagnosed with breast cancer. For me, it was one of my greatest fears come true. There are countless ways I absolutely love being like my Late mother, but cancer was the one thing I had always hoped we would NEVER have in common.
After having a lumpectomy on November 7, I had a follow-up MRI and a full body CT scan in December. That led to a second mammogram on the left breast and there was supposed to be an ultrasound on my right breast, where the cancer was. But the two techs (who right off the bat seemed really confused and dishevelled) ended up doing both tests on the non-cancer breast. They also said there was cancer in the left breast, which was why the second mammogram was ordered.
Honestly, this news hit me (mentally) like a transport truck barreling down the highway. While I had been fully ready for the first cancer news last September, I was NOT at all expecting the news of cancer in the left breast, and just days before Christmas to boot.
Well, On January 13th, I saw an Oncologist. (Good guy. I liked him.) Once we concluded that we’re on the same page about the value of my life, (which didn’t take long at all) I told him of my suspicions that my last two tests were done incorrectly. He was on his computer in seconds and together he/we confirmed that my suspicions were indeed correct. Furthermore, he assured me that there is NO cancer in the left breast. There IS a small benign cyst, that first showed up in 2018, so nothing to worry about at all. For me, this news was an overwhelming relief, but I reassured him, that my tears were tears of relief and gratitude, as I am so abundantly aware of how blessed I truly am.
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He then went on to tell me that with almost certainty, that there will be NO Chemo. (I apparently had “the wrong type of breast cancer” for chemo to work.) He said that I may need some Radiation treatments, or maybe not, but I’ll have to take a single pill once a day for at least 5 years (maybe as long as 10 years) with the goal of that pill being to stop any further development of cancer from developing anywhere else in my body.
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I thought: “WOW! A single pill, once every day... I’ll gladly take that outcome! Gladly! And with soooo much gratitude.”
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Still, I have to tell you that going into the Cancer Centre for the first time was both unnerving and overwhelming. While I waited to be seen and as I caught glimpses of treatment rooms, some with patients in them, others empty, I found myself unexpectedly tearing up. (Actually, unexpectedly tearing up has become a more regular occurrence since being diagnosed. I sometimes wonder if it’s just me being my usual emotional self, [I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve] or if it’s a weird side-effect of having cancer.) At times, I almost felt like I was in some kind of weird chamber of horrors and it took everything I had, not to put my chair on full speed and bolt! At other times I thought about my Late Mom and what it must have been like for her, almost 60 years ago, when treatments were not nearly as advanced as they are now. How scary it had to have been for her, having to leave her family, (and her baby) to go some 500 miles, for months, to get treatment. I also thought about Jesus and how much He suffered - being whipped, beaten, ridiculed, spat on, kicked, and tortured; and I kept telling myself (as I have been all along): “Come on Gerianne! In comparison, for you, this should be child’s play.”
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Only a week later though, I met with a Radiation Oncologist’s nurse, then the Radiation Oncologist himself. Anymore, whenever I meet with a medical personnel for the first time, I write a sort of intro letter, which goes something like this:
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“I thought it may be best to introduce myself in this manner, to give you a few details about myself.
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First, I am a highly intelligent woman with a very logical and methodical mind, who happens to have Cerebral Palsy.
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Often people who don’t know me, wrongly assume that I also have an intellectual disability (because of my movements and my speech impediment.) Let me assure you, any assumptions along those lines are completely false.
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Please understand also that I immensely value my life. I am a very active woman with much on the go. I am much respected and beloved by many (around the globe) and those feelings are indeed mutual.
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Therefore, I need to be supported by medical personnel who also believe that my life has value and that those medical personnel will do everything in their power to help me recover from my cancer.
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Thank you for your valuable time.”
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I find doing this helps a fair bit, although not completely. Often at this point, medical personnel start asking my attendant(s) questions. Immediately I try to put a hard stop to this practice, and often when I do, then the medical personnel will start doing one thing I ABSOLUTELY HATE and frustrates me to no end. It infuriates me and makes my blood boil! They’ll try to guess what I’m going to say, and/or try to finish my sentence for me. (If you one day meet me in person, DON’T DO THIS! It will NOT yield the result you’re hoping for. Trust me on that one.) Now, that doesn’t mean that I won’t ask my attendant(s) to repeat exactly what I say, word-for-word. Sometimes I will; but that’s on my initiative, not someone else’s, and not my attendant(s).
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So in trying to get to the bottom of the mammogram/ultrasound screw-up, I found myself in these weird and frustrating “not my pay-grade” converses with the nurse, and a “I’m far too busy for this” attitude from the Radiation Oncologist, leaving me with an initial WTF shocked reaction.
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Yes, I know these good people are extremely busy and initially, the Radiologist was great. He explained my options very well, saying that with the pill alone there would be about a 40% chance of further cancer, but Radiation will drop the chances down to about 7%. Obviously, I opted to be “zapped” in treatments to come. It should go without saying that obviously, I do very much appreciate their time, knowledge and efforts of these people; but my main concern is/was because of the mammogram/ultrasound screw-up, I DON’T want to one day be told: “Oh! Gee Gerianne. If we had only seen this earlier! If the ultrasound was done on the correct breast... But now it’s too late. The cancer has spread to other parts of your body. Now you’re dying. Too bad. So sad. You’re screwed.”
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So, for about a week or more, I felt really unheard and I didn’t quite know what to do. I mean, the Radiation Oncologist said he would communicate my concerns to my surgeon, but truthfully, I didn’t expect much. I felt really uneasy about proceeding with these two, but the outcome of switching to other medical staff could have been worse.
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So I did what I do best. I wrote them an email expressing my concerns. I was polite, but honest. I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting what I got. The Radiation Oncologist himself took the time to email me personally. His email was kind, understanding, and supportive. He said that if I decided to change doctors, there would be no delays in my treatment, and he would fully assist with the transition. Honestly, for such a doctor to do all this and go the 20 extra miles, hey, he now has my vote!
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While I am grateful for the efforts of so many, I have also gotten slight variances in the story of things from each medical person I see. I’ve heard: “We were able to remove all of the cancer”; to: “a few cancer cells are still in a few of the nodes”; to: “there’s a small amount of cancer in your left breast”; to: “No. It’s a benign cyst that’s been there since 2018.” Even between the Radiation Oncologist and his nurse, there were some discrepancies as to what I should expect to go through. The Radiation Oncologist seemed pretty confident that the treatments likely won’t slow me down much while going through them, just once they’re over, I’ll be fatigued for a few weeks. He explained things very well and I appreciated that. Yet his nurse gave the impression that I’ll be fatigued all the way through. As someone who values clarity, these variances come across unsettling. But then, each person/patient will respond differently.
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Yet besides all these things, another source of my frustration has been staff. It’s very difficult to find (and keep) good attendants, especially over the holidays. For the most part I try my best to be understanding, accommodating, reasonable to get along with, etc., BUT there are a few absolute hard and fast NO GOES with me. One of those is: no lying (especially blatant lying). I DO NOT tolerate lying, so when I heard a (now former staff) lying to a food bank, well, that staff & I had definite words and thus that person no longer works for me. This happened only days after I had used over $1,600.00 of my own funds, helping this person move from a shelter where they said they felt unsafe. Do I regret trying to help? ABOLUTELY NOT!!! Will I, at some point, try again to help someone else? YES! Of course I will! It’s what Jesus asks us to do; BUT nobody should assume me for a fool, for I am no fool! I just don’t assume everyone to be the same. In my life, I’ve helped many who have genuinely appreciated it. About a week later two more staff lied, so they’re also gone. So again, I’m actively hiring again.
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So with all these twists & turns, I think this will be a last “send out” for a few months. Now, besides more medical appointments that seem to pop up like jack-in-boxes, it’s also that time of year for doing staff T4s, gov. reports, etc., not to mention my Radiation treatments. I’ll try to maybe do the odd quick send out if I’m up to it, but just know that you’re in my thoughts and in my heart; and I know that you all are with me in spirit.
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I sincerely want to thank each of my readers (present, past, and future) for your support and love. You really do keep me strong and you keep me going & trying. I’ll sign off with two recurring thoughts that regularly go through my mind. The first stems back to my Grace College days where one of our instructors quoted a prof of his, saying: “The greatest mystery in my life, is why my friends love me so much.” And the second, are the lyrics to Seph Schlueter’s “Counting My Blessings”.
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Until next time, with much love.
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Your comments & questions are always welcome:
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