The day our lives changed.

It is time for me to write about the patient who most touches my heart and life. My daughter Marsha. Together we traveled through the maze of cancer treatment.

She was 31 years old, a wife and a mother to an almost 2 year old. She had been suffering with a cough, weight loss, fatigue and chest pain for six months. Her Dr. kept treating her for allergies.
I was at her house one day to use the computer and she was talking on her cell phone walking around her living room. She became short of breath and had to lean over the counter in the kitchen to breathe.

I had no idea that she was so sick. I took her to the hospital right then. After a chest xray and a CT we went from peaceful existence into full battle.

The chest xray will be forever imprinted on my mind. The mass filled her right lung. I could no longer feel my body. The noise around me became muffled. Knowing I could not faint in front of my daughter, I focused on moving forward.

We needed a biopsy, a diagnosis. I wanted no gap between this day and treatment. This was July 10th 2007.

I drove Marsha home from the hospital that night; I watched her walk into her house and close the door behind her. I don't know what went on behind her closed doors that night but when I got home, I sure gave in to my own emotions......and then the anger.

How can a Dr. let 6 months go by without blood work or xrays. Again my own profession fails me.

Tonya was there in the kitchen waiting. Those who know me will think this odd that I felt embraced by the kitchen as well as by Tonya. This kitchen has seen me and my family through some amazing and painful times.

It looks different now, light blue floors, and a cool counter waist high that I draped over while I cried and raged and moaned.

July 11th Marsha and I went to see the pulmonologist and scheduled a biopsy for the 12th. More pictures to live in my memory. Oozing pus and necrotic tissue. I think she will lose a lung. But we can live with one lung. We can do this.

David and Marsha came to hide out at our house for a couple of days. Away from people asking them questions they had no answers for.

In 3 days we had a preliminary diagnosis of Non Hodgkins lymphoma. I had an appointment with an oncologist the next day. On the 24th of July Marsha had her first Chemo treatment. Fourteen days from her ER trip to treatment. The battle was on.

Just the beginning. I write this for my own therapy so if it sounds a little me oriented that's why. I'll write more another day. This is hard but I think it will be good for me.