Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Cancer

July is 8 years since I had my hysterectomy due to uterine cancer. I never dwelled on it so I suppose that is why some people don't even realize or remember it was cancer. That's ok. I don't really consider myself a "cancer survivor." It was so quick, one day I'm told its cancer and the next, its gone.

I do know that my Grandmother died of ovarian cancer. I was 4 and the only memory of her passing was me sitting in a kitchen eating a plate of corn.

One of the worst memories was a nurse telling me that if I had to have cancer, uterine was the best one to have. Uhhhhh.....WTF? You've just told me I have cancer and I'm supposed to be happy that its the best one to have? Ok.

But my family was there for me. Gabino slept everynight in my room across 3 different styled chairs. The nurses were the BEST (Parkland). I even remember one "tucking" me in so gently. I wasn't allowed to leave until a certain body function happened. I remember my mom helping me with that. I apologized and she called me silly. She gave birth to me after all, and had seen my butt a million times. :)

I had about 30+ staples going down my stomach. Thankfully, the pain was never bad. 2 weeks later we were on our way to Shreveport (casinos) and I was in the back of a bumpy-ass van. :P

But, that is my experience with cancer and since I never suffered chemo or anything, I can see why some people forgot. Its all good. :)

4 comments:

Miranda said...

I remember that day when you had the surgery. We all had to wait outside your room so that they could slide you into your bed from the surgery room bed and all we heard coming from your room was yelling that you were in pain. Momma just kept saying, 'oh I know she's in pain to be that loud'...Then when they finished putting you into your own bed, we walked in and the Dr told momma that you would be in more pain than normal because of the staples and because they were 'messing' around in you trying to locate the left fallopian tube/ovary...and after searching for it for awhile, they couldn't locate it and told momma that you didn't have a left side... momma was crying in the hallway from just hearing you yelling and moaning in pain.
(you were moaning loud)

Daniela6968 said...

I don't remember all that yelling. :P But, I know afterwards, I just had a bottle of some pain medicine because I have trouble with pills. And I know I didn't finish it by the time it expired.

I just wish they had taken out my dang appendix!

Nia said...

Daniela, is that Ama who you said died of ovarian cancer? If it is, she didn't have ovarian cancer, she had stomach cancer. The wall of her stomach was eaten up by the cancer that is why the doctors did not even try to remove the tumor. When they opened her up they saw that the cancer had spread throughout the entire wall of her stomach and there was nothing they could do. They simply closed her stomach with some staplse and sent her home. Two weeks later she returned to the hospital and it was Tuesday, after Mother's Day in 1973 that Ama passed away.

Daniela6968 said...

I'm sorry. I'm sure Momma told me but for some reason, ovarian stuck in my head. Thanks for letting me know. :)