The 'C' word

I am usually not a serious person but today I want to share a part of my life that is serious. My pap smear came back with what looks like cancerous cells. I will go in today and have a biopsy to see what is up and if it is truly cancer. Now I have had so many supportive people telling me it's probably nothing and I will be okay and I appreciate all of that but with my past I have found that it's very possible to have something like cancer happen to you! Here is why I feel that way... Back before I had John, before I even thought of having kids I was a high school student going to school in a new town and struggling with depression and trying to find who I was. At 15 years old I had been through a lot in my short life and after a really hard year at home with my family in Eugene I was sent to live in Portland with my dad. This is where I met Drew. Drew is what I would call my "high school sweetheart." He changed my whole life and made me realize I was worth something and taught me to love who I am before anything else. Shortly after graduation I moved in with Drew and planned to start a life with him! We were engaged which looking back I was way to young for that but nobody could make me see that, but that is beside the point! I will get to my point though. So one morning Drew woke up and asked me to come see something. I remember him sorting in bed and he was feeling something on his right collar bone. I looked and there it was. It was a lump about the size of a golf ball. It wasn't there when we went to sleep. We decided to go to a nurse practitioner at Rite Aid because we were young and had no health insurance. The nurse we saw looked like she had seen a ghost! She told us to take him to the emergency room to check it out. I thought that it was stupid to make us get a huge bill when he was totally fine and didn't even feel sick! At the ER he had X-rays and blood work done and after a 3 hour wait a doctor came in the room. The doctor put up some xrays and started talking about treatment and what they would do. It all happened so fast! I kept hearing the word "lymphoma". I spoke up and asked if Drew needed antibiotics. This is the moment our life changed forever. Drew has cancer. Those words hit me like a truck. CANCER?!? That's not possible! He is healthy and soo young! There was then a lot of talk about percentages. Only 10% of people diagnosed with Hodgkin s Lymphoma actually die from it. His odds sounded good! We went through some chemo and a short round of radiation and Drew became cancer free! We were ecstatic and had a month of fun and normal teenage lovebird life. We went in for a check up after that month and the CT scan showed that the cancer was back and not only was it back it spread everywhere! We didn't have much time to take action but we agreed to try a stem cell transplant to save him. The percentages were no longer in our favor so Drew and I married before he went in the next week for treatment. After a long time in the hospital and one coma Drew got to go home. About a week after he was home I was at work and came home on my lunch to find Drew wasn't breathing very well. He coughed up blood all over and just looked terrible. We got in the car with the help of my mom and left for the hospital. He was at only 30% oxygen and was admitted right away. I was going to leave to take a quick shower at home but my mom called me and told me they were going to intubate him. I ran back just in time to hug him and I will never forget that moment. He looked so calm and wasn't afraid so I felt like it was going to be okay. I told him I would see him soon and I loved him. That is the last time I was able to speak to Drew. He never came off life support and when we finally took him off and said our goodbyes he was gone. I laid my head on his chest and I heard his heart stop beating. This experience was the single most important moment in my life where I decided I needed to live life to it's fullest because it could have easily been me who lost my battle. Now I'm not going to lie there are days I wonder "what if". What if Drew had never gotten sick. What if it had been me? The beauty in it all is that I will never know what could have happened if he was still here. I do know that it was part of a bigger plan. Everything happens for a reason and maybe I was meant to meet Drew and go through losing him so I could grow as a person. I know that Drew watches over me and is so proud of who I am and the people I have built a life with and that makes me smile. I started writing this last Sunday before I went in for my biopsy and for whatever reason I decided it was too personal to post and stopped. Well I am patiently awaiting the call from my doctor to hopefully hear good news and I look at my phone and the date just jumped right out at me. Today is the anniversary of Drew's death and I await my results about cancer. Life is ironic sometimes and I guess I decided that nothing is too personal. I want to share this with my friends so maybe then understand why cancer is such a scary thing to me. Or maybe they just didn't know this part about me and now they understand why I am who I am. I hope to have good news the next time I post but even if I don't I know I can get through it. I just need to stay positive and know that everything happens for a reason.