"...In Sickness & In Health..."

      One of the aspects I love most about my relationship with Chad is our communication. Over the past (almost) 10 years, we have learned how to talk through & about anything & everything that is going on in our life. It will continually be a learning process, but in addition to being in love & being husband & wife, the fact that we are best friends only makes talking to each other that much easier.  From our pasts, our fears, & our day-dreams, to our secret "nerd tendencies" (totally more him than me btw! ;) ), no topic is really off limits between us, so I knew when cancer decided to crash our party in April 2010 that no matter what lie ahead of us , we would - somehow - make it through.
     We had only been married for 1 year & 3 months when my diagnosis came. We had made it through our first-year together as as husband & wife with flying colors, both of us finishing up school with Bachelor's degrees (Chad in History & Philosophy; myself in Psychology) & were still as in love than ever. We were solid & ready to live our "happily ever after", never expecting that life was about to test the strength of our love, our relationship, & the promises we made each other on January 31, 2009. 
     I remember very early on telling Chad that I would understand if my diagnosis was something he wasn't able to handle - hell, I was barely able to grasp it, so I didn't expect anyone else to understand it anymore than I did. His response was immediate: "I love you. You're my wife, my soul mate, & neither of us are going anywhere anytime soon. For better or worse, in sickness & in health, remember? This is OUR battle & we will beat it together". I remember closing my eyes & feeling those words wrap around me like a warm blanket on a cold night. We had said those words, never knowing how soon they would come in to play. It made me think about how many people say those same vows everyday; how, in some instances, it seems those words have become more of a tradition than an actual promise between 2 people who want to spend the rest of their lives together. Not for us though, somehow I had COMPLETELY hit the hubby jackpot & this was, undoubtedly, going to be one - if not THE ONE - most trying time of our life together. 
     The cancer monster barged in the week before Chad's final finals' week at WVU & we made the decision that he would stay home & become my primary caregiver. His strength, devotion, and just overall "awesomeness" would continue to amaze me everyday. When I didn't have the energy to walk to the bathroom, he would carry me back & forth all day; if I couldn't bath myself, he would bathe me. When my body was too achy to do something as simple my hair - well... he once attempted to put my hair up after my August 2010 surgery - I ended up rocking a Cyndi Lauper side pony-tail for my laps on the ICU floor, something we still laugh about to this day. :) If I was having a dark day & needed to cry, he would hold me just a little closer. If I needed to scream, he would sit there & let me scream at him (ILY!).  He kept me smiling, laughing, & was always doing little things that made me fall more & more in love with him. I would often wake-up to notes saying how much he loved me & how proud he was of his little warrior. He was constantly telling me how beautiful he thought I was when I felt anything butt (pun intended!). No matter how tired or worn out he may have been, he was always by my side. I never spent a single night alone in the hospital, in fact, we actually lost count of the number of hospital chairs he so often slept in - usually days at a time. During my BIG 2011 surgery in Pittsburgh, he spent the entire 8 & 1/2 hrs holding my wedding ring & watching my number move up the monitor in the waiting room as each stage of my surgery progressed. For someone who converted me to the foul-calling, college-football-loving wife that I am, Chad was proud to be my biggest cheerleader.
     Without-a-doubt, Chad is an amazing husband, man, & human being. He's the type of man that you think only exists in the movies; the type of man you so-often dream about. His gorgeous blue eyes & the unconditional love behind them still takes my breath away & his touch still makes the butterflies in my stomach take flight. 
     3 years ago we entered the cancer world together. Today - 2 surgeries, 3 chemotherapy regimens, & 28 radiation treatments later - we're still solid & even more madly in love than ever.

Chad - I love you more & more everyday. I am so incredibly honored to call you my husband, my best friend, my soul mate, & the love of my life. Thank you for being my Superman. <3

      

So this happened...

     This past Sunday (April 01, 2013), I was fortunate enough to have my Cancer story featured in the Times West Virginian by the *amazing* Mary Wade Burnside, to whom I'm forever grateful. I know some of my viewers are not locals, so I also wanted to share the article here in hopes it may resonate with someone out there. :)

"Cancer Warrior" - Lisa Johnson faces diagnosis with grace, optimism.

BY MARY WADE BURNSIDE TIMES WEST VIRGINIAN

At the age of 25, Lisa Johnson did not worry too much when she began having digestive troubles.

Four years later, after several surger­ies that have reconfigured her anatomy and rendered her unable to bear children, the 29-year-old Johnson faces life with a strength others might not summon and an optimism that sets her apart.

Because March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, Johnson wanted to share her story in an effort to raise aware­ness and help others.

The Rivesville native and resident, mar­ried to husband Chad and with her entire future ahead of her, was kicking around job opportunities. Even though she had just graduated from Fairmont State with a bachelor’s degree in psychiatry and an associate degree in criminal justice, she decided to take a fun job coaching the dance team at North Marion High School.

Then everything changed and suddenly her choices seemed to diminish.

“The cancer diagnosis came once I was in that job for a year and a half,” she said. “Since then, cancer has been my full-time job.”

Not only cancer, but one that does not get the attention that other types, such as breast cancer, do. And one that generally strikes people ages 50 and over, not some­one half that age.

The ordeal began in 2009, with a symp­tom experienced by most at some point, constipation.

“I didn’t think it was a big deal,” she said. “I didn’t think at 25, 26, it was any­thing major. I started thinking, ‘Maybe I’m missing some fiber in my diet,’ so I started taking an over-the-counter fiber supplement.”

Instead of solving the problem, howev­er, a new symptom began — bloating.

“And not just bloating. It was the fact that I thought I was pregnant. I weighed 105 pounds. I was skinny, but you could tell I had this tummy on me.”

After that, Johnson tried a stronger over-the-counter laxative, magnesium cit­rate. The bloating and constipation would come and go.

By the time late 2009 rolled around, Johnson had a new symptom. She began to notice blood in her stool.

“I was thinking, ‘This is strange. Something can’t be right.’ Around the same time, it was time for my annual female check-up. Not having insurance, I went to a free clinic.”

She told the doctor about her symp­toms.

“She said, ‘You are 25. It’s nothing to worry about.’ I thought it was cool. The doctor told me I was fine.”

In February 2010, Johnson began to feel a dull ache in her tailbone that she equated to the pain a child who fell might feel. A friend of her mother’s, a retired pharmacy tech and a for­mer emer­gency medical technician, told her she needed to see a doctor.

Johnson did, but not before she felt her worst symptom, a stabbing pain in the right cheek of her bottom.

“It felt like I was being stabbed by a butcher knife. I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t sleep. It was awful.

“We’re so easily lured to the Internet to help us solve problems, so I did a little research and I seemed to have symptoms that looked like they fit into the category of internal hemorrhoids.”

While that did not sound fun, Johnson felt a sense of relief that she figured out the problem.

So she went to see a surgeon in Morgantown. But within minutes, he diagnosed that something seemed horribly wrong.

“He did a digital rectal exam and he found a large lump that was exactly on the right side, inside my rectum. He told us immediately, ‘This is something that is abnormal.’” Three days later, she was having her first colonoscopy as well as a biopsy. The result: a 7-cen­timeter tumor, the size, the doctor said, of a goose egg.

“It was blocking 90 percent of my rectum,” Johnson said. “He knew immediately that this was a very advanced cancer. He knew it was serious and he knew we need­ed to get start­ed doing treat­ment right away.” Two days later, she learned she had stage 3cancer with a size T4a tumor, the next-to­the- last largest-size tumor, which is a T4b.

“It was the largest he had ever seen,” Johnson said. “The reason I was having so much trouble, I was trying to get stool past 10 percent of my rectum. That’s how advanced and large this tumor was.”

As for causes, the doctor was “flabber­gasted.” He asked Johnson if she had any family history of Crohn’s disease or any other gastrointestinal conditions.

“He told us, ‘When you walked in here, I was expecting you to have internal hem­orrhoids,’” she said. “I had the largest tumor he’s ever seen with any kind of can­cer.

“It was a lot to swallow and a lot to digest and a lot to figure out where to start trying to go.”

After the tumor was discovered, Johnson applied for Medicaid. She initial­ly was turned down but then approved for it. She also eventually was put on disabili­ty because of all the surgeries and the treatment she would endure.

She met with an oncologist and had a chest port surgically implanted in her chest through which to receive chemother­apy. That was so medical staff would

not have to keep accessing her veins. 

“Especially with the chemotherapy,” she added. “A lot of chemos are so strong they make your veins collapse on each other.”

In addition to 28 pelvic radiation treatments, she had a 24hour continuous chemotherapy, with a machine hooked up to her port access.

“I had to wear a fanny pack Monday through Friday for six weeks,” she said.

The idea was to attempt to shrink the tumor with chemotherapy and radiation before removing it surgically.

“That was the plan,” she said. “That’s not quite how it turned out. But that was the game plan.”

When she had surgery on Aug. 19, 2010, the tumor had shrunk only slightly, and only from the radiation. When it was biopsied, it was found to be resistant to the chemotherapy.

At the time, the surgeon also closed up Johnson’s anus and gave her a colostomy bag attached to her lower left abdomen.

She deals with it with the same strength and grace as her entire disease.

“I thought it was going to be much more of a big deal,” Johnson said. “It’s a very nice reminder of why I’m alive.”

After that, Johnson switched oncologists and began going to one at West Virginia University’s Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center. She also got a new chemotherapy regimen called FOLFOX, basically a “cocktail” of three different types of chemo. The name is an acronym for those three chemotherapies.

“I did that every other week for six months,” she said. “I would go in and they would access my port and go up to the oncology floor and the infusion would take about five to six hours. I would have a hospital bed and I would have to stay on my hip. I couldn’t lie flat because I was still healing from surgery.”

Then, in March 2011, a positron emission tomography (PET) scan showed her to be in remission. But when she had her next scan four months later, another tumor had emerged in the same spot. It was 1.2 centimeters, much smaller than the first one.

“After that, I was referred to a colorectal specialist in Pittsburgh.”

This time, the surgery went further. On Sept. 21, 2011, in addition to removing the new tumor, Johnson had a complete hysterectomy at the age of 27.

“This was just for precaution, because if rectal cancer does reoccur, it usually reoccurs somewhere in the pelvis. Because I had one reoccurrence, they decided to do the hysterectomy. I was already sterile from the radiation.”

The surgeons also removed Johnson’s vaginal canal “because of scar tissue and other cancerous cells. They wanted to clean out as much as they could to make sure nothing would come back.”

Surgeons took healthy tissue from the inside of her left thigh to fill in the pelvis with muscle and tissue and rebuild the outside of the vagina.

“I had known about the hysterectomy, and they had mentioned the slight chance that if there was anything wrong with my bladder, they might have to remove that,” she said. “Thankfully, they didn’t. But the vaginal canal was never mentioned.

“But it really doesn’t matter. I would much rather have my life and be healthy than have to worry about that.”

However, “It was definitely a shock. I was 27 years old. That’s not the life you expect to wake up to or to be living. It doesn’t even sound like it would be possible. I like to at least look at it that I woke up, and that’s the point.”

Johnson had until January 2012 to heal from that surgery and then she began another six months of chemotherapy, this time one she could do at home by taking a pill called Xeloda, two in the morning and three in the evening.

All three types of chemotherapy that Johnson underwent came with a variety of symptoms, from the typical nausea, vomiting and body aches to neuropathy, or numbness in her fingers and toes that took a full year to resolve. She still has what she calls “chemo brain,” short-term memory and cognitive function problems, as well as teeth degradation.

However, since last October, Johnson has been in remission. While a lot of people might feel sorry for themselves, Johnson’s sunny outlook after her ordeal makes her a rarity.

For one thing, her relationship with her husband, Chad, has strengthened.

“He has been the most amazing man,” she said. “He really is. He is the man you grew up watching in the movies. I had to deal with this, but he chose to deal with it.

“He’ll always tell me, ‘I took vows.’ He loves me. We’re soul mates. We’re in it together. He didn’t leave my side through any of the surgeries. He was right there with me. When I couldn’t walk to the bathroom, he carried me. When I couldn’t bathe myself, he would bathe me.

“We were married a year and three months when I was diagnosed. He has been incredible.”

After she has been cancer-free for five years, Johnson can have surgery that would rebuild the inside of her vaginal canal.

“The doctor warned us that it’s very complicated and painful surgery,” Johnson said. “I don’t know if I ever want to take that step. Right now, our decision is no. The most important thing to both of us is that I’m alive. For a while, it was scary to think that wasn’t a possibility.”

Besides, Johnson said, “Marriage really isn’t based on physicality. It’s based on love. The fact is, we have fallen more in love with each other in this cancer world than we ever could have expected. We love spending time together and being with each other and we’re just thankful we have each other.”

As of now, Johnson has her chest port flushed out every month. She plans to leave it in until she is cancer-free for five years, after which her chance of reoccurrence lowers substantially. She has a PET scan every six months, which she will do for the next year.

“And after that, I will have one scan a year for the next five years.”

Now that Johnson’s treatment takes up less of her life, she has gotten back to the business of living it and appreciating it.

That’s not to say she never had negative feelings, but more often than not, she was thinking too much about surviving.

“You get lost in this world of appointments and chemotherapy and surgery. You don’t have time to be frustrated and you don’t have time for negative energy. You have to go on and survive to be the cancer warrior you have to be each day.

“Yes, I was frustrated and angry and confused, but I had to push that aside. I fought very hard to live this life.”

It’s a life that put her in early menopause, one she cannot treat with estrogen because that feeds cancer cells. “My hot flashes are ridiculous,” she said.

It’s also a life where she envisions adopting children in the future.

“Children, we definitely, of course, planned to do that. That was hard to swallow, knowing the fact that you’ll never be able to see the look on your husband’s face when you can say, ‘I’m pregnant,’ or never feel a baby inside your stomach. But I know what it feels like to hear the word ‘remission’ and what it feels like to kick cancer right back in the butt. It’s a really good feeling in itself.”

She also found solace online. She created a blog that she calls “Goodbye Dancer. Hello Cancer,” which can be accessed at goodbyedancerhellocancer.blogspot.com.

Also online she met the woman she now regards as her best friend, Tiffany, a fellow rectal cancer warrior, through a site called FACES (Families Affected by Cancer Embark on Survival). The two plan to go on a vacation together this summer to Oak Island, N.C., and Wilmington, N.C.

For someone who keeps a blog and who has organized her thoughts on her disease so well, advice for others flows naturally.

“You have to trust your body,” she said. “Your body is going to tell you if something is wrong. I waited, and I obviously waited too long.”

And when it comes to convincing someone to get the somewhat uncomfortable tests required to check for colorectal cancer, Johnson has words of wisdom for that as well.

“I think people shy away from it. Rectal cancer, that’s a taboo subject. But I think it’s nothing to be embarrassed about, nothing at all to be embarrassed about. I always tell friends, yes, you might have to have that digital rectal exam, but it’s over in five minutes and you can go on with your life. A colonoscopy, you’re out of the hospital in an hour and you continue on with your life.”

In fact, Johnson said, she never felt a sense of embarrassment about what she underwent and what she was going through.

“It was something that was brought into my life for a reason. I looked very hard for that reason for a long time. But it definitely made me into the woman I am, into the wife I am, the daughter I am and person I am. I think if anything, it made me appreciate my life more.” 

Lisa, pictured with husband & full-time caretaker, Chad Johnson.

Photo taken from layout.

Email Mary Wade Burnside at mwburnside@timeswv.com

"Unremarkable Examination"

     No matter how long you've been part of the cancer-world, "scanxiety" always seems to find it's way to you, with or without invitation. THANKFULLY, after weeks & days of ridiculous pre-CT-scanxiety, my latest scan came back with some pretty fantastic results that I wanted to share with you! 

 "Unremarkable examination" - are those not the MOST BEAUTIFUL words you have ever seen?! I may be a tad biased, but they're pretty stunning to me! I definitely feel like I just hit LIFE's "Powerball JACKPOT" & I am SO, SO thankful for this victory!

Cancer's many "FACES"

     "Cancer-ville" can be a very lonely place to live, even if you're fortunate enough, like myself, to be surrounded by family & TRUE friends who are there to cheer you on with each step. Soon enough, however, people who you thought would be by your side until you're old & gray start to slowly pull away; and soon after that, the blame for their distance is put on you in some manner, perhaps with a tad merit of truth.  The reality is, cancer changes you - in any & every way it can, it changes you. It plucks a little of you here & a little more of you there & soon enough, you're a very different person than you were before you heard those 3 bone-chilling, life-altering, every-other-possible-hyphenated-word-combination-that-forever-haunts-your-soul-phrase: "you have cancer".
      Chad & I have always had a very open-communication based relationship {well, after I got over that whole "run in the other direction" tactic ;)} so when cancer came into our lives, we talked about every decision & step we would ultimately take & we knew we would take them together. The same was with my family; we've always been extremely close, but even more-so after losing my brothers, so they were always part of "Team Lisa" discussions. I was (& still am) also very fortunate to have a handful of extremely amazing friends who, no matter what was happening in their own lives, were constantly checking on me & doing whatever they could to remind me that I was always on their minds & in their hearts.
     I KNEW I had a solid support-system; I could FEEL that support surrounding me from all angles, but still, it felt like something was missing. As much as my family & friends loved me & as much as I loved them, there was still a void in my life. As much as they wanted to & as much as they attempted to, they couldn't possibly understand what I was or wasn't feeling or what I was or wasn't thinking because, unfortunately (for me) & fortunately (for them) they, themselves, were never part of the community in my current residence: "Cancer-ville", USA. Little did I know that this awful, disgusting, selfish disease was about to bring about another change in my life, but this time...it was a sweet, unexpected surprise.
     On a normal, random post-chemo day, I was laying in bed, gallivanting my way around a social-media site & for an unknown reason, still to this day as I type out these words, I decided to type "rectal cancer" into the search bar, not necessarily having much hope that anything of substance would appear. Thankfully, how wrong I was! The first group I saw was "FACES" - with a simple click of the mouse, my world was transformed & fate was directing me exactly where I needed to be at exactly the right time.
FACES, which stands for Families Affected by Cancer Embark on Survival, is an online support-group which was created by two very brave women, Lisa Pissanos Moore & Joan Zebraski Buck, whose husbands are both Rectal Cancer Warriors. I spent hours reading stories, stopping every-so-often to read one out-loud to Chad. "Can you believe that?! She was 29 when she was diagnosed!" "Oh my gosh - 28 & absolutely NO symptoms; this is incredible!" I added. It was as if I had unlocked some secret-society code. For the first time since being diagnosed, I could feel the void slow dissipate from my mind more & more with each story I read. Within days I was welcomed into the FACES family with open-arms. I was meeting people who were just like me - other "20s" (dx between 20-29) whose lives were twisted by Hurricane Cancer & then left alone to pick up the mangled pieces of who they were before cancer and, now, who they were after cancer.
      It was an instantaneous bond that I can't really explain - here I was, finally in a place where others "got" me. When I said I didn't have the energy to get out of bed or that the idea of being able to, one day, feel my fingertips & toes again seemed impossible, they "got" me. It was the little things, that in actuality were really BIG things, when being surrounded by other warriors made me feel "normal" again & that was a really, really good feeling - a feeling I had been missing for quite some time.

The FACES of Rectal Cancer

**Lisa & Joan - I could never THANK YOU enough for all you have done for our FACES family. Your dream gave me a place to find comfort, support, and, ultimately, a place to find myself again. I am forever "IN IT TO WIN IT"!***

Days Away

     On April 23, 2010 I walked into a local surgeon’s office expecting to walk out finally free of the months of irritation connected to internal hemorrhoids & all the pain that came along with them. Needless to say, that theory would quickly dissipate & my introduction into the cancer world was only days away.
    It took around 20 seconds for my surgeon, the extremely amazing Dr. B, to stop talking mid-sentence during my digital rectum exam. It was at that very second that my throat dropped to my stomach. I sat back up & we all (all being myself, my mom, Dr. B, & Nurse Kathy) shared a few silent seconds looking down at the floor. He put his hands in his pockets & cleared his throat before he raised his head & made eye-contact with me. “I, um…its, well, its not internal hemorrhoids” he said ever-so-gently, almost in a way you tell a child about Santa Clause. My eyes began to water. I tried to speak but no words were able to find their way to my mouth. “There’s a pretty substantial mass lining the right side of your rectum...a very substantial mass actually" he added before taking a deep breath.
    Trying my best to digest what was just said, I put my hands down on the table to steady myself. “What do we do now?” I asked although I clearly wasn’t ready to hear his response. “We need to schedule a colonoscopy & a biopsy to find out exactly what we are dealing with & we really need to do this first thing Monday morning; then we’ll talk about where we go from there.” “Go from there” I thought…I’m not even sure where I am right now. Five minutes earlier I thought my biggest problem was IH & now I was in need of a biopsy of a “substantial mass”. I remember looking over at my mom & seeing the tears in her eyes that she was trying so hard to fight back. Moments later, a nurse brought Chad back to my exam room; he immediately came over & wrapped his arms around me. He knew. I sat silently trying to make sense of the insensible, while at the same time, not wanting to imagine what potentially laid ahead.
    Three days later on April 26, 2010, I had my first colonoscopy & a biopsy of the mass (which would later be renamed a tumor)  taken to test for malignancy. When I opened my eyes in recovery, I saw tears falling down my parents’ faces. Chad kissed my forehead & told me how much he loved me. “This isn’t good, is it?” I asked. I didn’t need them to answer, I already knew. All of a sudden the months of symptoms, of DIYs, & of Dr. WWW flooded back & washed over me. “This is all my fault” I managed to whisper between my tears.
    It took 2 more days to get the “official” word: on April 28, 2010 I was diagnosed with Stage III Rectal Cancer with a 7cm tumor that was blocking 90% of my rectum. There was no more wondering or guessing or playing Dr. online-I had cancer & unbeknownst to all of us, I had it for quite some time.
   

"If you don't mind me asking...."

     Hi, do I know you?! It's been awhile, right? I can't believe it's been almost 2 years since I've been around these parts of town, but it has & writing on this blog has been on my mind for quite some time. At first, it was completely unintentional - I was healing from an extremely invasive 8 & 1/2 hour surgery (a surgery that would forever change my life in more ways than ever expected , fathomed, or wished upon my worst enemy) which then lead to an intentional avoidance - but we will get to all that in due time.
      March is "officially" Colorectal Awareness Month, so I thought what better time to drop off my emotional baggage & start getting back to living (& sharing) my 3rd chance at life in this crazy world. You see, there are 2 things I am extremely passionate about (not counting my enthusiastic love for all things Dawson's Creek) and that is writing & doing, to the best of my ability, everything & anything that I can do to make others aware of Rectal Cancer, especially early detection & prevention for those of ANY AGE. 
     By faaaaaaaar the most asked question I have been asked over the past 3 years has been "if you don't mind me asking, how did you find out?" So to answer that question, this DeLorean is heading back to late-2009. Let's Go Doc. ;)
      There isn't an exact moment that I can pinpoint when I started experiencing cancer "symptoms", most likely because I didn't necessarily know that they were actual symptoms. It started as nothing out of the ordinary; like every other person, I would have occasion constipation, but more often than not, my constipation would last more than just a few days and would, eventually, no longer be occasional. My first "DIY" was an over-the-counter fiber-supplement to hopefully give my body what I thought it was obviously lacking. It didn't exactly give me the "outcome" I had expected - instead of ridding me of my constipation, I started experiencing another aggravating issue: bloating in my abdomen. At first, it seemed innocent enough; as women we like to use the word "bloating" when we're not feeling in our peak physical shape, but this was legit bloating.

At the time, I weighed around 105lbs so it was very-much noticeable, so much in fact that I started to wonder if there was a chance I could be pregnant. That scenario was very quickly ruled out so after some time, I decided to move on to my next DIY solution: a little cocktail called "Magnesium Citrate". In actuality, MC is a saline-based, liquid laxative used to treat occasional constipation...bingo! I read the back of the bottle & it suggested drinking half the bottle, followed by 8 ounces of water. "Amateurs" I thought as I drank the entire bottle (it was lemon-flavored, which for me was a bonus - for others?...probably not-so-much). MC soon became my go-to-guy; I was still coaching a local high school dance team which was good pay but offered no insurance benefits, so an actual doctor visit was financially out of the question. Doctor WWW soon became my primary care physician.
     After a while, the magic of magnesium citrate lost it's luster & I was back where I began, except now I was starting to feel a dull ache in my tailbone. At first, the pain would come & go but I was quick to brush it off as simply overstretching & overworking myself at practice with my girls. At some point around the same time period I started experimenting with Miralax and soon MC was out and MX was in. It seemed to do the trick, so it became part of my nightly routine.
     In December 2009, it was time for my annual "female check-up", without insurance the only plausible option was a free health clinic. I had mentioned to the DR at the clinic about the problems I had been having and that my most recent symptom was a little blood in my stool. She said that what I was experiencing wasn't a big issue at 25yrsold & told me to just continue with the Miralax "if I wanted". Awesome advice.
     Over the next couple months my symptoms began to progress as did the amount of blood; it went from a little here & there to more & more in abundance & occurrence.  According to Dr. WWW, all of my symptoms were common in conjunction with internal hemorrhoids. It made sense, IH are actually very common in dancers. I was satisfied and actually pretty proud of my self-diagnosis, however reality was about to smack me upside the head & literally become a pain in my butt.
     Around March 2010, I began having the worst pain I had ever experienced in my life in my inner -right "buttock" (who we'll call "Righty" for referral purposes) - a sharp, stabbing pain so severe I could barely sit, stand, or sleep without cringing from excruciating pain. I will NEVER forget the next thing I am going to describe: on one particular evening I was having so much pain that I spent most of the night laying on my side on the bathroom floor. All of a sudden I felt like I was being stabbed with a butcher knife in my tailbone; the sensation instantly traveled down to Righty & began to burn like acid was inside my body. I struggled to pull myself up off the floor while tears streamed down my tired face. I remember tasting the fibers from a towel that I had rolled up to bite down on so I wouldn't scream out in pain. The next thing I remember is looking down at the toilet & seeing a full crimson pool of blood....I remember closing my eyes & opening them again because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. For the first time I was no longer frustrated, I was scared to death...I was CERTAIN this HAD to be the WORST case of internal hemorrhoids ever experienced by a human being! 
     The very-near future would show me just how wrong I was, how wrong a licensed doctor was, and how different my life was about to be forever changed.

Well, hello there!

In honor of the month of March being "Colorectal Awareness Month" I decided to give the ol' page a little face lift & will be updating very soon. I promise, its all worth the wait so please...stay tuned. ;-)