Welcome to my story: the good, the bad, & the in-between. From love & laughs to cancer & back. This is my life & I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
Today please join me in honoring & celebrating all those whose lives are affected by cancer in one way or another. We are fighting everyday for a cure & will NOT stop until we find one.
The sensitive, beautiful stillness of this Super Bowl Chevy commercial left me speechless...what an on-point way to raise WCD awareness.
Ane Brun is the voice behind the too-close-to-home lyrics & she is absolute perfection.
My-oh-my, what a CRAZY 2014 it has already been for the Johnson family. We're not even a month in & I have oh-so-much to tell you! Before I start talking all-sorts of "me, me, me" I wanted to say I hope all of you had a super-rad holiday season & were able to celebrate the new year in whichever way happens to float your boat. I hope there were hugs & laughs & smiles & an overabundance of love surrounding you wherever you may have been. C'mon, bring it it...BLOG HUG!!!
As for me, I'm not going to lie, I'm a pretty low-key, (aka lame) 29-year-old who "rang-in" NYE at home, lounging around in leggings, cozy aloe-socks, & my favorite Beatles sweatshirt while sipping on some sweet-tea. However, in my defense (for this particular situation at least), the last few days of 2013 were full of hospitals, scans, surgeries, anxiety, stress, cuticle picking, & lots of waiting - which, come to find out, is not one of my best abilities.
By some strange twist of fate my mom's colon/tumor resection surgery (for her Stage 1 Colon Cancer diagnosis from a few weeks prior) & my 3-month rectal cancer PET/CT scan (to follow up September's liver lesion concerns) ended up being on the same day but at times & at different hospitals which, luckily, are maybe a 5-ish minute drive apart (depending on traffic -it's a college town, to which I say: Go Mountaineers!), so Chad & I were able to immediatelygo over after finished with my appointment.
The PET scan process is strangely comfortable for me; maybe it's the familiarity of knowing what to expect. As I've said before, cancer is one big, unpredictable pain-in-the-ass (literally for us colorectal folks); so when it comes to something I've experienced countless times before, it's a welcomed occasion. I know what is going to happen first, then second, then third, & so on; it allows me to let my guard down for the hour & 1/2 that I am one with the radioactive dye. Needless to say, my insomnia was in full-gear pre-scan night so sleep was definitely not on my radar - this, my friends, is where the 45 minute "you must lay & remain extremely still" (they always put an emphasis on the extremely, btw)PET scan rules work to my benefit. The vibrations of the massive machine put my anxiously-exhausted muscles at ease & sadly enough, the propelling sound of the scanner orbiting my body, which in reality is looking for any presence of a possible recurrent disease, lulls me to sleep like a newborn baby. After having myself quite a refreshing power-nap, we made our way over to my mom's hospital, grabbed some much-needed coffee, & took a seat in the all-too-familiar "living room" with my dad to pass time until Dr. B came out to update us. This is where the waiting begins...& seemingly NEVER ends. How do you guys do it?! It's the most frustrating, nerve-wrecking, what-the-hell-is-going-on experience. I can say, with 100% certainty, that I do not have the patience to not be the patient; I'm absolutely not emotionally-capable of it. PERIOD. So what's an impatient, nervous, worried-about-her-mama girl to do? You got it, I made like Dora & got my EXPLORER on! :)
Hospital Exploration - Roof access!
Eventually Dr. B did come out & tell us my mom's surgery was a success. I immediately felt the weight of the world lift off my body. I didn't care about the outcome of my scan but I needed my mom to be ok, all of us needed her to be ok, & most of all - SHE deserved to be ok. He told us he removed her small tumor (which was about the size of a pea), her ovaries, a few lymph nodes (which, come to find out, a "few" meant 16 which ALL came back cancer-free after biopsy!) & her appendix to be safe & in his words: "because it was in the way". "You had no clue you hit the jackpot when I walked into your office 3 years ago, did you? I feel like I should be getting commission" I said through a smile. He laughed as he took of his scrub hat & joked back, "you guys can never just give me something simple, can you?!" In all seriousness, Dr. B is an amazing doctor. He's one of the factors that truly makes me believe in fate because I whole-heartedly believe he was the one meant to save my life & he did & now he had also just saved my mother's life as well. Not that I ever feared for her life, at least not from this disease - it just physically made me ache to now this amazing, selfless woman was going to have to endure things that no human should ever have to. However, being the strongest person I know - emotionally, mentally, everything-ally - my mom's surgery, recovery, & even the pain was far less than what we had expected it. I always knew she was a warrior. My mom & I have always been close; we've had a "secret handshake" since I was little & we have always had this unspoken connection & now, we are forever connected by Blue.
There were 3 days between the time when my mom came home from the hospital & my results day. Those days were filled with lots of Netflix, FRIENDS, insomnia, YouTube & phenergan for stress-induced nausea. Finally my day came & to be honest I was probably as prepared to be re-diagnosed as a person could be. Tragically, that is how my brain has trained itself over the past 10 years: plan for the worst but still expect for a not-so-great outcome regardless. Aside from my survival, good things have rarely happened to my family the past decade. However, knock on the metaphorical wood, it looks like things might be a'changing. My PET/CT scan came back COMPLETELY clear! The lesion that was on my liver 3 months ago is gone & "no abnormal hypermetabolic activity to suggest recurrence of tumor" was detected. Craziness! My CEA level (tumor marker) has been steady at 0.5 for a little over a year which is so, so sweet to hear. So, now what? I'm cancer-center free for 6 months until it's time for my next scan, if that 1 is clear, most likely my scans will move to the 1 year mark. Hells to the yes!
There has been a lot of smiles & laughter & hugs & love for the Johnson family thus far in 2014, & yes - I know there is still lots more of the year to come but you know what...for now, we'll expect the best & prepare for the better.
love & lyrics,
-LISA-
PS - 19 months REMISSION!
Oh! Since it's a new year, I wanted to add a new section to GDHC - letting you guys know what I'm listening to, products that I love or shove, books, movies - really anything that I am into at the moment & want to share with you. I hope to be posting much more frequently than I have been, so if you have post ideas or questions - just lemme know. <3
What am I'm absolutely loving right now?
"American Dreamer" by my girl , Alexz Johnson.
{from her new EP: Heart}
"...and always believe with a dream up your sleeve..."
Oops! I forget to post my #tbt (throwbackthursday).
Better later than never.
#tbt to the person I was & looking at the person I am, & the person I will continue to become. I used to dream of changing the world through do & now my dream is to chance a world full of cancer. Millions of dreamers just like me are out there fighting the beast everyday. We need a cure & we need it now.
I absolutely promise a new post is on it's away. I've been working on it for quite some time &, in my opinion, it is my most personal entry ever. A lot has happened in the Johnson household & we're only 16 days into 2014!
See you soon!
- LISA -
...til then...
#tbt
Visiting Dawson Leery's house from "Dawson's Creek in "Capeside, MA" which is really in Wilmington, NC. If you don't know, DC, along with FRIENDS, is my ALL-TIME favorite show. During our visit we were able to meet the owners, chat on the porch for about 45 minutes (learning so much super-rad DC info), & then took our time absorbing the most stunning surroundings. It was a dream come true.
This was 13 months before my diagnosis & I can't even begin to explain how the fictitious lives of Dawson, Joey, Pacey, Jack, & Jen allowed me to escape my own reality during my battle.
Happy Holidays to all of you who visit GDHC & have become part of my heart over the past year. You give me such strength, encouragement, & always welcome me with open-arms.
May your day be filled with love, laughs, & memories.
I've been trying to write this post for weeks but no matter how long my fingers sat on the keyboard, ultimately, I lost my nerve & intentionally navigated my attention to something else. So, I thought taking some time & a few steps back was a good place to catch a breath of fresh air & then do my damnedest to update you on the craziness that will conclude 2013.
If you read my last post, Pieces of Me (Part II), you know it's been a pretty crazy, you've-got-to-be-kidding-me, what-possibly-could-be-next, almost 10ish years for my family. We've literally lost the other-half of us but have somehow remained tightly bound together - don't get me wrong, we're all completely insane, but I think it's safe to say we're an exceptionally strong, united, & close family. So when I got sick it wasn't just me who had to deal with the day-to-day cancer chaos, it was also my husband, my parents, my sister, & even my nephew & niece (who were 7 & 4 at the time &, sadly, know waaay-too-much about cancer) whose lives were also turned upside-down. I had the best of the best of support systems & I wanted to do everything I could to protect any of them from potentially experiencing anything that I was living through so I had genetic-testing for "hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer", also known as "Lynch's Syndrome" shortly after my diagnosis. LS testing is usually done when someone is diagnosed at a young age (26-check!), has not experienced consistent or problematic polyps (never-check!), & the initial cancer is more likely to develop on the right side (my 7 cm tumor was on the right wall - check! 3 for 3!) HOWEVER my results surprisingly came back negative. At the time it was a huge sigh of relief & I remember being so excited knowing that, most likely, no one in my family would have to worry about colorectal cancer, however...I hate having to type this - I was wrong.
After my last CT scan came back with a few "hmmm's" on my liver, I decided to call my surgeon Dr. B & ask for his interpretation of the results, & realized it was time for my mom's "just-to-be-safe"colonoscopy. She's had no symptoms of any kind to make any of us,nor herself worry so her upcoming scope wasn't something I was really harping on...& boom: of course that's when something happens. During her scope, Dr. B found something "he didn't like" in her sigmoid colon; he took a biospy & we, once-again, found ourselves playing the waiting game for those 3 days to go by for the results. The results had positive malignancy for Colon Cancer.
I was so angry - not at her or course, or Dr. B, but at life as a whole. Like really? My mom is an amazing human being who's endured things in her lifetime that no one should even have to fathom. No child should have to lose a parent, who was also their best friend, when they are little - my mom did. No child should have to watch their mother's memory, personality, soul, & eventually body slowly seep away day-by-day from Alzheimer's Disease - my mom did. No parent should ever, ever, ever have to bury a child - my mom has had to bury 2. No parent should have to hear that their child has cancer - my mom did. No person should have to hear they have cancer - my mom did.
I suppose the "upside" to all that is my mom is truly the strongest, bravest, most beautiful soul I know. She always tell me what a fighter I am & like so many other things, I obviously inherited a lot of it from her. I remember that through-out my entire battle, she kept telling me "if she could take my cancer from me & put it in her, she would do it in a second", now I'm finding myself bargaining with "God" to do the opposite - I would gladly take these liver lesions & another recurrence for my mom to be cancer-free.
The "good news", if you will, is that we caught this very early on; her CEA (or tumor marker in her blood) is only around 1.5ish & Dr. B thinks a colon resection should be all that's needed. So that's the game-plan as of now & is set for around the end of the month, ironically on the same day as my follow-up abdomen, pelvic, & head (mostly for the liver "hmmm's") PET scan. So if you pray or would be up for sending love & positivity our way that would be very-much appreciated; perhaps a shortly-delayed Christmas miracle?! :)
Regardless of either of our outcomes, I promise to keep you on the up-&-up.
Thank you for everything & remember colonoscopies really do save lives - my mom & I are both proof of that.
While still focusing on cancer & the countless ways it impacts my daily life, I want to start adding other material to "gdhc", like occasional videos, more pictures, memories, product "rants & raves", DIY's, & much more! I'm really excited to dive-in & share even more aspects of my life with all of you who have welcomed me & my story in your life. I'm so humbled by your support & encouragement.
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