NorthWest Carrollton

In May of 2005 while searching for Health Insurance I discovered I had Breast Cancer. I joined the ranks 1 in 7. That is the number, one in seven women will get breast cancer. Now I was 1.

Surgery at University and Doctors appointments at Charity, if you can find it and you can afford it get some health insurance, it was too late for me my search was over, now I was a patient.

On August 27 I could hardly get out of bed, 2 surgical procedures and a bad ass dose of Chemo left me weak and sick. On Sunday we evacuated in the car, I was on the floor on the sofa cushions in my pj’s. The dogs, the kid, the husband..

All I could think of was the fact that I was scheduled for Chemo in 10 days, that one of the most important parts of treatment is consistancy, stick to the schedule,stay on track. By Tuesday my mission was to find a Hospital and a Doctor that would give me chemo, a dosage that was now under water in the bowels of Charity. One of the last phone calls I recieved before we left was from my Mother, she encouraged me to check into the Hospital afraid that the 12 hours in the car would be too much for me.

I was in Houston, and then Austin and finally in a Doctors office, ready for my next dose. I got there by being loud, by yelling and fighting, I got there cause I demanded to get there.

Now we are back in half our house, and all the fight that served to save me feeds me to fight this fight.

So tommorow is my last day of chemo. I had a new treatment which began AFTER I ended my first rounds of chemo. This course lasted a year, once a week. Every week, I never thought I could do it and I did.

Last week one of the women who sat with me was buried. June lost her house in Gentilly, first to the flood and then to a fire. She lost her life to Breast Cancer, and she always made me laugh.

I miss you June.

Donate

Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto,
Me ha dado la risa, me ha dado el llanto,
Así yo distingo dicha de quebranto,
Los dos materiales que forman mi canto,
Y el canto de ustedes que es mi propio canto.

Thanks to life which has given me so much,
It’s given me laughter, it’s given me tears,
Thereby I distinguish good fortune from ruin,
The two materials that make up my song,
And the song of all of you that is my own song.
Violetta Parra
“Gracias a la Vida”

UPDATE

Thanks to everyone who was so kind and generous, Greg Peters, Gambit cartoonist and all around talent is off to Cleveland Clinic, please support this effort to make sure his stay there is not offline

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 14th, 2006 at 10:55 pm by Karen and is filed under Bloggin', NWC People. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.