Charles Drews

I'm guessing that nobody who has been diagnosed has thought when they went in to the doctors appointment, or in my case the ER, that they were going to come away with a diagnosis of cancer.  I know that when the burning pain under my sternum caused us to head for acute care on the 10th I certainly wasn't thinking cancer, and neither was Ranae, we thought acid reflux or maybe an ulcer.   The acute care doc did check for signs that my gall bladder might be giving me trouble and was able to rule it out and even though she put in a referral for a GI consult, still went with acid reflux and gave me a prescription for it which seemed to help... until Tuesday morning.
That's when I woke up, well was woken up, with the worst stomach cramps I've ever had and then the spams kicked in.  They were so bad that they would pull me into the fetal position and then push me back again, so at least I know there's some core muscles somewhere under the belly fat.  When the spasms became violent enough to shake the bed we decided it was time to head to the ER.  The ER doc pretty much immediately ordered a CAT scan, nope no cats were found, but it was that scan that found the tumor.  When she came back into the room and sat down I knew right away it wasn't good because the docs never sit down if it's something simple, but I still wasn't expecting cancer.  She also said that it'd be best if I were admitted for additional testing so I spent Tuesday night in the hospital and had a biopsy done to confirm even though they were already sure of the diagnosis.  
Anyway that's the short version of how this all got started, I know my writing isn't the best and that being tired is not really an excuse but it's the one I'm going with.  :-).  Chemo starts tomorrow morning, yay, I'm not sure yet how I feel about it but I do know I'm not really looking forward to it, but that's mostly because it's something new and I don't fully understand what I'm getting into.  And some apprehension is normal when you're facing a new experience, but I know we've got this and Gods got us so all's well.


Love ya all,
Me