I think my energy level is slowly rising again. I just can't get over how much sleep I require the first week of chemo. I had my post-op follow up appointment today at MD Anderson to have my stitches removed. I waited almost an hour and I was in and out of there in under 3 minutes. I finally got my new tollway tag and I was able to use the Westpark Tollway, it was great I got there in 30 minutes and my trip home took about 20 minutes. I can't believe it took me so long to get my new tag for my car. I am sure it cost me 10 bucks round trip, but my sanity is worth at least 10 bucks! I feel old today, I am definitely going to start lying about my age now, I know my parents already lie about how old I am! :)

Today was better, just extremely exhausted. I go back to the island tomorrow to have my stitches removed from my surgery last Tuesday.

Thanks for all the happy birthday wishes. I cannot believe I am officially "in my 30's"!!

Last night was awful and today was crappy. I hope turning 31 tomorrow has nothing to do with it!

I hit the wall today. I woke up feeling energized and ready to go and within 2 hours of taking my morning chemo pills, I was out. I couldn't hold my head up, I had to go to bed and Joel let me sleep for 3 hours, which I could hardly believe I slept that long when he woke me up. I am still tired, I am going to try my best to stay awake a couple more hours until I have to take my evening pills. It is so crazy how fast these pills can knock you down, I was so full of energy yesterday and I had big plans for the weekend. Oh well, all I missed was 3 hours of rain today, no biggie! Hopefully tomorrow will prove to be a little more productive for me.

Friday, was a good day too. I slept in b/c I was pretty wiped out just by having a 12 hour excursion on Thursday. I was able to get some errands run and tidy up the house a bit. They pump you full of steroids before the IV drip and it stays in your system for a couple of days which helps you keep a somewhat normal energy level for a little while.

And the winner is....Kelly!! I have finally beat down the chemo monster in Round 3! I am almost scared to actually put it in writing b/c I don't want to pay for it later, but I rocked at chemo today! All of my bloodwork was "great", per the doc. No issues, no nausea, no vomiting, nothing. Having it go so smoothly negates the issues we had today just to get in there. We were supposed to start at 11 and we didn't get called back into my room until 2. So, we just got home about 30 minutes ago. I have all that tingly, numb, cold intolerance going pretty strong, but that is such a manageable side effect, it hardly warrants mentioning. Thanks for all the kind words of support, they all worked and I actually walked out of chemo today for the first time. Hopefully day one of this round is a good indicator of smooth sailing through the rest of the course and a preview of good things to come from the looming CAT scan that I should have done in about 3 weeks. Today was an early birthday gift, I am so happy it went well! 12 hours total at the island today, 6 of which I spent chained to an IV pole, I am ready for bed!

Didn't sleep very well last night. I took a painkiller in hopes of it alleviating my pain and helping me sleep and it did not do either, so I was up and wide awake until 3 this morning. I just rested today and tried to sort out some of my medical bills, fun stuff!

Tomorrow is Day one of Round 3 chemo and an all day affair on the island. At 8, we have to go get my port accessed at the infusion clinic so it is ready for chemo, then we have a 9:00 blood draw, a 10:00 Dr. Appointment and 11:00 chemo. I am glad they moved my chemo up from 1:00, hopefully we can get out of there at a decent time tomorrow with no drama! I am going to have to quit this whole cancer thing if I have a repeat of chemo #2! After this round is over we get to have the CAT redone to chart my response to the chemo, so everybody pray extra hard these next 3 weeks, we need all the positive energy we can harness.

Yesterday the anesthesiologist asked me how I was doing after the surgery and I told him besides having cancer I was doing great! He made me keep repeating with him "I am young and healthy", it was pretty funny. But he is right, after you start chemo you feel so old and run down, I tend to forget that I am young and strong and I am going to kick some cancer butt with this soon to be 31 year old body! Did I mention my birthday is Monday? After you hit 30, birthdays just aren't as much fun, we are going to celebrate late this year b/c I am pretty worthless the first week of the chemo.

Everything went fine today. The surgeon shortened my line by 4 cm, there was 4 cm worth of plastic tubing sitting in the right atrium of my heart, not the best place to have a foreign object! One more thing to add to bubble girl's list of afflictions, put a big fat black line through cardiac arrhythmia! After spending 15 minutes with 2 anesthesiologists, explaining in great detail my recent bad experiences with sedatives, general anesthesia and my allergies to anti-nausea drugs, they finally got it right! We arrived at 8, we were called back for the pre-op around 8:30, my procedure was supposed to be at 10. I didn't get wheeled back to the O.R. until 11:15ish, I was sent to recovery at noon where I came to and was feeling good by 12:30. Unlike last time when I arrived at 4am and couldn't leave until 1:30 in the afternoon b/c I had such a bad time coming to from the drugs. We didn't get sprung until 2:30 b/c the doc went into a meeting and forgot to formally discharge me, my luck again! At least this time I was content with sitting and waiting b/c I actually felt good. I am so glad the drug pushers got it right this time.

I went to run the dogs with Joel today, they were so hyper. He brought me a lawn chair and I just sat in the sun, got some fresh air and watched the dogs play. Very therapeutic! I am pretty wiped now. Did I mention I was ordered to sleep in a chair last night to avoid ending up in the ER again? I tried to fashion an upright armchair thingy in the bed last night, it was not very comfortable to sleep sitting up against the wall, so I am anxious to get a good night's sleep tonight. I am not allowed to drive or shower for 2 days, I am not sure which is worse in my case! :) I will be homebound for a few days also b/c of my immune system lowered a bit due to the surgery.

Thanks for everyone's show of support today, I am proud to report that for once, everything went pretty much as scheduled! Yeah me! :)

Can't anything go smoothly for me? My Dad and I have chalked it up to plain old Plummer Luck! I had the worst night last night, my heart was racing and my chest was hurting so bad. It hurt to take a breath, I was convinced that my heart racing was b/c I had worked myself into some sort of anxiety attack. So after 5 hours of tossing and turning and non-effective painkillers, and convincing Joel I was NOT going to the emergency room, I took an Ambien and finally fell asleep at 3 this morning. I was hurting so bad and it felt like I was having a heart attack, well who knows exactly what they feel like until they have had one! Anyway, I was totally freaked out by it and poor Joel didn't get any sleep.

You know when your car is acting up and when you finally take it to the mechanic, it stops making the noise or whatever it was doing wrong? Well, miraculously, this morning I woke up with zero symptoms. It was ridiculous, I didn't have any neck stiffness, tightness in my chest or anything. Perfect timing to go see the doc with no symptoms! So I called 2 Doctors, my Physician's Assistant and a nurse first thing this morning to try and see if they could figure out what my hibernating symptoms could be indicative of. I only had one return phone call, out of 4, from the doctor that placed the catheter and he told me to come in around 2 to get checked out. He sent me to get a chest x-ray and told me he would call me later with the results. Around 5ish he called and asked me if my heart had been racing and I said yes, every time I went to bed or laid down, but I just thought it was me being psychotic. He told me the catheter line in my aorta was a little too long and it was actually sitting in my right atrium which was causing cardiac arrhythmia. Nothing major, huh? Well, my instincts proved to be true once again and everyone can rule out the psychosis, I truly was having heart problems! Of course the doctor told me I should have gone to the ER, Joel was right, I have to admit it.(Just this one time.)

Luckily, my surgeon has a cancellation tomorrow and he is going to shorten the line basically by re-opening my almost healed incision, unplugging the line from the port and pulling it out of my heart. Sounds exactly how I planned to spend my week off chemo, under the knife again just in time to heal for my wonderful 3rd round of chemo starting Thursday. I am convinced that this 3rd week off thing is just enough time off from chemo to fix all the strange things that go haywire in your body due to the 2 weeks prior of chemo. Wish me luck!

I think something is wrong with the port-a-cath I had put in on the 2nd. It has been bothering me at night when I try to go to sleep for the last 3 nights and this weekend it started hurting all day. I can't turn my head to the left and I am having pain in my chest and up the left side of my neck. It's very strange, not severe enough to take a painkiller, but it has really been messing with my sleep which just has a domino effect on a bunch of other stuff since I am not getting enough rest. There is only one doc in all of MD Anderson that places these ports, I am hoping he has office hours tomorrow. If not, I hope to see someone in his clinic or visit my main oncologist. I have to have it checked out b/c I don't want it to interfere with my scheduled 3rd round of chemo this Thursday. I will post what I find out tomorrow, I hope it's nothing major. Maybe I just strained something, but something is definitely not right and I have to get it checked out.

My hopes of a better day were dashed Thursday, I still had a low fever and the doc said I was probably trying to fight something off and it was best for me to lay low until my fever disappeared. He told me to try and stay home bound if I could b/c my immune system was compromised even more with my fever. I felt okay most of the day and I tried to rest and then around 6ish I suddenly became very sick at my stomach so I took a little nap and woke up about an hour later and started to get sick again. So, last night was not so fun, I finally fell asleep for good around midnight and I slept until noon. I don't know how long I would have slept if the phone didn't wake me up. I guess something was trying to get me down b/c I obviously needed some sleep. Once I got moving so late in the day, I felt much better. Thursday morning was my last chemo dose until Thursday, the 26th. It's amazing how much I feel better just one day after stopping the chemo. I hope to get some stuff done around the house this weekend if my energy holds up.

The dogs are going bezerk, we were going to the park 2-3 times a week before my cancer diagnosis. We were wiped the month following and we didn't take them at all, then they had kennel cough for 2 weeks and right when Abby got over her cough, Pearl went into heat! We made an appointment for her to be fixed a month ago and they couldn't get us in until this Thursday, and she went into heat a week and a half ago. So now we can't take them to the park b/c Pearl is in heat. We bought some pull-up diapers and cut a hole for her tail, she is not real happy with us right now to say the least! I will be so glad when this heat stuff is over.

I made it two consecutive days at work. The first day I worked 8-12 and felt okay, Tuesday I woke up feeling crummy so I went to work from 12-4 and I had a lot more energy Tuesday. Of course it all caught up to me last night, I went to bed early and planned to go from 12-4 again. I had a rough night and this morning I woke up around 9ish and started to get ready and I started throwing up. So I tried to take a little power nap, but that didn't work. I ended up having to take a Phenergan(sleepy pill) and I was out of commission for the rest of the day. I called my Dr. to ask for an anti-nausea pill that didn't wipe me out and he is supposed to call something in for me. I also developed a low grade fever and a good size headache on top of all the nausea. So, I will be chalking today up as an all around bad day. I still feel nauseated, and the prescription isn't ready at the pharmacy so I am about to take another Phenergan and call it a night. I hope to wake up tomorrow to a better day!

First day back at work went well. I didn't get enough sleep last night so I was a little tired. I am only going to go for 1/2 days for a while until I can build up to full days. I came straight home today and passed out cold for 4 hours, Joel woke me up when he got home from work. Pretty ridiculous that I was only at work for 4 hours then had to sleep for 4 hours afterward. Oh well, I am off to bed early tonight so I can have a better day today. I had to stay up and watch The Bachelor!

Today Joel and I went grocery shopping for the first time since Thanksgiving! It was a scary sight and it took us a couple of hours to get done plus another hour to put it all up. I am wiped, that is the longest I have spent on my feet in a really long time. It was so nice to finally get it done, we have been living off of soup and sandwiches for quite a while. I bought a Betty Crocker cookbook for Cancer patients so I found a bunch of recipes that actually sounded good to me, a lot of fruit and vegetables. I highly recommend it for those out there on chemo, each recipe is coded to help with nausea, diarrhea, constipation or any combination of the three, all the fun stuff chemo patients struggle with.

Tomorrow, I am headed back to work for the first time in a while. I hope all goes well, I am excited to see my friends at work again. I am so fortunate to work where I do, it is like an extended family for me and everyone is so kind and compassionate. Their overwhelming support has been such a Godsend to us.

Joel and I had a lazy day today. We ran a couple of errands and picked out some paint colors for the dining room and bathroom. I am still feeling pretty good, so I am excited to have energy to get out of the house and get some stuff taken care of. We had a little date night, we went to dinner and rented a movie.

Today my friends Sarah and Brittney came over to shoot a video to try and win a kitchen makeover from Martha Stewart. My friend Sarah heard about it on her show and wrote a letter to nominate me but she did not turn in the required video. So she talked me into letting her do a 3 minute video in my kitchen asking for the makeover. My kitchen does look pretty bad, Joel and I took all the doors off the cabinets and sanded them. We were going to try and paint everything over the holidays, but as you know, we got a little sidetracked. I hope we win, the makeover is worth $35,000 and all new GE appliances. Worth a shot, you never know...

I felt pretty good today, just really tired. Same old story.

We did get a huge piece of good news today! I have been struggling to get all of my medical bills in order by matching up the statements from the insurance company to the corresponding bills from Mem. City Hospital, Radiology companies, Pathologists, MD Anderson, etc... While I was matching up my insurance backup to my $25,000 bill from my week in the hospital over Thanksgiving, I noticed that I hit my breakpoint for the year and my policy began to pay at 100% instead of 90%! It happened on November 22nd, so half of my hospital stay is paid in full and hopefully everything was approved that we had done through the end of the year, including the $35,000 from MDACC should be paid at 100%!!!! That is the best news we have had in a while! Of course, none of the statements my ins. company sent me were correct after the 22nd, how convenient for them to "accidentally" not bump me up to 100% and just see if I happened to catch it. So, I had a long chat with them on the phone and I literally sent back about 30 claims that they have to re-issue at 100% and then send corrected copies to all of the providers that are harrassing me for payment! This will help us tremendously, I had soooo many tests run at Mem. City and then a million more at MDACC. The timing could not have been more perfect. Somebody up there is pulling for us!

This reverts back to my New Year's preachy post about being your own advocate regarding your health, I am now adding health insurance to my rant! Nobody is going to come right out and tell you they owe you money, it is your responsibility to prevent them from taking advantage of you during difficult times where you may not be operating at 100%.

Today was okay, not as good as yesterday, but still good. I am trying to not take the Phenergan unless it is late in the day. I didn't take any at all yesterday and I think that is why I had so much energy and was able to eat. I had to take one about an hour ago b/c I started feeling really sick all of the sudden, it just takes the edge off and makes you so tired that you just go to bed and sleep through the sick feelings.

I know that alot of people are reading this blog and praying for us. I cannot tell you how much that means to us, we get cards and phone calls and emails all the time, even from strangers that read my blog. All of your support has made this so much more manageable for Joel and I and we appreciate every bit of it. Joel and I are banking on my CAT next month showing the tumors are shrinking so that I will be a surgical candidate. All of our focus is on hopefully meeting the criteria for a liver resection, which is key in kicking this cancer's butt!! So please keep us on the prayer lists, I know it is helping b/c my liver pain has almost completely disappeared since I started the chemo.

I had a normal person day today. I didn't post immediately b/c I didn't want to jinx it. It seems like if I have one good day, then I pay for it the next day. I ate 2 meals today which is huge, well one of them was a happy meal and I managed to eat the whole thing. I think that is the first time a McDonald's happy meal truly was a "happy meal"!

Congrats to my friends Doug & Jenn Doyle who had their first child Monday, baby boy, Dillon Clayton!

I am still extremely exhausted and very nauseaus. I managed to hold down 1/2 of a sandwich at lunch today with a little soup and another 1/2 of a sandwich for dinner. I have to take Phenergan every 6 hours to keep any food down, but the Phenergan makes me sleepy on top of the chemo already wiping me out. I wish I could find a better drug so I can be lucid at least part of the time. I have been dizzy on top of everything lately. If I could just tolerate caffeine, I could counteract the sleepiness. It seems like just a little ride in the car takes every bit of energy out of me. I am beginning to get stir crazy!

Well, I am back to my sleep-athon schedule. I am sleeping 12 hours every night and at least 3-4 during the day. I keep falling asleep while I am in the middle of something. This morning I was sorting through medical bills and I dozed off sitting at the computer. I don't know how I could have possibly fallen asleep after the shock of our first bill from MDACC, 35K for one month of treatment!! Of course all of it was insurance pending and the only thing settled was a charge for $20.50. Around 6 tonight I fell asleep sitting on the couch watching TV, I literally cannot control the exhaustion, it is ridiculous. Nobody told me that Narcolepsy was part of the whole cancer package too!

I caught up on some rest last night and I woke up feeling pretty good. My stomach is still a little angry from the chemo. drip, but not too bad. I hit a wall around 2 and I laid down to take a little nap and I slept for 2 hours, oops. I woke up feeling kind of nauseous, I took a Phenergan and it seems to be just enough to take the edge off. Just took my PM dose of chemo with some soup, I hope to wake up feeling good tomorrow. The Phenergan makes me sleepy so I am going to hit the hay pretty soon.

Thank you for all of the kind words and support regarding the latest chemo fiasco.

I woke up at 9 Am today and felt a lot better than I though I would. So I promptly called my doctor to find out the urgency of this stupid blood draw and my doctor made me go back up there today just for a 5 minute blood draw. I was not together enough today to drive myself, so my good friend Brittney drove me up there and back, Love ya BrittElaine! I kept getting flushed and after the blood draw we had to sit down and I had to drink a little O.J. b/c I was feeling "puny" as Britt put it. That seemed to do the trick, I showed Britt around my home away from home for a bit and then she took me back home. I am not so interested in eating again, but I have to pretty soon to take my chemo pills, yippee! The doctor gave me an anti-nausea drug that is specifically designed for chemo treatments, I took one before chemo at a very high dose (that did a whole lot of good!), then I take one today and one tomorrow at lower doses. Each pill costs 10 bucks, so they better do the job! My Dr.'s were very concerned by how sick I was during round one so they think that this pill (Emend), followed by Phenergan after the third day should help out and help me feel better during the Xeloda oral pill phase of my chemo. we'll see. Their remedy for yesterday didn't work worth a $%#&!! Can you tell I am still bitter about yesterday's excitement?

Sorry I did not post last night, but I had the most horrendous chemo experience! Joel & I were at MDACC from 9AM until 10PM. I got in my chemo room at 1:30ish, took an anti-nausea pill this time b/c of my previous allergy to Zofran and I took a little nap for about an hour. I woke up burning up, I literally felt like my insides were melting. It was crazy, I thought I was sweating but my skin was ice cold and I only had 97.9 temperature. Right after the extreme heat episode I started feeling nauseous and I told the nurse it was hitting pretty hard, she paged the doctor and I did good to hold it back for almost an hour. Then it was all down-hill, I threw up for 3 solid hours with no end in sight. I couldn't lay down or anything I just dangled off the edge of the hospital bed and coughed up my toenails! They gave me a bag of Phenergan in the I.V. and that just knocked me out so I was now sitting on the edge of the bed and falling asleep between getting sick. Joel had to sit next to me to hold me up so I wouldn't fall off the bed. I was so miserable, I begged the nurse to try something different. After an hour of vomiting and the Phenergan drip I couldn't even talk, I could barely hold myself up, it was like I was completely sedated but still alert enough to throw up. They paged my doctor for the 3rd time and around 7:00 they finally gave me a bag of Kitrel in my drip and within 5 minutes I was completely back to normal. I couldn't believe it took them 3 hours to finally get it right. I have never been so sick in my entire life and I hope to never see the likes of yesterday ever again! After they "cured" me I went to sleep, they didn't even finish the whole bag of the chemo on me b/c I was so violently ill. They finished up my after chemo drugs and I finally got disconnected from the I.V. around 9:30ish. Poor Joel was exhausted, I don't know how he sat there with me and never got sick himself, it was ugly! Forgot to mention, at my 10Am blood draw, they mistakenly only took one vial of blood instead of 3, so when I met with my Dr. afterward and prior to chemo, he told me I needed to go back to the lab and have the remainder of my blood drawn so he could check all my levels. Well, the lab closes at 8:30... We were told by my nurse, that they would wait for us if we came just a little later. When Joel requested this, they of course said no and if I had to have the blood drawn that day I would have to go to the E.R. Yah right! So then the chemo nurse contacted someone in there who agreed to come to me in the Bed Unit, literally around the corner from the lab. Sounded good, but after we waited for them for 45 minutes we said forget it! Even if they drew the blood at 9 at night, the doctor sure wasn't going to be there to get the results and there was no way I was going to the E.R. just for a blood draw! Joel and I crashed when we got home we were so wiped out! This was by far the worst day ever!!!

I have been banished to the study because I was semi-rooting for T.U., which I accidentally referred to as U.T. I had to leave the room b/c I was laughing so hard, Joel takes this Aggie stuff pretty seriously.

Today was a drag, would you believe that in the last 5 days my two dogs have passed a cough between the two of them and collectively they have been heaving all over the house all week! Today I had the wonderful chore of trying to get Robitussin down my 100 pound lab who wasn't interested in cough syrup one bit! Can't avoid the drama in this household for one day.

Tomorrow is the big day, round 2. I was told by my Physician's Assistant that the fact that I was so sick week 1 of the first round was b/c the anti-nausea drugs I was taking were not working. She is going to give me something different to take home with me tomorrow, she said I should not have been that sick for so long. So, that is good news, maybe this time I will be armed with the appropriate drugs and I won't be down for so long this go-round. I am hoping to avoid the hives issue again from the Zofran given in the I.V. The anesthesiologist that treated me for my surgery on Monday told me that I should really reconsider being allergic to Zofran, especially since I was undergoing chemo, I told him I would put that on my list of things to do after I was finished kicking his butt and cancer's butt too!(I didn't say butt, I am trying to keep this blog at a nice PG rating!) I guess he was trying to be funny, but I was not in the mood. What a tool, just be quiet and give me the drugs!

Go T.U. beat USC!!!!

I am feeling much better today. I guess I had some anesthesia issues during the surgery and my blood pressure dropped real low and scared everybody. My surgery started around 7:30 and I remember coming to for the first time at 9:30ish. I was extremely nauseous every time I woke up between 9:30 and 12:00, the doctor would not discharge me until I was lucid and my nausea had subsided. Most people are out of there by 10:00 after the same procedure, but of course I had to have issues. I also had the worst migraine when I came to, so they were pushing pain killers and anti-nausea drugs which made me very sleepy. I was finally sprung around 12:30, when I got home I took my migraine medicine, a painkiller and a Phenergan as instructed by my nurse. I promptly threw all of that up and went to bed and I didn't wake up until 9:00 yesterday evening. I was awake for about 2 hours and then out again for the night until about 10:00 this morning. After 48 hours I can shower and change the dressing for the last time ever. After that there is no maintenance at all, I will be a free woman no more saran wrap and surgical tape before every shower, no more daily Heparin flushes and no more weekly dressing changes! I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and then I have an all day excursion at Cancer Camp on Thursday for the dreaded I.V. portion of my chemo, can't wait to turn green again!

Surgery went okay, had a few problemos with recovery. Didn't get home until 1, got sick, went to bed at 1:30 and woke up at 9:00. I will give details tomorrow. I'm okay, just too tired to go into detail right now, no worries.

KL

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great New Year's Eve celebration.

This year my New Year's Resolution is to give up cancer! I am going to quit it cold turkey! I think the chemo is already working to shrink my tumors b/c I have not had any of that horrible pain I was having for a couple of weeks now. The tumors on my liver were enlarging my liver and putting pressure on the sac that surrounds it, which has a ton of nerve endings in it and that was in turn sending referred pain into my right shoulder and my actual liver itself was causing pain in my upper right side. So, my logic is that if the pain is gone, then the tumors have at least stopped growing or are in fact shrinking. Of course, I won't have the tests to prove it for another couple of months, but all my money is on this theory.

I hope that with my recent cancer diagnosis, I can give everyone out there reading this a New Year's Resolution for life. You have to take charge of your health. If you are not satisfied with what a doctor has told you, or not told you regarding even the smallest medical issue, you have to be persistent. Only you know your body and when something is not right you have to take charge and find out what is wrong. I struggled with these stomach issues for an entire year, I saw 3 different gastroenterologists. The first one I saw wouldn't give me the time of day, he didn't listen to me and did not even make eye contact with me. I had to push to have tests run which did not show anything so he dismissed me and told me to do what was working, take a pill every day. I fired him and told him I did not appreciate his lack of concern for me. If I had listened to him, I would still be taking a pill every day to mask my symptoms and who knows how long I would have gone without discovering my cancer?

My second doctor was great, he was genuinely concerned about me and challenged by my case. He had more tests run on me which were also inconclusive, I even had to push him and keep returning to his office until I could get a diagnosis. October 24th, I had more tests run, per my request and a HIDA (gallbladder) scan confirmed that my gallbladder was not functioning properly. It was excreting bile at 6%, instead of 40-50%. I was told the gallbladder removal was only a 50/50 shot at relieving my symptoms, turns out it was a 50/50 shot at discovering cancer. I went to my 3rd gastro for a second opinion and he was in agreement with my 2nd doctor as far as it being a 50/50 chance. Ultimately, it was my decision to have the surgery on November 21st which changed my life.

To make a long story longer...don't stick with a doctor who is not giving you the results or answers you need. You are a paying customer and the customer is always right. You wouldn't return to the same restaurant over and over again if they were not providing the service and good food you were paying for. If I had accepted the fact that nobody knew what was wrong with me and that there was a magical pill that was alleviating my symptoms even though I still had no diagnosis as to what the magic pill was fixing I would not be fighting this cancer at all. I would have only masked the symptoms that were presenting themselves for a reason. I was the only one responsible for my health and I stood firm and pushed until I was finally given some answers, I firmly believe that is why I am fighting the fight now and not 10 years from now. So, please go and have that mole looked at or have your scheduled tests run, whatever it is that you know you need to address, quit making excuses and get answers! If I can have my gallbladder removed, get a cancer diagnosis, a PET scan, 2 CAT scans, a colonoscopy, a mammogram, a barium enema(FUN!), a biopsy, a PICC line gone bad, a central line inserted and removed and do a round of chemo all in one month and at the age of 30, then you can go and take care of what you need to with no excuses!

Sorry this was so long and preachy, but it is very important!
Love,
Kelly