Checking In

A dear friend has recently been diagnosed with cancer and I wanted to share with him the site where I found so much support many years ago. While he doesn’t have colorectal cancer my visit to the CSN page to find the link for him made me think of all the times I would read through each new post in this forum, obsessively most of the time, in the wee hours of the morning, looking for hope and information. As it’s been so long I felt I should just leave a quick note.

if you click my username I have my whole story outlined but the summary is that at the age of almost 39, during a scheduled c-section of our youngest child, the attending physician fortunately felt a lymph node beneath my uterus, her hand feeling in the abdominal cavity right before they stitched me up. An oncologist surgeon was called and took an immediate biopsy and one week later after many tests and procedures I was diagnosed with Stage IV CC with 4 mets across my liver. It was my birthday the day I found out.

The summary of care includes FOLFOX, colon/liver surgery, Hepatic arterial infusion pump implantation and FUDR chemo. I was in treatment 11/24/2008-11/2/2009. As of February of this year I have been NED for 13 years. I stopped yearly scans at year 10 and have CEA blood work done once per year.

There are some periods where I can go for days and days and the thought of cancer doesn’t even cross my mind. Years ago if you had told me that one day like would not revolve around cancer, I would not have believed you. And yet, here I am.

My son (5 at the time of diagnosis) heads off to his freshman year at Vanderbilt in about a week from now. My middle will be a junior this year. And that baby, the one who saved my life, turns 14 in November. I never told my children about my cancer until I made it to 10 years in remission as I didn’t want them to be affected by my illness. That isn’t for everyone but it’s what worked for our family.

I hope my post has given you some hope. I collected stories like this when I was first diagnosed and prayed that I could be that same story for someone else someday. If you ever need to chat, please reach out to me here via PM.

love to you…

Amy