The Past: The Back Story

The Past: The Back Story.

I grew up the youngest of three girls, with two loving parents who, by the time I arrived, had it all together :) We lived way out in the country and I spent most of the time out on our six acres playing 'little house on the prairie', helping dad in the garden or catching crawdads in the creek. Mom always cooked dinner and we always ate around the table. We also spent a great deal of time at church where we were very involved there. It was a very happy childhood with many good memories. However it did have its rocky times as I grew older.

At the age of 7 my dad was diagnosed with ocular melanoma. This was a very rare and dangerous type of cancer found in the eye. He had his eye removed and had a prosthetic eye. 4 years later the cancer returned in his liver. There was very little treatment for this at that time and for the next 6 months we slowly watched our once healthy father become emaciated as the cancer took over. At the age of 11 I lost my strong, loving dad as he went on to dance and sing in heaven.

I graduated from high school in 2005. Started college that fall. And that October was diagnosed with ocular melanoma myself. Luckily the specialist for that type of cancer was in Cincinnati. I then had surgery where they placed a radiation plate on the back of my eye ball, sat in the hospital for 4 days while the radiation worked and then had surgery again to remove the radiation plate. Luckily that was the end of my treatment although leaving me blind in the left eye with little to no depth perception.

I spent the next 8 years finishing my bachelors, then masters degree, marrying the man of my dreams, buying our first house, finding amazing community through our church, getting my first real job as an occupational therapist and most recently adopting our wonderful son in October 2013.

The adoption was a crazy whirlwind of events. We started paper work to begin the adoption process in June of 2013 and just 5 months later got a call that a beautiful baby boy had been born in Alabama. 24 hours later we were on our way to Alabama and stayed down there for the next 10 days! (Of course that is the super short version of our adoption journey!)

November 22nd of 2013, I was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma found from a lump in my breast. It was determined that it was in both breasts along with several places in my bones. I now have chemotherapy every three weeks.

This is my journey of coping with cancer.