I wish I could come back on here hav­ing just spent a won­der­ful week on a beach some­where warm, lis­ten­ing to the waves, with noth­ing more to worry about than if I remem­bered to have my hubby put sun­tan lotion on my back. Alas, that is not the case. Whew…what a week. The friend who went in for a “blood clot” found out that she had been given a warn­ing as a con­se­quent cat scan revealed a new can­cer. Fears were that it was a metas­ta­sized breast can­cer from two years ago, which would have been truly fright­en­ing news. As it is, it was an ovar­ian can­cer but one that, to this point, looks like it was caught in the very ear­li­est stages, which is usu­ally not the case. We are still wait­ing on some biopsy results but even then, it is treat­able with chemo. Of course she is not look­ing for­ward to that again, but had it been the other news, the out­come would have not been as pos­i­tive. She remains in the hos­pi­tal with some post surgery kinks to work out but what a bet­ter place to be if you are going to have lit­tle things keep pop­ping up that need tend­ing to. She is con­stantly in my thoughts as I send noth­ing but pos­i­tive vibes her way. Now I wait on news of my sister-in-law to see if she has pan­cre­atic can­cer or chronic pancreatitis…life some­times just sucks.
I for one, truly wish that a cure, or even a pre­ven­tive some­thing or other, could be found to stop this awful dis­ease. Even if it is not deadly, it takes so much from the per­son hav­ing to endure the chemother­apy and radi­a­tion and all that goes with that. The dis­rup­tion of life as they know it, the time off work and sim­ply liv­ing, the money.…the list goes on and on. Every day a new com­puter or phone or TV is invented and yet the body and it’s mis­matches still is a mys­tery in so many ways.
I am a nurse, or at least I have a nurs­ing license I keep cur­rent. I have not prac­ticed bed­side nurs­ing for 28 years and even then, psych was my cho­sen field, but it is kind of like rid­ing a bike…you may get a lit­tle rusty but you never for­get it. I am happy to know that all the tests and study­ing actu­ally sunk in. And it has stood me in good stead. In many cases it has given me a lit­tle more atten­tion from the doc­tors when they know they can say things and I will under­stand and can ask deeper ques­tions then lay peo­ple. It also can give them pause, as they prob­a­bly can­not pull any­thing over on me. If I don’t remem­ber or don’t under­stand, I sure as heck know where to look or who to talk to. I have often felt bad for peo­ple who have no med­ical back­ground, because even for me things can get over­whelm­ing, so when I think of some­one who does not have the knowl­edge I do, I am con­cerned and if I can give them any advice, it would be to never stop ask­ing questions…never..and to trust your gut instinct and your­self because you do know, even if you think you don’t.
I think I went into nurs­ing because my aunt, who I lived with, was a nurs­ing assis­tant and back when I was grad­u­at­ing high school you either became a nurse, a sec­re­tary or a mom. Imag­ine how impressed I was with my cousin who became a travel agent!!!! We were all so impressed and so jeal­ous!! I left nurs­ing for many reasons…marriage, baby, baby and baby and lots of moves but have always kept my license for “just in case”. This week I was glad to be there for my friend. To be her eyes and ears at a time when most of us are so stunned by what we hear that we really hear noth­ing at all, and to be her link between her ill­ness and her doc­tors. And to all those nurses, sur­geons, spe­cial­ists, and every­one in between…I had for­got­ten just what an amaz­ing job you do…24/7…thank you for being there for her and all the oth­ers you care for every day. This world could not exist if it were not for you…a mil­lion, tril­lion thank-yous!!!!!