Dancing With Cancer Memoirs...When The Dance Began

Oh I don't know when it began, I really wasn't paying any attention to myself, too busy. I was officially diagnosed with stage 3c colon cancer on May 22nd, 2008. But I had not been feeling good for many months.

Towards the end of 2007, I was seriously not feeling well. I was having weakness, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, fatigue, pale, racing heart that reached beats up to 140/bpm with any activity, like getting up from a chair, major irritability, horrible insomnia, constipation, paper thin nails, light periods, dizziness, extreme shortness of breath, bad headaches, porcelain white skin, and I blamed it on stress, as did many other people.

At the beginning of 2008 I was thinking I might have some sort of heart problem, but of course I didn't have time to go to the doctor. I am a single parent who works as a CNA for SouthernCare Hospice, and I thought I was probably overacting. Overtime for us means sitting with a patient who is actively dying, and that can mean around the clock, and I had to be ready for that, regardless of how I felt.

I got so bad that my heart would pound at a rate of 140 bpm while doing patient care. During my showers at home I had to sit on the floor of the bathtub and then sit on the toilet to dry myself off. I often told my patients if I collapsed on the floor to pull the call button string right away and hope a CNA or nurse came in quickly. But I just didn't have time to go to the doctor's office. I had too much responsibility, too many bills to pay, a daughter to raise, pets to feed, patients to take care of, a house to maintain...

But on January 8th, 2008, during a staff meeting, I was feeling just extra wretched and bitchy. People kept glancing at me, a couple were outright staring. I found out later that an LPN and a Social Worker were passing notes back and forth discussing how I looked. I glared back and tried ignoring them and to stay conscience. I had finally made an appointment with my family physic an for that Friday, but deep down I was wondering if I would last that long. In the unconscious part of my mind, I knew I could very possibly drop dead but I thought I was over-reacting and was determine to keep working; I was just gonna power through it like I did everything else in my life.

After the meeting, my boss, April, ordered me to get in to see the doctor THAT DAY (which saved my life; I would have been dead by the end of the week). We share the same family physician and she knew he would get me in. I was told my color was looking pasty, whitish, yellowish; sounded like my liver was struggling a bit. I begrudgingly made an appointment for 3:20 that afternoon. I then went with a friend and fellow CNA to go take care of a patient, a friend who thought I was looking and feeling so awful due to stress and medication I had taken for a migraine. And I WAS stressed and had been for a very long time, mostly about finances and severe burn-out from life. Many people (including nurses, we are horrible at self-care) told me I was too stressed out and that was what was making me have so many odd symptoms. Deep down, at this point, I knew she and everyone else was wrong.

My doctor ordered a CBC (complete blood count) and said he would contact me when the results came back in two or three days if anything was wrong. Well, he called me at 11:30 pm THAT NIGHT, sounding absolutely frantic; I could barely understand what he was saying, stuff like 'get to the hospital' and 'your hemoglobin is 3.9' and 'you need a blood transfusion right away' and THIS IS REALLY UGLY CINDY, THIS IS REALLY REALLY UGLY!' over and over. Of course I said I'd wait until the morning to go to the hospital, I can't just up and leave my daughter and pets, I had to make some arrangements, I had to call my boss... Knowing me the way he does (he's been my family doctor for over ten years now), he told me to get to his office first thing in the morning. I called April that morning and told her what was going on. She freaked when she heard what my hemoglobin levels were. Then another nurse, Mary, I worked with called, complaining about a shoddy job I did on someones nails, rare for me as I normally took very, very good care of my patients. At least I use to, until I just wasn't able to anymore, but I didn't know why. Three minutes later she calls me back. Apparently she called April, to complain no doubt, who filled her in. She proceeded to threaten to kick my ass when I was healthy enough to come back to work for letting myself get so critical and I knew she met it. I had no doubt most of the nurses there would.

I finally dragged myself and my daughter to his office around 10 am. Candace had some stomach issues (no doubt from the news) so I wanted him to see her before he saw me (of course). During her appointment, I laid down on the examination table and zoned out; she sat in a chair. I hadn't had a good nights sleep for months and I could barely move. My body didn't feel like my own, kinda rubbery and disconnected. He told me he had called the hospital to admit me and told them I was on my way. I have a terror of hospitals and waited until around 2 pm that afternoon before I finally drove myself there.

I was put in ICCU (intermediate critical care unit) with a heart monitor, oxygen tube, and iv's and I was surrounded by nurses scolding me for letting myself get into such a critical state, that I was very lucky to be alive, that I had been in danger of multiple organ failure, and I was almost dead. Once when I got up to go shuffle the five steps to the bathroom, my primary nurse immediately got a phone call from the heart monitoring people saying my heart rate had suddenly jumped up to 135 bpm.

All in all, I received 5 units of blood and a unit of iron. I found out that normal hemoglobin levels for women are between 12-15. Seven is considered critical and a blood transfusion necessary. At five a person is in danger of multiple organ failure. My hemoglobin was 3.9 and I still working a physically demanding job, albeit not very well, as a CNA. Luckily all my patients and staff at my facilities I went to love me so no one called my boss to complain the entire time I was slowly dying.

I'm sure my poor doctor still regales that tale to people (never giving away my identity of course). He says he has never seen a person on their feet, conscious, let alone working, with a hemoglobin that low. I think denial made me strong. It also almost killed me.

My doctor came in to see me and told me not to freak out but he contacted an Oncologist-Hematologist to come see me. He didn't think it was cancer but something caused me to lose almost all of the blood in my body, probably at least 2/3rds of it. The blood doctor was a kindly man and told me to come see him the following week. I was in the hospital for a total of two days and two nights, from January 9th-January 10th, 2008.

It was not to be the last though.