In the beginning

It was two years ago my journey began. In mid February of 2009 I was still working at Target. I was getting ready for work and I started coughing. It sounds gross but some phlem came up and I spit it out. There it was, the smallest amount of blood. Just like a thin thread. I thought it was odd so I mentioned it to my peeps at work. Eeeek !! they all went crazy and said get to a doctor, quick!

I did go to ER on Saturday morning. Of course they took xrays. A Nurse practitioner came in to give me my results. This is what she said ( I will never forget it) "well cancer looks different" "yours just looks gunky". What the heck is gunky? Well she gave me the standard Zpack and said I had walking pneumonia. Hummm? I didn't feel sick.

She also advised I see my regular doctor after a few days. Well when some one tells you you are sick you actually start feeling sick. It was so silly. After a few days I made the appointment with my regular doctor. He also took x-rays. He also said he didn't see anything going on and sent me on my way. He did say I should come back in a month for a follow up.

Off I went, back to work and feeling great. A month goes by and I should be going back to the doctor. I remember it was a Saturday and I coughed again and this time a rather sizable amount of blood was present. Wow! That's not good I thought. Well being the person I am I took a shower, got the horses fed and cleaned my poop ( horse poop that is)( you will find I talk about my poop a lot) and made sure things were in order in case they made me stay in the hospital. My husband Gary and I went back to ER.

One of the male nurses remembered me. He said" you were in here before, you had a fractured rib" What !!!!????  I said " yes I was in here but not for that. I don't have a fractured rib. He showed me the xray. For goodness sake I DID have a fractured rib.  Once again the xray did not produce anything odd but they referred me to a pulmonary specialist. Off we went back home.

Later that day the phone rang and it was the hospital. The radiologist that read my x-ray had seen something and wanted me back for a CT Scan. Well I guess you could say that was a defining moment for the story for the next two years.

We didn't go back that day we waited and went Sunday morning. This time no shower, no chores. After all I was just going for a CT Scan.

The rest of this story later. I have to go do my poop chores and get ready for chemo.