Before I Knew

Cancer is a crazy thing.  Sometimes you realize that maybe the mole on your back isn't as innocent as you thought.  Perhaps the bad health and breathing difficulty is a result of all the cigarettes you smoked back in the day.  Or maybe you just know that the lump in your breast is a little funky and should be checked out...

Other times cancer springs up unannounced, and only when you are sitting in an emergency room bed do you realize that cancer is to blame for the freaky bruises that mark their territory on your body.

In the spring when I began to notice the bruising on my arms, and the slight bleeding in my gums, the last thing on my mind was leukemia.  Perhaps because a nasty bruise here and there isn't too fear-provoking, especially for a klutz like myself.  And sure, of course wisdom teeth that are trying to move into the mouth could irritate the gums and cause a bit of blood.  I could try to say that in the back of my mind I knew something was terribly wrong but I'd be lying.  Heck, I was at school prepping for my stressful final exams.  The last thing that was on my mind was whether or not my body had been invaded by something much more serious than my stat & bio notes.

Bruises: 

The bruise on my arm happened randomly, I can only guess that it probably happened when I was sleeping.  My dorm bed was against my wall, as per the norm, and I would ALWAYS whack my arm against the wall.  But it was so unusual that it was spreading.  My mom jokes now that multicolored and large, it looked like a tattoo sleeve.  

     

This image is of the progression (starting top left going clockwise) of my knee, after walking into a trailer hitch.  For anyone who does not know, it is a large metal sphere located in the back of certain cars, making it possible to tow heaving trailers, etc.  While it was severely painful, it should not have escalated to looking like a crime scene.

While the bruises were strange, I was persistent about not getting them looked at.  One of the main reasons was because mother's day was coming up and if by chance something was really wrong, I didn't want to have my mom hear bad news on her big day.  Is that weird?  I mean I think it makes sense that I was trying to protect my family from any bad news.  At that point I had begun to start self diagnosing myself online, and of course, like any other evening of checking symptoms... Google led me to cancer.  But that can happen even if you diagnose a cut or a dizzy spell.  My family used to laugh about how in any case, cancer would always be the answer when of course that would be unrealistic and impossible.

Finally, about a week after mother's day, my body was starting to scare me.  I spent my time texting friends with pictures of my arms and legs and asking what they thought could possibly be wrong.  Finally I had a serious conversation with my mom and after speaking to my doctor, he agreed to give my knee a look after my brother had his checkup.    

So that Monday (the 21st) there I was sitting in my doctor's office in New York, completely clueless as to what my doctor would say.  He literally took one look at my leg and jumped about a foot back with a completely shocked look on his face.  I doubt he had ever seen anything like it.  Because it was getting too late in his office to draw blood for labs, he wrote us up some orders for them to be done early the next morning.  It was strange because he kept looking at me, as if her knew (although now after asking him he claims he had no clue leukemia could be it) and I had a gut feeling that it was way more serious than I had pretended it to be back at college when the first bruise popped up.

Monday I had blood work.  I wasn't freaked out because the way I see it, it is ten thousand times better to know a problem and to face it head on, rather than living in the dark with a false hope of normalcy.

It wasn't until later that day, when my mom and dad and brother and I were all sitting around in the family room, when the phone rang and my head began to spin...

xoxo A