Another Drive-By

I am all out-of-sorts this week. One of my coworkers is out ill, and I have taken on more work to make up for her absence. So needless to say, I'm working more than my usual 20 weekly hours. I know, I know, 3o hours a week. Big deal, right? But I have also had to take on the task of re-teaching myself Geometry this week, as one of the kids on my caseload needs extra help in that area. AHHHHH!!!! I feel like I'm in high school again! Thank God for my wonderful, amazing, incredible husband, who spent a good 2 hours of his time last night helping me re-learn some of this stuff.

Anyway, what I was getting to is that I apologize to all my friends and family if it seems like I've fallen off this week. I promise I am not ignoring you! As soon as I can get past the feeling that there are not enough hours in the day, I will take some time to return phone calls and emails that have been piling up over the last couple weeks.

I've found myself wondering a lot this week about how I'm going to add F/T school to this whole mix in the fall, if I can't even handle it right now. I predict that when the rubber meets the road, I'll fall back into the same patterns that were so familiar to me during my undergrad. I just have to keep reminding myself of that. When I start to get down on myself for feeling so overwhelmed, I love to flip to this passage in my bible:

"I can do everything through him who gives me strength."
~Philippians 4:13

Until I can get my bearings, please go easy on me. :)

Blood is Thicker Than Water

I've been thinking a lot lately about the phrase, "Blood is thicker than water." This is one of those cliche sayings that we've grown up hearing our whole lives. But after experiencing what I have over the last almost 24 years, I'm not sure that I totally agree. Take, for example, the case of the child(ren) who are raised by a family friend of a drug-addicted, young, single mother. Although those kids are not her own, in a biological sense, that family friend is able to love and care for those kids in a way that their birth mother never could. Or the foster youth with no biological family to speak of, that ages out of the system and comes to know his church elders as his "real" family, even though there are no blood ties. There's even the case of the biological family who, despite being related to each other in the literal sense, becomes involved in such an intense conflict, that they end up disowning each other and never speaking again.

Family is a relative term (pardon the pun). Being a family doesn't always coincide with having unconditional love for each member, just as being unrelated doesn't always mean that the parties love each other any less. I believe that you can come to love another individual in the same way that you love a family member, regardless of whether you share blood or not. I have to believe this, because it's such a big part of my passion for my profession. And I choose to believe this, because otherwise, what hope is there for some of the kids that I work with? Just because Patrick & I have amazing families, whom we share a mutual understanding that revolves around love and respect, that doesn't mean that this is the norm for families in America today. In fact, I would venture to say that our "normal" family unit is actually going to become the minority by the end of our lifetimes, if not shortly thereafter. All the stress and chaos in our culture tend to contribute to conflict, and this conflict is often what tears families apart. Couple that with the amount of children who are currently in foster care (who generally have very slim chances of reunification with their biological family, or any family member for that matter), and the American family is headed in a new direction altogether.

My suggestion would be to amend the saying that we are all so familiar with:
Blood may be thicker than water, but love is thicker than anything.
~Goldie Nash

Recovering from the meltdown

I met with a few good girlfriends for coffee on Monday,and I was explaining to them how everyone keeps telling me how amazingly calm I have been throughout this process. Many a time I have heard people say, "How are you not freaking out???!?!?!". In the last few weeks, I've at a loss for words for what to respond to this. I guess it's because, deep down, I know that things will be alright. But if I would have thought a year ago that I would be in this position now, I would have for sure predicted myself to be the picture of stress and anxiety. What I realized talking to my girlfriends was that I have not let myself get emotionally involved because then that would mean that all of this is really happening. Consciously, I am aware of that, yet there is still is a slight disconnect. It feels like I am talking about someone else when I explain my situation to people. My girlfriend, Dee, reminded me (after having recently lost her grandfather to cancer) that I might need to make this real in order to fully prepare myself for the reality that I could be facing. I refuse to become pessimistic, but I do need to be honest with myself. Agreed, Dee. As hard as that was, you'll never understand how grateful I am that you were brave enough to tell me exactly what I knew but didn't want to hear.

So after 3 frustrating days of dealing with phone call after phone call to doctor's offices and our insurance company (and still no closer to a diagnosis than I was 3 weeks ago), it finally happened. And let me tell you, it was not pretty. Poor Pat walked in the door from work, only to find my bawling my eyes out on the phone with my mom. I spent a good couple hours sobbing, and a couple more holed up in the bedroom reviewing some of my favorite bible passages. Then the lovely hubbs took me to a Sonic for a creamslush (one of my favorite treats), and I instantly felt much better.

It felt oddly liberating to get that out of my system. Quite frankly, the meltdown served as the swift kick in the ass that I needed to realize that I need to advocate for myself in order to get a diagnosis and treatment. And surprisingly enough, the UC Davis Cancer Center called first thing this morning to set up an appointment with an oncologist (who is FOR SURE in our network, I already checked). I will be seeing a doctor on May 7th for a consultation, and they will be scheduling the surgery for removal shortly thereafter. (The San Francisco specialist is completely out-of-the-question because he is not in PPO network, and the receptionist informed me yesterday that I would have to wait until early/mid summer to be seen. No thanks.)

Finally, we are making some headway!

Positive energy, prayers, thoughts, you know the drill... :)

We are bad pet parents...

Here is the video I was wanting to post. Just an example of what we do for fun during our downtime. The only difference is that we now have a video camera to document it. Our poor, poor kitty! Be sure to turn the volume up to get the full effect. :) And yes, our cat plays the air piano.

An Ultrasound Pic...

...and this is definitely not the kind of ultrasound picture I imagined to be carrying out of a doctor's office at this point in our marriage (if you catch my drift).

I went to see the surgeon for my post-op appointment yesterday, armed with a list of questions. I wanted to make sure we were pursuing the right avenues with the next doctor (i.e. determining FOR SURE whether these tumors are cancerous or not). He assured me that the doctor he is referring me to in San Francisco is a world-renowned orthopedic oncologist who specializes in dealing with sarcomas and other types of benign cysts. I voiced my concern over wanting to get this situation under control in the next five months, before grad school starts. He reminded me that my case is very rare (as many of the surgeons he consulted with had never heard of such a thing), and that it would be in my best interest to seek the best possible care for myself, regardless of the timeline.

Unfortunately, the best medical professional for dealing with my condition is not a preferred provider with our health insurance company, so now I'm in the midst of making phone call after phone call to my insurance company to try and obtain a pre-certification to be treated by an outside provider and therefore be covered at the higher level. Ugh.

In the meantime, here's a picture of my ultrasound.

The way the doctor explained it to us is that these tumors are going to be especially difficult to remove because of their placement below the muscle but on top of bone (my rib cage).

I can slowly feel the panic starting to set in. I've been fighting it for awhile, but I feel as if a meltdown is inevitable.

I still am encouraged by the fact that my doctor's speculation is that this is something benign and harmless. And I know that, whatever the following months may bring, with the grace of God, we will lean on our faith and get through this. I guess my anxiety stems from the fact that school starts in less than five months, and I was hoping to be done with this by that point. And don't even get me started about the financial aspect of this situation. Seeking the best possible care could cost us thousands and thousands of dollars (especially if our insurance decides to cover my treatment the outside provider level). I know, I know, you can't put a price on your health. But the fact of the matter is that obtaining the treatment I need could come at the cost of my continuing education. We absolutely cannot afford a huge hospital bill and grad school tuition. It's not even a possibility.

::Randi begins breathing into paper bag::

Keep those optimistic thoughts coming; I have a feeling we are really going to need them in the next few months.

A Drive-By

I don't have much time to write, since I'm working from home today. So I'm going to attempt to do what my fellow bloggers call drive-by posting. Just a few quick sentences with a longer update later.

My surgeon called this morning to let me know that, upon talking to some orthopedic surgeons at UC Davis, he has decided to refer me to a doctor at UC San Francisco. Apparently this doctor is one of the top drs in the world (yes, I said WORLD) for dealing with lumps and bumps of this nature. His specialization is orthopedic oncology. I'm really hoping that this doctor will be in our approved provider network, or that we can have the surgeon write a letter stating why I need to see this doctor so that our insurance will cover my care at the higher level.

::fingers crossed::

Big news, I mean HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am too excited to even attempt to come up with a witty lead-in to the 2 huge pieces of news that I have to share. So I'm just going to spit it out.

I got an official letter from Sac State yesterday congratulating me on my acceptance into the Social Work program!!!!!

::SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!::

Finally the waiting is OVER!!!!! It's such a huge relief to hear that, especially since the acceptance rate is already only 33% (and that's on a normal year; this year it was probably lower due to the fact that more people attempt to go back to school when the economy is struggling). Here's a picture of me with my acceptance letter. :)

We decided to go out to a nice dinner to celebrate. We're looking at 2 years of being absolutely broke, so that may be one of the last times we get to do that. We told our waitress that we were celebrating my acceptance into grad school, so she was kind enough to bring us this sundae:

But that's not all we were celebrating. I also found out today that I *probably* don't have cancer! My doctor called to give the lab results, and he told us that the fluid came back as having benign cells and a little bit of blood. But no cancer cells!!!! And he was fairly sure that if the tumors were indeed cancer, the cells would have shown up in the fluid. However, he is still referring me to another doctor (and orthopedic surgeon) to figure out how to go about removing the tumors so as to prevent this balloon from filling with liquid again. (**As a side note, words cannot express how grateful I am to be seeing another surgeon and NOT an oncologist!!!!!**) I will for sure have to have a fairly serious surgery for this, and the doctor indicated that I could be looking at months of physical therapy and potentially the loss of some mobility in the area, depending on where exactly these tumors are located (under muscle, cartilage, etc). But I will gladly take that anyday over the alternative!

Thanks so much to everyone who has been thinking and praying about us. Your positive energy has been nothing short of amazing!