How many of us really know what a miracle is?  How many of us can honestly say we have seen one?  I never thought I would see one in my life, let alone have one given to me.  I also never thought that two un-related tragedies in my life could turn out to be that miracle. The tragedy of having cancer and of losing my grandmother.  Neither of which I would have ever thought could still impact my life in the way it has.  Welcome to my story………….

My life has not been the same since Easter 1994.  We thought I was having trouble with the birth control pill I was taking.  But after several weeks of bleeding problems it climaxed when I miscarried on April 23rd.  We did not know I was pregnant and I ended up in emergency surgery (D&E #1) at 6:00 am.  I nearly hemorrhaged to death that night.    I made it out the front door before I lost consciousness.  Unfortunately, I did lose the baby.  Even now, that was the worst.

 Still having problems weeks later, I had a second surgery ( D&E #2 ), on May 13th.  About two weeks after that, I went to the doctors for what I had hoped was a post-op visit, but that is when they told me they found cancer.  My grandmother died of cancer in 1973. I was terrified; I could barely say the word “cancer” let alone believe I had it.

 Within two days, my husband and I were in the office at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.  After a checkup and time for the Oncologist to review my charts, The Doctor called me the next day, a Friday, and told me over the phone, that I had a Placental Site Trophoblastic Malignant Tumor.  It would have to be removed by a hysterectomy on Wednesday.

 I didn’t make it until Wednesday. On Sunday, May 30th, I started to hemorrhage again and this time I was rushed to the University of Penn. I had my hysterectomy on Monday, (Memorial Day) at 1:00pm.

  The prognosis was, if no cancer cells had “escaped” the uterus, then I was done, I could leave and put this entire nightmare behind my family and me.  If they “escaped”...  Well, that is the news we got next.  I had spots on my liver and my lungs.  Then came the phone call explaining the chemotherapy treatments that would soon follow.  I would have 12 treatments in 8 weeks.  They said without a doubt I would be sick and I would lose my hair.

Needless to say I was not in a good frame of mind.  I was depressed much of the time and could not eat.  I was afraid I was out there alone.  Where was God?  I know He is always with me but I couldn’t see Him then.  Why did it keep getting worse?  Instead of getting stronger and better after surgery, I was becoming weaker.  I couldn’t even take care of myself, let alone my children.  They were, at that time, 1 and 4 years old.  Thank God for my family and some very dear friends.

 I began listening to Self-healing & Optimum Health and meditation tapes, as I could do little else.  They help so very much.  I was able to snap out of it.  One day just after listening to them, I was taking a rest in the bedroom I heard my daughter crying out in the living room.  I called for someone to bring her in to me to take her nap.  While I was lying next to her I started to cry and pray.  I wanted to live and be at her wedding and at my son’s wedding.  I wanted to be a grandmother and I was barely a mother.  I waited too long for a son and a daughter of my own.  I wanted to raise them.  I also realized that I would never have any more children.  That in itself was a tragedy to me.  I didn’t want to lose the ones I had.  They are so very special.

 I had been praying all along, but something that day changed my prayers from “why me...” and “make me better...” to “ I can do this with your help”.  I walked out of that bedroom and made a sandwich.  I wasn’t eating much at all before and had dropped 20 lbs. since the surgery.

I was very angry with God after losing the baby and I was afraid God was punishing me with the cancer for that.  I lost that self-pity and depressed attitude.  I knew God wasn’t mad at or punishing me.  I realized God doesn’t do that.  The entire thing just happened and I may never know the reason, I had to deal with my feelings and get on with things.  This was my fate.  God doesn’t give us things we can’t handle.  Throughout the ordeal there were times I thought I couldn’t handle it, I did. I now know just how strong my faith really is.

 I walked in that hospital for the first treatment and stated to the nurses that this was not going to make me sick and I was not going to let this beat me.  They said attitude was a big part of the chemo healing, beating the odds and not being sick.

 I underwent 8 weeks of chemo.  Every other week I was in the hospital overnight for two days of treatments and the other week I just went in for the day of outpatient.  The nurses were wonderful and I made a few long lasting friends there.  Being a Chemo nurse in a cancer floor is very hard work. I  saw them day in and day out.  Sometimes they are the only people you see from the “outside”.  I hated being away from my kids over night, but I hated being sick even more, so I did what I had to do.  I fought hard to get through it.  And I listened to the tapes a lot.  I had a very aggressive chemo because of the type of cancer, I didn’t feel good most of the time, but I never vomited and I could function.  I required a blood transfusion half way through, but I was able to take my husband’s blood and I felt much stronger afterwards.  I did lose my hair, but I could look forward to a new style and maybe even a new color when it came back.  I started to always look for the positive in things.  Losing the hair on my head also meant I lost the hair on my legs as well.  No shampooing and no shaving for me for a while.  And the best thing…I was ready before my husband for once.

 I did learn to think more positively.  Find something good about each setback.  Don’t get me wrong; I wasn’t “Miss Mary Sunshine” all the time.  I did get down and depressed, especially in losing my hair.  But I could bring myself out of it.  I did find something to “hold on to” in my own mind.  By keeping an optimistic outlook I helped those around me stay more positive.  This in turn, kept my spirits up as well.

 Unfortunately, after 8 weeks of chemo this was not to be the end of my story.  Exactly 5 months after the end of the last chemo treatment, I got another phone call.  It appeared the cancer was coming back.  And what I feared most had happened again.  I was put back on a very heavy regiment of chemotherapy this time.  They hit me with such a force of drugs that at times I didn’t think I’d live through it, and a few times towards the end the of the treatments, they actually came out and told my husband they didn’t know if I would be able to get my counts up high enough.  I might die from the treatment themselves.  Eric never told anyone.  He didn’t want anyone to worry and didn’t actually know how to tell them I might die.  That would also have meant he had to actually “say it” and he didn’t want to say it either.

 Before they actually started the treatments this time, I had to have a central line put in. My veins had really deteriorated after that last round of chemo and it was almost impossible to get a line started at all the very first time back.  So they set me up with a day of surgery to get my port-a –cath.  What a day that was.  They somehow messed up the surgery schedule or something and I sat in the surgery waiting room for more than 8 hours before I was finally able to have the surgery at all.  I was not allowed to eat OR drink this entire time, you know, just in case I was able to go down.  I needed to be ready.  My neighbor had taken me on this trip and the thing I most remember about that day, other than the starvation of course, was that she had refused to eat anything either.  The entire day the two of us sat there and played cards, watched TV, read and talked, but we did not eat at all.  I kept telling her to go get something.  But, she refused.  She stayed with me until I was taken to surgery.  I say that is another pretty good definition of what a friend is and does for you.  I learned a lot of definitions of the word friendship during the year and a half I was sick.

 My blood counts fell to dangerous levels and 5 times during the next 6 months I had to be hospitalized for up to a week at a time.  I remember the 2 nurses who had to make those phone calls.  Gail and Jackie, MY chemo nurses.  They would call and tell me I had to come in because of my counts being too low.  I would tell them I didn’t want to, they would pull out the big guns and simply say, “Do you want your children to see you bleed to death or get so sick that you’d die in front of them?”  I usually just hung up and came right in.  I didn’t think they always played fair.  But they “played” for KEEPS!  There were times when I could not eat for up to a week or more.  My weight dropped dangerously low (I was under 100 lbs.), my white blood count went so low no one was allowed in my hospital room without a mask on, or my red blood cells would go so low and the headaches were terrible, then the transfusions would start, again.  I was lucky with them, because I did not have to take “strangers” blood.  I was able to get the blood for these transfusions from my husband, father, aunt, brothers-in–law and a few close friends.  I would also need platelet transfusions more than a dozen times during those months.  What a nightmare. I got very sick from them.  Have you ever shaken so hard that you thought you’d fall right off of the bed?

 There were a few funny things that happened as well.  I taught a few new interns how to access a port-a-cath.  They didn’t know to access one and I wasn’t letting them stick me needlessly.  So, me- with no medical education at all, taught some very young (could I have given birth to these boys?) interns how to put the needle in, pull out then insert the needle again.  They did good.  Another intern came in once and couldn’t read the thermometer. I had to read it for him.  (How old are these boys anyway??).

 It was hard to believe at times that this was really me and I was going through this nightmare.  But, I don’t for a minute think I did this on my own.  I couldn’t have.  I had the power of prayer with me.  I had my friends and my family standing behind me every step of the way.  It was a truly wonderful thing.  My parents felt so helpless; they didn’t know what to do.  My mom kept busy by taking care of my children.  She basically had them for 10 months.  She was at my house by 7 am so, my husband, could leave for work.  Most nights she did not leave my house until after 9 pm.  This gave my husband a chance to see me after work before he went home.

 I finished those treatments all 12 of them in six months.  Six months of in and out of the hospital, sometimes a week at a time.  Finally came the news I had hoped for…The last time I saw my cynical Doctor, the one with no bedside manner, smiled at me, asked how my kids were and told me I was a walking miracle.  Now coming from this man, I believe him.  He said I beat something few people ever beat, the second time. He has finally released me from his care ALL TOGETHER.  I never have to have a checkup for cancer again.  The kind of cancer I had, Trophoblasitic Tumor, would have never laid dormant this long.  THANK GOD.

 My hair came back and healthier than I would have believed, it is so very thick.  I was left with neuropathy (a deadening of the nerves in the hands and feet), but it isn’t that severe and my gag reflex is pretty bad, but I figure if that’s all the long term price I have to pay for my life, then OK, I’ll learn to live with it, me and my dentist will learn to deal with the “gag thing”.

 I still have my faith and my marriage.  Both things some people lose during the tragedies in their life.  I never lost either one.  I prayed harder than I ever had before and even today, sometimes I just stop and thank God for the miracle He granted me.  Probably not often enough, though.  When God gives you a miracle, I don’t think you can ever thank Him enough.  God gave me my life back, my kids, my husband, my work, my everything.  And in doing that, he shared a miracle with me and taught me things, about my friends, my family and myself. I am stronger than I ever thought I was. I have a voice now, and I can be heard.

 In my somewhat limited, yet life-changing experiences, I’ve come to realize there is no time for petty things, no time to dwell on things that in the big scheme of life, really don’t matter.  I have a life to live and thank God, children to raise.  I have a wonderful husband who stayed right with me through everything.  I don’t want to worry about things that I can’t change. I want to share my experiences with others.  I want people to know miracles do happen. I want to share my faith in God, and my faith in miracles.  .