Home Sweet Home
Home sweet home they call it, but once I was home I wanted to go back to being a normal child. I wanted to be a child with no worries. I did not need cancer on top of already going through things like puberty. All I wanted was to be a kid, have no cares, and just live life. I never got to experience a "normal" childhood after being diagnosed with cancer. When I was a kid and going through it; I thought that I never really got to be a kid. Except, now that I am an adult and have a totally different view on the whole thing; I actually got to have a pretty cool childhood. The one view that never changed is I never got to be the person I would have been. Cancer was now officially a big part of my life and it wasn't something that I could just pretend that it would go away.
While I was in the hospital, I had a mediport surgically placed under my skin on my left pectoral side. They made a 2 inch incision in my lower left armpit. This is the incision they made to put the mediport up into place. They made a small pin whole incision on my left pectoral side as a guide to my vein. A mediport is a round aluminum device with a rubber textured center, has a tip on one end that gets inserted into a main artery, and is placed right under the skin. This device allows medical professionals to draw blood, give medicine, or blood transfusions without too much pain. As a cancer patient, you visit the doctor weekly and would be poked at multiple times throughout your journey. This just made things basically easier on everyone. I clearly have the best luck ever, because mine stopped working the week after it was placed! Like seriously? Best luck ever. I was sent back to surgery, another long nap later, a new pin whole incision above my right side pectoral muscle, and ohhhh wait that one is new. I woke up with the heaviest feeling in the center of my chest between my breast. I was so upset. They had made a two inch incision between my breast and it looked like had a bubble between them. The pain of that healing is like nothing I had ever experienced before.
I apologize if this is not super medically correct.
I'm going off how they explained it to me as a 10 year old.
Returning to home life was rough. It wasn't long until everyone who knew me, was lined up outside our house to drop off gifts, pies, and money. I was appreciative of the gestures and also completely embarrassed. It felt like I was a charity event. Cancer is weird and the way people react to cancer is weird. I was outgoing as a child, but I didn't like the attention on me and this was a endless chain of cars to see me.
One of my biggest challenges to face was learning how to swallow pills. Unfortunately for me, I had no clue how to do this. I tried and I simply just couldn't. I looked like a cat, when you give them pills and they just hold it their mouth. You think you got it in them and then they just spit it out. Yup, I was the cat. My mom came up with a genius idea! One word: pudding. I liked chocolate pudding, so this plan should of worked, right?! My mom would crush up the pills and mix into the pudding. Bite by bite, I had to swallow the pudding. Pills make pudding really bitter... if you didn't figure that one out yet. Sometimes it took me 5 minutes and other times it would take me hours. I remember a few times where I would be curled up in a ball, on the kitchen floor, crying my eyes out because I didn't want to take it. My mom struggled with me nightly. She would be crying just as much as me because I'm sure she would of rather gave in and allowed me to just not take it. She couldn't do that because I needed the pills to get better. It was good timing when I finally did learn how to swallow pills, because by then I was starting to take 12 pills on top of the 3 to 5 pills I was already taking daily. A whopping 17 pills I had to take daily. Chocolate pudding is still one of the nastiest foods to this day.
My sister and I were close, but she kept pretty quite about the whole thing. She never really spoke to anyone about my cancer diagnosis. I knew she felt bad for me. I knew she would have wanted to take it away from me. I knew she was worried about me. I know she would of wished it to be anyone besides me. I never knew how she felt until years later, when she wrote a essay for school about my diagnosis. Honestly, I was shocked that she went through so much internally. Processing it all and never was outspoken about it all. She absorbed it like a sponge and kept it to herself. Sometimes I wonder about how much my life effected hers.
The last thing to be a big change in my life was weekly doctor appointments. I had a appointment every Friday for the next bajillion years. Before we left the house, I had to put this numbing cream and a sticky patch over the skin of the mediport area to numb the skin. This just made it pinch less when they would stick me with a needle for blood draws. Appointments usually consisted of blood work tests, height, weight, vitals, talk about medications, check body all over, how I would be feeling, and if I had any new bruises, etc. While the nurse would do all of this, my mom would keep track of every detail in a notebook. I started to refer to it as the "Mommy Survival Guide". I always thought it would be helpful to have a planner made into a tracking system for cancer patients. Apparently, a lot of other people did too, because things like that exist now. My Mom now has a series of 3 notebooks with all my logs in it.
Both of my parents came to every appointment with me. My dad would often listen to everything the doctors would go over with us and flip through cookbooks. Taunting me with the delicious recipes. ICC (the name of the building where the office was located) had books, games, and video games that patients were allowed to play with. Appointments were long and you spent most of the day there. At the end of the appointments, there was this treasure box the receptionist had hidden under her desk. The patients were allowed to take one toy after every appointment. There was also the candy jar that my dad would snitch from often and we would (almost weekly) bring bags of candy to refill the jar.
That summer of 2004 was starting to fly by, summer activities coming to an end, and the school year was approaching fast. My fourth grade year was coming and it was about to get interesting.... stay tuned for part three.
Next Time...
In part three, I will diving into my fourth grade year, facing fears, and loosing all of my hair!
How Can You Help?
Not all kids get the outcome I did and many families struggle to afford medical bills. If you wish to help make a small difference in someone's life, please check out these organizations to make that difference!
www.cancer.org/involved/donate
www.stjude.org/donate
www.childhoodcancer.org
www.cancerresearch.org
www.wigskidsforkids.org
www.uhhospitals.org/rainbow/about/giving-to-uh-rainbow
All Rights Reserved.
My Cancer Story: Part 2: Written and Published by Jaclyn Ziefle
The Daffodil and Lily Blog 2020