So I have decided at this point I am going to tell you how my life went from the usual, human life that ever one has to the break down of how it crumbled.
Before my cancer I was a strong, independent person. I worked, paid my rent, lived with roommates and without. In general doing well, even after I got pregnant with my son, I busted my ass to keep myself and life stable. Like pretty much every human being does, just trying to stay afloat and accomplish the goals I wanted to accomplish. After having my son I did try going to college to get myself an Associates of Arts degree and possibly a bachelors degree.
Then everything radically changed. It was, if I remember correctly, my second semester of getting my degree (which I was doing slowly) and was struggling with the relationship I had with my sons father. The night of my grand mall was the night of New Year’s Eve in 2013, I was masking dinner with my son attached to my hip. I had a screaming migraine, one that made my eyes scream with it, so I stepped outside to settle myself down. I felt like I was over heating, very nauseas, stressed, exhausted, light headed and in general not good. I personally thought it was from having a lot of stress after going through the semester while dealing with my son, his father and not taking good care of myself because I was focused on being “perfect” for the cruddy relationship I had with my sons father. As those feelings felt they were getting stronger, I felt a huge flush of fear. I squatted down to trying and calm myself, while also trying to figure out what was going.
Suddenly everything turned black. I don’t remember much of what happened after that. I remember playing with my son, not realizing that dinner was still on the stove, getting mad that the ambulance was there, even more that I had to go to the hospital. Then it was all gone again, a little further a head I remember hearing the sound of the helicopter I was in for my life flight, and again not much after that. Then my biggest memory is when the doctors in Billings (MT) were telling me what was going on and that they wanted to do a punch biopsy. Needless to say I was so hopped up on so many drugs that I thought my sons aunt on his dads side was my sister. I also agreed to the doctors for the biopsy like a drunken idiot.
After that I was sent to the cancer side of the hospital before I was able to be discharged. When I was discharged my body was slowly getting rid of all the drugs they put in my system. We didn’t even make it back to Bozeman (MT) on the day we were traveling back home. I ended up throwing up a ton, feeling week and still, I will say it, hallucinating from the meds. So we stopped, I can’t even remember where. It was a rough patch trying to get home.
From there on things got harder/worse. I struggled to remember things big time, had to cancel with the Billings center and find a more advanced group to help me with this. It was a lot.
In March of 2014 we ended up in Portland (OR) for me to meet the doctors that were going to be my neuro doctors. Surgeon, oncologist, radiologist, etc. Then the plan how it was going to happen. It took that entire month to get the information I needed and everything that was going to happen. Finally in April I had my first craniotomy (4-4-14) to have it diagnosed, after that I learned what it was. Anaplastic Astrocytoma grade 3 cancer. Yes, I had an angry mental freak out brake down full of panic, self hate and just in general angry with every doctor I had seen before. The doctors before of this happened I felt like not a single one listened or didn’t believe me when I explained my migraines. I was so angry that I wanted to break anything near me, I saw red and just wanted to just hurt people/things.
After that first surgery the doctors put me on a steroid which just made all of that anger 10x worse. I was livid with everything around me. I wanted to die but also hurt everyone physically that I could, except for my son.
Things just got worse over time and I did a lot of things I still regret doing. Like abusing my sons father, trying to kill myself, and in general going completely insane. Not kidding when I say insane. I had multiple break downs, tried to escape Montana after having a breakdown- bad enough to abandon all of my things besides my son- and ultimately think I should have been put into a psych ward to stabilize me. I was radically hating myself, hating life, hating everyone around me and just not myself. At the end of May I was no longer with my sons father, had moved back in with my mom, dropped out of college, and started the hard journey of dealing with all of it.
My second craniotomy, I was even more terrified than I was of the first one. I thought it was going to be the death of me. I kept telling myself that it was for my son to have a mom, but my sister had to harass me and kind of drag my ass in for my second one. I was in full panic with major emotions poring out of me, crying radically and embarrassed. I went in fully terrified with both my mom and my sister sitting by me while they put a relaxing drug in me. As I was wheeled to the room I cried even harder and they gave me more of that drug.
When we got in there, I remember getting on the surgical table praying to my pagan gods and goddesses asking them to keep me living for the one person that matter, my son. Of course they sedated me for a bit, then I was woken up to identify where I would loose certain things. Things like loss of speech, loss of physical movement, etc. What most people don’t know is I remember waking up, which is a rare thing to happen. I woke up asking what was happening and why my head felt funny. The doctor explained it to me and I started to panic. That’s when he started talking to me about my kid to calm me down, while the anesthesiologist put more of the relaxing med in me. I remember after that talking more about my son, with hearing the fluctuations of my voice and strange physical sensations. Both came with one of the nurses listening and physically testing me to inform the doctor as what was going on. I remember her name too, Katherine. Then not much more of the surgery. After that I remember waking up in the MRI, with pain from the catheter, being told to identify stuff in pictures that they were showing on a screen like thing in the machine. Then I was sedated again.
When I came to in the ICU, I felt like pure hell with a major amount of questions. Like when will this catheter was going to be removed cause I had to pee and it hurt, why was there a bag with a tube attached to my head, and can I have something to help with my head cause it feeling like it is on fire both inside and out. The nurse thought I was insane with the first thing and told me to try peeing through the catheter. I laughed and said I tried that all ready. It didn’t work so that was dealt with like it should have been when I first asked. After the ICU, I was transported to the recovering area then was aloud to leave.
When home I pretty much immediately started the treatment for my cancer. Radiation with chemo.I did radiation for about a month and a half, then chemo for about 3 years. It was pure torture. In the process I learned not a lot of people know how many ways chemo is used. I was taking the oral version of it instead of the IV version. Its name was temodar, and taking it was like having a period more than once a month. I would have to take the drug for one week each month at a high mg dosage, then recovery from it would take a week. The week of recovery was also the usual time of my period, so it wasn’t an easy thing to get through. Then I would have one week where I felt semi ok and then the week after that I would have to start chemo again. That regimen for 3 years was exhausting. My doctors finally took me off of the drug when my blood cell count started to drop radically on the 3rd year.
To this day, I still have to go in every 6 months for an MRI, which is always torture, and regular visits yearly in a different state. No longer Portland, thank god cause I hate that place. Now it’s Salt Lake City (UT) which isn’t much better cause of the anxiety from seeing them and telling me my cancer is back. That said, so far there is no new growth. Just a stressful life, filled with things being 10x harder for me to get through or deal with.
All of this in my blog today has made me have a crying session while typing to for now I am done going over this but there will be more to my oddity of life.
Much love to you all.
Brittany
