And put us on hold for now...

After surgery, I returned to Huntsman Cancer Institute on July 5th. I sat with my Mom as we were told that this was a quite unique tumor and that it was more serious than they originally thought, but the plan was radiation and surgery. If they got all of the cancer and I went 1 year with clean scans, I will have beat this monster. (Anyone who knows me, knows that I never do things the easy way.) I came home and began to prepare for radiation at the clinic in St. George. I had thought that I could continue with my internship at Southwest Behavioral Health and just take an hour out of my day to get radiation. Piece of cake, right?
After 3 tries to get me set-up for radiation here in St. George, I became quite frightened. The evening after my third failed attempt, I had to go to the Emergency room to have the sutures removed from my leg, the Dr. had been fearful to remove them at Radiation Therapy because he had not removed sutures. (I thought to myself, "For Heaven's sake, I have removed sutures, it is not that hard!") The ER tech took out the sutures and then placed steri-strips on top. The next morning, this really small wound began to gush quite a bit of fluid. I went to my Summer Group and taught them my prepared lesson as I felt some kind of fluid running down my leg and into my shoe. I went to my Grandma's to have my leg checked by my Mom, and my leg came completely open. We called the doctor and he asked that I come up to Salt Lake the next day and have surgery to revise my wound. So, it just happened to be the day my cute husband was coming out to celebrate our first anniversary, July 13 (Our anniversary was really the 8th but we had a post-ponement due to Simon and Garfunkel-A completely different story that has to do with Sebastian and the rescheduling of concerts multiple times.)I called him as he was leaving for the airport to let him know that we would be driving to Salt Lake the next day for surgery.
At 9PM that evening, I got to see my sweet husband and have his kind arms around me. The next morning, Sebastian got to see new territory, the state of Utah north of Beaver! It was a fun ride as we talked and I got to point out new sites and the temples. He was amazed as I pointed out the Provo, Mount Timpanogas, Oquirh Mountain, and Jordan River temples. we got to Salt Lake a few minutes early and I continued to show Sebastian the city from the vantage point of the Huntsman Hospital's 3rd floor windows. He was disappointed that he could not see the Salt Lake Temple from up here due to the many large buildings downtown Salt Lake. We waited about 3 hours to finally see Dr. Randall in Pre-op. He decided that I should not proceed with surgery because it would delay my treatment and he was worried about me losing my leg. Then he laid the bombshell on us that put us on hold, if I wanted to keep my leg and possibly my life, I needed to seek my radiation treatment here at Huntsman. St. George was not the right place for me to receive treatment.
Meanwhile, I had missed my group several times due to this tumor and my trips to Salt Lake, and my patients that I cared about were being shunted to the other practioners. It was breaking my heart but I knew, I couldn't continue with the pace I was at and the cancer. Being on hold was my only option because I was not ready to leave Sebastian and my family.
While my heart was breaking, my stomach was growling. So, we left the hospital not having surgery to go eat. If you ask my Mom or Grandma, we took them to the ghetto for this meal, I doubt Salt Lake has many ghettos. They thought this because there were some graffiti art on the alley way walls and the elevator was a bit run down. But we had a lovely dinner at Stoneground in downtown Salt Lake. I then had the opportunity to walk the Salt Lake Temple grounds with my cute husband, rather than have surgery. We had a great time and Sebastian was excited to talk to the missionaries.
We returned to St. George the next morning. Mom was driving this time. At one point in Provo, Sebastian turned to me and whispered, "Sweetheart, I love you and I have no regrets. I am glad we are going to die together." It was an interesting ride home.
The next day, my darling husband went to the new Twilight Saga Movie: eclipse. Yes, my husband has seen all the Twilight movies and is happy to watch them with me.
On Saturday, Sebastian and I left for our minimized anniversary celebration. We had a delicious meal that made us want to just sleep, but we had tickets to see Beatles "Love" just like we did on our honeymoon. At this point, I walk a lot slower and stairs are very difficult for me. We got to the theatre walking hand in hand. Just getting there wore me out. Then, we were asked to climb 3 or 4 flights of stairs. All of a sudden it was every man for himself in Sebastian's world. He left me in the dust. When I finally got to our seats, huffing and puffing, well, Love was not so much in the air. He went to put his arm around me when I said something I have never said to Sebastian before. I turned to him and in a growl said, "DON'T TOUCH ME!" This shocked him. Before the show started, we had already made up and were once again holding hands and enjoying each other's company. I loved the show more the second time than I did the first. And I thought the first time was phenomenal!
The next day, Sebastian and I went to the Bellagio to see the Art show at the gallery. It was wonderful, but I started realizing my limitations yet again. I had to leave the gallery twice because I could not stand any longer and there are no seats in the Bellagio gallery. It was lovely to see the gallery installment, but I was physically unable to stand long periods.
Monday morning, after a nice breakfast, I had to, yet again, put my sweet husband on an airplane. I hate these days. I want to cry from the airport back to St. George. Back to reality. When I got home, I had to go and tell my internship supervisor that I had to go to Salt Lake, and the day that had been selected was July 28. I was heart broken to leave because I was having so much fun. So, come July 23, I had my last day at work. I was now on hold, for now...