I was enjoying my internship thoroughly last June. I had been given my own Summer counseling group with 15 children! It was a huge load for a intern, but I was so excited to tackle the challenge. For some reason I had been getting ill often for the past year and my exhaustion was starting to keep me from doing anything but my internship, including cleaning the house or seeing family and friends.
On June 15th I went to my sweet Grandma's house for lunch. My right leg was hurting and I was finding difficult to stand much longer than 10 minutes. As I sat on her sofa, trying to get the energy to get back to work I looked down at my legs. My right leg was twice the size of my left leg. My Mom freaked because she had experienced DVT's and Phlebitis in her left leg when she was in her early 20's. We went to the Doctor's Free Clinic because, as an intern, I did not have any insurance. The sweet doddling 80-ish doctor stated to us, "Well I have never seen anything like that. I don't know what is going on with your leg."
Three and a half hours later, the sweet ER doctor, who had much fewer years under his belt, came in after I had some blood work and a CT scan and told me that I have cancer. Words will never express what you feel when you hear that statement. I initially thought that maybe it was a minor Cancer that I could overcome easily. The Dr. tried to get me a biopsy that night so that we knew what we were dealing with. The orthopedic docs told him to call the oncologists and the oncologists stated there was no way they were going to touch such a large tumor because they could have spread my cancer if they made a mistake. By large, we are talking about a textbook size tumor, 10 1/2 inches x 7 3/4 inches x 4 1/2 inches.I was sent to the Huntsman Cancer Institute for a biopsy and treatment plan. The entire time I prayed that I could continue with my education with this cancer. How naive I was about being ill and what was ahead of us.
On Father's Day, the sweet Bishop who married Sebastian and I came and gave me a blessing that I would be comforted and strong through what lied ahead of me. we then got in the car and drove to Salt Lake. We got to the hotel about midnight so that we could make our early morning appointment with Dr. Robert Randall, a well renowned Oncological Orthopedic Surgeon and researcher to help find a cure for Sarcomas. He is one of the sweetest doctors I have ever met. He told me that he and his team would stand by my side and get me through cancer. A funny comment he made brought me back to the 80-ish old doctor. Dr. Randall told us that most doctors see 1 to 2 sarcomas in their entire career. I guess that older doctor can retire now, he saw his first Sarcoma. During the appointment, he down-played the seriousness of this tumor. Two days later I had an open biopsy, where they found that I had Mixoid Round Liposarcoma. In layman's terms, this tumor has several different cancer cells within the tumor, it grows in a round fashion (Up and down and deep), and that the tumor lies within my fat cells. But this tumor had also adhered to my Sciatic nerve in 3 spots, which is why I had nerve symptoms. Two days later, I painfully went home with my Mom and Grandma, hopeful this was not going to take over my life.
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