What A Difference A Year Makes…

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If you read my “About Me” page, or follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you’ve learned a little about how the past year has gone for my family.

While it’s been the hardest thing we have ever had to go through, at the same time it was a year full of blessings.

In this post, I’d love to share a little more detailed version of our story, from my perspective at least, since today is the official starting point of this story, and a very unique and unforgettable story.

On Valentine’s Day in 2017, we had to go to the maternity unit triage at the hospital for monitoring – I had high blood pressure through the last 3-4 months of pregnancy and it was finally high enough that I was instructed to do a 24-hour urine collection to test for possible protein in my urine, a sign of pre-eclampsia. The single urine sample from monitoring the day before (the 13th) was elevated but not over the threshold, so they wanted a better picture (I found out a few days later that my 24-hour sample was totally within normal ranges).

So my cold, exhausted, pale, but tough husband and I gave our son kisses goodbye and an extra hug, with the foreboding feeling that we wouldn’t be coming back home that night. We debated leaving the hospital bag behind but it’s a good thing we changed our minds. We were both so worried about the baby and about me, hoping they didn’t tell us I had to have an emergency C-section because of the protein and high blood pressure (which definitely wasn’t helping my anxiety and blood pressure to stay low); neither one of us was really thinking about the fact that Eric had gone down our maybe 4-car long driveway once and back with the snowblower and he had to stop and sit because he felt winded and tired.

I’ll spare the details in the interest of the length of this story, but as the fates would have it I went to a labor room to be induced (thank god I was already 3.5cm dilated so all I needed was pitocin for it!) and Eric went to the ICU for blood transfusions, after a frantic after hours all from his doctor who was in an absolute panic about his blood work results.

Which brings us to the official start of our cancer story.

I’m sure my husband has his very own take on this, but today is both a wonderful day and one we hopefully, someday, will be able to think of without thinking of the little black cloud. (This is long, so bear with me.)

Around 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning, exactly one year ago, I was lying in a delivery bed, exhausted from being awake since 5am the day before, after a 3-hour night sleep the night before (damn pregnancy bladder and insomnia). I was trying hard to focus on contractions, impatiently wishing I could just get this all over with already, but at the same time trying to not be too eager for the end until I knew if Eric was ok. He wouldn’t miss seeing our new baby born, would he? I couldn’t stand the thought of that.

Lucky for me, at this point on no sleep and an empty stomach but for ice, the contractions were finally getting strong enough to make me vomit a couple times. I finally was distracted enough to stop worrying about Eric. I mean, I hadn’t heard anything in hours, so he must be ok but just sleeping, right?

As it turns out, the answer to that question at the time would have been “we don’t know if he’s ok, but he’s alive.”

His blood levels were beyond dangerously low, the ICU doctors were absolute bewildered that he had managed to carry a heavy hospital bag across the hospital for us/me (I do not know how to pack light!), and they still didn’t know what was making him so sick (besides being pale, exhausted, and cold, he also had a nasty cough that knocked the wind out of him multiple times per day). And it wasn’t until yesterday that he told me that while sitting in the ICU getting blood transfusions, his nurses told him to call for them the second he started to feel like he could fall asleep because they weren’t very confident that he’d be able to wake back up.

When you put all the pieces together, once we have them all a year later, you realize that the timing of us going to the hospital for MY medical needs was incredible and perfect. By all accounts and by the opinions of multiple doctors, he probably only had hours to a day or two at most to live by the time he got there. If that’s not getting him to the right place, in the nick of time, then I don’t know what is.

But back to our story.

At around 9:45 that morning, I was still only about 3.5-4cm dilated and decided I needed a bathroom break. Why my water had to wait to break until I sat back down on the bed I will never know – Murphy’s law, maybe (you know the one:  whatever can go wrong, will go wrong!). From there it took me a far-too-fast 30ish minutes to dilate to 10cm. When they had the doctor checked, in a bemused tone he predicted I’d be dilated to about 6cm (he’d already checked a few times that morning at my request and was clearly not thrilled at my impatience). I’ll never forget the half smile on his face and how casually he said “oh, well that was quick. I guess you’re ready to start pushing now, whenever you’re ready.” The nurses hadn’t even fully finished getting their supplies prepped and everyone gowned up!

Luckily my amazing, quiet, sweet nurse was on top of things, and looked over her shoulder to yell “CALL FOR DAD!” They all knew our incredibly unique situation and were working with the ICU nurses to coordinate Eric’s presence, if possible. I held on and fought the urge to push – things were moving too fast and I didn’t want to have Eric miss any of this if I could help it. A few minutes later Eric arrived in my room, wheeled up by his wonderful nurses who broke the rules and did a jailbreak so he’d be able to witness the birth of his baby.

With Eric finally by my side (wearing a “dress,” of all things! ????), I pushed for just 12 minutes and we were able to welcome, together, our wonderful little “Anya Vi” into the world. (Her name is Eliana with the nickname “Anya,” and her middle name is Valentina, after my grandmother, whose nickname is “Vi.”)

Here was this amazing little miracle.

She had given me so much anxiety for the last month or two, because she had measured small (37th percentile) on ultrasound since the beginning of pregnancy and near the end I was told to expect “maybe 7lbs” at birth. Well, I should have made a note that this girl would have her own plans for me to contend with in the future, because instead, she came out an 8lb 4oz bundle of fat rolls and just under 22 inches long. I finally had my little girl!

For the entire pregnancy I thought it would be a girl. But I felt the same with Alex, so I told myself I felt it wrong and we were having another boy. I will never forget Eric saying “it’s a girl!” and me, looking at Anya in disbelief, saying, “are you sure?” and everyone laughing and saying yes, he’s right, she’s just a little swollen at the moment. Sorry baby girl; mama was just too tired and my vision went blurry (with tears of joy)!

And here we are now, having celebrated her very first birthday today. What an incredible difference we see from last year to today.

Over the course of a year we’ve had to learn so much more than we ever wanted to about medical leave/disability, health insurance navigation, our way around the hospital and cancer center, how to handle taxes on disability payments. But more importantly, we’ve had to learn that no matter what, the things that matter the most are living and breathing right beside you.

We’ve had to learn that the only way out of a dark hole is to start climbing, because if you wait for the walls to erode, it just won’t ever happen.

I’m sharing all of this with you today because well, first, there are lessons to be learned that I hope no one else needs to learn through tragedy and adversity. I’m sharing this because I know somewhere out there, someone else is struggling with a negative medical diagnosis, a tough time making ends meet, or the heavy stress of not knowing exactly how to handle all of the things that need to be taken care of yet you feel so unprepared and overwhelmed.

I’m here to tell you that you CAN get past it.

You CAN fight whatever is holding you back or holding you down.

One of these days, I think I’m going to have my husband write a guest post for me, about how truly amazing a thing it is to have positivity. He is a truly special guy, who can find something to at least smile (if not laugh his butt off) about in just about every situation. I’m pretty much the exact opposite. If it hadn’t been for this talent of his, I’m sure this would have been a much harder year.

When life knocks the wind out you, stop, regroup, figure out your absolute basic, minimum needs, and make sure those are met. Add back in one extra thing at a time – get help if you need it. You CAN get through it, and if you can only manage to keep your chin up and remind yourself of how strong you are, then you WILL get through anything.

I know not all of my readers will have strong religious convictions, and that’s ok. But someday I might share the side of this story that deals with how much stronger our faith became because of all this (some might say in spite of all this). From the first hours in the ICU to the fact that his doctors (and their colleagues around the world) are unable to explain how he got to a complete remission – his subtype of leukemia averages a 30% survival rate and in the last 10 years since it was discovered, only 3 other patients out of thousands have ever achieved remission without a bone marrow transplant – it’s all just a little too coincident and incredible.

Now I’m no math whiz, but if that doesn’t add up to a miracle situation, I don’t know what does.

I know we are all struggling with different things – some life-changing, like a medical diagnosis, and some a little less disruptive, like trying to get out of debt.

But they are all equal struggles in terms of how much stress they can cause.

I’m here to support you, whatever you may be going through; know that you ALWAYS will have someone on your side, no matter what you are going through.

Thanks for sticking it out and reading my story. Please feel free, if you like, to share what you’re struggling with. Maybe if we can all support each other in our times of need, the world could be just a little bit brighter of a place.