Humble Pie

I'm a fairly private person.  My introvert side whipped into a frenzy when I opted to come out of the cancer closet last week.  Word is spreading in the community and to our families at school.  It was no easy task, but coming out has made me privy to the grandest event I've ever witnessed.  Everyone is exuding the most brilliant energy.  There is a golden aura encapsulating the world emulating from people’s love and light.  A whirlwind of human greatness swirls around me and I’ve got the best seat in the house.  

Cancer, you may have bested me before but now you're down in the count.  Prepare to be defeated.  You gained the upper hand when it was just me and my small band of Merrymen.  We’re not easily conquered.  AND now we have an army.  The people by my side has multiplied ten fold.  Checkmate.    

A Turkish proverb states, "Tell me who your friend is and I will tell you who you are."  In this essence, I am Jenn's brilliance, Sarah's exuberance, Tiff's animation, Lyndsey’s generosity, Betsy's empathy, Shelley's vivacity, Dad's strength, Susan’s tenacity, Aunt Deb’s consideration and the Brown Moms' fervor.  PLUS the millions of traits bestowed upon me by everyone I didn’t name... and so desperately want to name.  I’ll start a new blog and call it: I Want To Thank Everyone Personally But Can’t So I’m Writing Your Name On This Blog Which is Not Even Close to Being Good Enough But I Don’t Know How Else to Thank You and I’m Getting Buried Under a Mountain of Indebtedness.  That has a nice ring to it.  

The outpouring of love from the Brown community has been purely epic/monumental/heroic.  The masses are rallied to my side and the flood gates opened.  Students are starting to hear about me from their parents.  With a gentle tone and loving smile I ask the kids who have “that look” if there is anything they want to talk to me about.  Their precious and perfect answer, alongside an expression of concern and compassion, is a variation of, “I’m sorry to hear you have cancer.”  Questions about how I’m feeling follow.  I assure them I'm doing GREAT.  “I’ve found some really good doctors who are going to help me.”  I receive lots of hugs.  Today, I was excitedly handed an envelope.  Upon opening it, I found a handmade card with a picture of a kitty that reads, "I hope this will help".... and six dollars.  

Jenn Stuart, marketing revolutionary and graphic designer extraordinaire, has secured my place in history with the dawn of Drahota Lives and www.drahotalives.com.  Anyone who doesn't know what to do with a few extra bucks can get rid of them here.  Rest assured, this body you're helping me fix will be amply taken care of.  I'm very good about my diet, with the occasional exception of a mini Snickers self-propelling itself into my mouth.  I can’t control that.  I always wear my seat belt.  I recycle.  I can't wait to get back to regular workouts and yoga.

Aside from school/work, I’m officially out in social media.  I act like Facebook is ridiculous, and it is, but I gotta say it's shown me a lot of love recently.  Thank you for taking the time to reach out to me.  Your words are heard.  Friends and friends of friends shared the link to drahotalives.com and urged facebookers around the globe to donate.  The power of social media is quite mind blowing.  


Whilst enjoying my favorite app in the universe, Spotify, "Who's Thinking About You Now" began crooning in my eardrums.  I froze.  Everyone.  The realization I had in that moment is:  Everyone is thinking about me.  Not just thinking but donating and organizing and being brilliant and caring and FAR too generous.  I will simply continue to sink into a debt of gratitude towards half of the planet for everything that's happening.  I don't deserve any of this but I'm reveling in the miracle of it.






Extra Mayo, Please!

Give me all the mayo in a five hundred mile radius!!!  I don't even eat dairy!  Is mayo actually dairy or just synthetic?  Who cares!  What am I rambling on about when I have the BEST NEWS EVER.  


The Mayo Clinic can fix me!!!!  Ask and you shall receive!  (see previous post)  I didn't get a dashing, young doctor but what I did get is one trillion times better:  life.  At my appointment terms like "long life" and "decades" were being thrown around.  I basked in their glory.  

Dr. David Nagorney, the surgeon we met with and my new hero, can operate to remove the vast majority of my disease.  Happy dance, happy dance, happy dance!  Shout from the rafters, sing songs of joy, dance in the streets!!!!  On the chopping block is the primary tumor, located in the pancreas, part of my liver, gallbladder and spleen.  Peace out!  Left behind will be the pancreatic head or about 40% of the organ.  This is enough pancreas for me to live normally, I will not need insulin or enzymes.  More dancing!  The pancreatic body and atrophic tail will be resected.  The left side of my liver or the worst looking part, will also meet its maker.  Then, any left over liver tumors will be ablated Burn baby, burn!  Since the cancer has micrometastasis in the blood, there is the strong chance of returning incidents.  Following surgery, I will be monitored over the years for tumors that may crop up.  These will be put on watch if they aren't causing any problems or ablated if they are. 

Surgery isn't scheduled yet.  First, I must clear up a few pesky details like work stuffs and how to pay for any of this.  Then,  Rochester, Minnesota here I come... again.  New favorite place, right Tiff?  

Finally, a plan!  Better yet, a plan that makes sense!  I didn't know it but this is what I've been looking for over the past 8 months.  Even better is a plan involving an abundance of living time afterwards!  Saying I'm happy would be an immense understatement.  But still true.  It's now Wednesday and this news was delivered Monday, I'm still floating on cloud nine.  Life is good again.  Stress released.  Smile returned and multiplied seventy jillion times.  

Dad, I couldn't have done this without your quiet company as you tirelessly criss-crossed the Midwest to haul me back and forth to Minnesota, often in snow and the dead of night.  Sherp, #PIC.  Mom, we got our plan.  Deb and Kendall, watching Lola is no easy task but you have prevailed remarkably.  You, readers of this little blog o' mine, we did it.  It was your prayers, love, light, cards, thoughts, messages, lunches, late nights that held me upright when I was crumbling   Now, we just sit back and let the experts at Mayo take over.  



My beautiful people here in Denver are planning a fundraiser in my honor.  Wild, yeah?  A younger me would have silently backed away with raised eyebrows thinking they are coo-coo for Coco Puffs if someone had said there'd be fundraiser held for me at 32 years of age.  Stay tuned for more details.  It's going to be a big, fat party and you're all invited!!!   

Let the good times roll!!!!!!!!!!!!!  







Corn Maze


I'm going to tell you what I want.  I don't feel as though I'm asking too much.  And I certainly don't see why I'm NOT getting what I want.

Here goes.....

An exceedingly experienced and handsome doctor strides purposefully into my assigned hospital room.  He shakes my hand, knows I'm the patient, and is quite taken with my youth and vibrance.  He's poured over my medical records for hours.  He is desperately sorry this is happening to me and he has a plan.  He lays out said plan and I'm whisked away to be fixed accordingly.

Warning:  prepare for full-on ranting.

The week prior to my trip to Mayo was spent gathering the medical records they requested.  Did they ask for a copy of one thing I could easily obtain?  Nope.  The list was long.  Could any of it be found in the same place by contacting one person?  Nope.  Day after day I made phone call after phone call to place after place.  The report and slides from my biopsy, all of my scans and the accompanying reports, notes from each chemo treatment, my full medical record and surgical report and notes from my physicians.  Were the slides they'd given me the correct ones?  Nope.  The day I was getting on a plane for Mayo, I copied all of the records I collected.  I'm obsessed with knowing all there is about what's happening to me.  While doing this, I discovered the error.  One meltdown and three hundred ninety-two phone calls later, my slides were found at the University of Colorado.  So I PT Cruised over there to pick them up.  Alright, I was all set!   The stress was worth it because I was finally going to Mayo!  Hooray!

After flying into Minneapolis Tuesday night and driving to Rochester in a snow storm, we awoke early Wednesday morning so I could have blood work done and a CT scan.  The rest of the day was spent in Rochester.  Dad found a great lunch spot serving gluten free selections (and wine!).  The best part was girl time with my sis!  What would I do without you, Fry?  You are my Sherpa, my rock, my twin, my BFF and partner in crime.

Remember the aforementioned wants?  I was ready.  Thursday was the big day, time to kick ass and take names!  What actually transpired was a brief, highly unfulfilling meeting with an oncologist and then I spent the weekend in Nebraska.  All they told me I needed to meet with a surgeon after having an MRI.  I'd nearly thrown up in the waiting room before my appointment.  After checking in and finding a seat on one of the couches, I became abruptly, terribly nauseous.  I wasn't sick.  I was overwhelmed, fervent, anxious, exhausted, insane, petrified.  My Sherp hassled the nurses for some H2O and I started chugging water.  It was all for not, though, because nothing happened.  There are three ways to treat cancer:  surgery, chemotherapy, radiation.  The liver is not typically radiated, leaving surgery and chemo as my options.

Exiting my appointment with zero answers, Mom and Tiff headed to Minneapolis to catch flights back to Denver.  Dad and I sat waited out the hours before my MRI time which was 6:30 pm and when I finished around 8:00 pm, we started the 6 hour drive back to Nebraska.  The other options would have been staying in Rochester over the weekend or flying to Denver and then back to MN.  It was a lose/lose situation.  Rochester is not exactly a hopping place.  Dad drove through the night and we finally sank into bed around 2:30 am.

What confuses me, among every single thing in the health care system, is this:  why didn't the surgeon just come to my appointment?  If they knew I needed a surgical consolation, why wasn't he or she there to consult?  Why wasn't an MRI ordered in the first place instead of a CT scan?  Why did they take up my time to tell me they can't tell me anything?   Clearly I'm not running the health care system because it would not be this disjointed.  Everything about it is wrong.  So now I sit in the Midwest, waiting for a Monday appointment with the surgeon to see if surgery is a possibility.   Preceded by a 6 hour drive back to Minnesota, it should take about 1.5 milliseconds.  The answer is either yes or no.

UGH!  It's getting harder and harder to contain my Godzilla side.  Perhaps it's just time to let it go.





I'm sorry to my Nebraska people for not being in contact.  My trip to Nebraska was literally last minute.  I simply need some down time.  I also do not want my pent-up rage to be unleashed unnecessarily on the wrong people.  Please except my deepest apologies.   I truly love you all.



Mayo on the Side

I finally get why they call it a fight.  I'm in quicksand fighting my way out.  Little known fact:  you're not supposed to struggle should you find yourself in quicksand as it causes you to sink faster.  But struggle I am.  In my skewed perspective of how things work, I envisioned doctors and nurses gracefully, magically appearing at my bedside with reassuring smiles as they inject new and improved drugs into my IV.  Meanwhile, a lovely cocktail of pain meds keeps a blissful grin on my face as I slip into peaceful slumber.  The drugs devour the cancer cells and pain medication brings hazy, enchanted dreams.  Birds land on the windowsill and sing cheery tunes while bunnies and squirrels change the bedding and fluff the pillows.  

Apparently, this is not the case.

I called the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota last week to, as I can only find one way to explain it, beg them to save my life.  I had no idea how much work it is to have cancer.  I called Mayo for an appointment with a nueroendrocrine specialist.  I am constantly researching.  I am reading book after book about cures, symptom containment, herbal remedies, and more.  I have to decide what to do.  I have to adjust this straight jacket because it's a bit difficult to type. I emailed my Interventional Radiologist this week and ASKED to be chemoed.  I'm officially looney bin material.  If we are putting surgery on hold for awhile, I decided to do another chemo treatment to the liver.  There are new tumors on the right side and they did not ask nicely to hang out in my abdomen.  No "please" means you meet Dr. Johnson and his little bag of tricks.

I feel great and I'd say it's mostly attributed to the fact I now weld the control.  Power is exhilarating.  All the movies I've seen with a power-hungry lead character who must destroy anything in his way are totally true.  Move over Thor and Captain America!  There's a new superhero in town.

I must specify: move into my place Thor and Captain America.

So, I'm off to majestic Minnesota.  I hear it's lovely this time of year.  The doctors at the Mayo Clinic better have their game faces on, otherwise you'll hear my Godzilla-portioned tirade from your respective location on the planet.  Maybe someone should warn them.