Let me start off with a few dates.
May 29, 2012-Cliff competed at the World Championships for jiu jitsu in Long Beach, CA. He lost his first match by points. He lasted the whole 6 minutes...which is impressive. (I'll get to that in a minute) Later that afternoon Cliff asked me to marry him! Finally we are engaged! We have been together for almost 6 years and have a beautiful daughter together...I'd say it's about time! Cliff also has a 9 year old son from a previous marriage that I get to love like my own.
June 10, 2012-I've had ENOUGH! I told him he was going to the doctor on Thursday because it was his day off and he was driving me crazy. He would lift his hands over his head so he could get a deep breath...it was annoying.
June 11, 2012-Cliff sends me a text and says he is going to Care Now after work. I told him why even bother and go to a place by my job because it's fast and they will be able to take a chest x-ray. I figured they would give him one considering he couldn't breathe. The doctor told him that it might be a little bronchitis, but they would need an x-ray anyways. He completed his x-ray and the doctor came in and told us they found a large mass and would need to do a cat scan. Cliff is calm as always and told me to go home and he'll be there soon. He wanted me to get dinner started and pick up the kids. I told him NO and that I was staying. He got his cat scan and we were told that it would take around 30 minutes for the results. Well sure enough it took a little over an hour. The doctor came in and told us the mass is showing lymphoma signs, but we would need to see an oncologist within the week. She was getting ready to send us home, and over the loud speaker we heard that Dr. Turner (the oncologists) was on the phone and needed to speak with our doctor. She stepped out and came back in and told us we are going to the hospital. The mass was pushing his trachea and that's why he was having a hard time breathing. WHAT? Is this really happening?
June 12, 2012-Dr. Turner came in to see us. He told us that they needed to do a biopsy on the mass and he wanted to get it done asap. We waited ALL day for the surgeon to come in to schedule a date and time. The surgeon told us they would do it tomorrow. Finally we had a time and maybe get an idea of what is going on.
June 13, 2012-Surgery Day! Going in to this we knew that if Cliff came out with a "port" that the biopsy showed signs of cancer. A port is about the size of three nickels they place under the skin so they can easily administer the chemo. I was waiting in the waiting room with Cliff's mom (Dodie), her husband Ricky, and with a ton of other questionable smelly people. The nurses would call a phone in the room and update the families as surgery was happening. They called and said they got started and they were waiting for the pathologist to decide if they would need to put a port in or not. Cliff's sister, Jennifer, showed up so she sat with me in the waiting room while Dodie and Ricky waited downstairs with her kids. The nurse called and said they we're done and that the surgeon would be over shortly to talk with me. We called Dodie to come back upstairs so she could hear the results with us. The surgeon came to the door and I gathered my things so we could speak to him in the hallway. He looked me in the eyes and said it...cancer. My heart dropped...I kept thinking is this really happening? I looked at Dodie and Jennifer and saw how their hearts did the same thing mine did. He didn't have many answers, because more test had to be done. Again, I kept thinking is this really happening? What about Coy, Gabriella, and our future. This isn't supposed to be happening....this wasn't in the plan. We finally got to see Cliff and he was groggy. He asked that I call the boys and let them know. The boys are group of guy's he has managed to get in a lot of trouble with over the years. Phone call, after phone call I got to call his best friends and tell them that Cliff had cancer and I don't know what kind.
June 14, 2012-We had amazing friends and family come to visit us. In and out all day! It was great...it was a distraction. We still didn’t have the results from the pathologist. Having people around helped us. We talked with the Dr. Turner and he told us that chemo would get started after they knew what it was. He gave us an idea of what he thought, but we needed the results first. He told us that a bone marrow test would need to be done in a few weeks, but not to worry about that yet.
June 15, 2012-We talked with Dr. Turner that morning, but still no results. We had still had family and friends around. It was what we needed. That afternoon I was in the hallway talking with someone on the phone and when I walked back in I asked where Cliff was. His family told me that he was in the restroom and that Dr. Turner called and they he would be in within the hour for a bone marrow test. WHAT? This isn't supposed to be happening until later. I knew that doctor was going to tell us something we didn't want to hear. T-Cell Lymphoblastic Lymphoma ended up being the diagnoses. It has to be treated as a stage 4 cancer, because it's extremely aggressive. They needed to a test to ensure the cancer hasn't spread.
June 16, 2012-Chemo Day! Cliff will have to take chemo twice a day for 4 days every 3 weeks for the next 6 months. That's a lot of chemo!
June 17, 2012-Father's Day! We got Cliff a popcorn machine. He's been waiting one. I got this for him before any of this happened. We talked with Coy to let him know what was going on. He had questions and Cliff answered them carefully and truthfully.
June 19, 2012-We are finally home! We didn't have a lot of answers, but we had an idea of what was going on. We are still waiting to see if the cancer has spread, but we won't know that for another week.
June 21, 2012-Cliff shaved his head before his hair started falling out. I took Cliff to the gym so he could watch his teammates shave their heads! It was incredible/emotional!
June 23, 2012-Happy 34th Birthday Cliff!
June 26, 2012-Cliff's bone marrow came back clean! As far as they know the cancer hasn't spread. This was the good news we've been waiting for.
I'm leaving out a lot of details, but I need to feed Gabriella soon ;) Some of you might be wondering if he had any signs. I'll touch on that a different day.
This is hard...this honestly just sucks. We've been happy, sad, and angry. I've cried in the shower numerous of times. I hate this! I hate that this is happening! Cliff has an amazing spirit. He doesn't ask why him? He's saying what next so we can put this behind us. We had the next year planned with having a wedding and buying a house. These things will still happen, but just not the way we had planned. This is a road block. Things will get harder, before they get easier. We have every reason to believe that Cliff will beat this and we will move on.
Without our family and friends this would be unbearable. We are thankful for each and every one of them. We couldn't do this without them.
Cliff is doing well. His next treatment will begin July 9th if all goes as planned. He goes to the doctor a lot! Next week he has 4 appoitments.
No comments:
Post a Comment