The Phone Call

In early December, I was surprised to get a phone call from Kathy while I was at work. She rarely called me at work unless we had a family emergency. As a matter of fact, the last phone call I received from her during the workweek was when dad fell and broke his hip in late May.

She greeted me with, "sorry to call you at work, but I have a quick question." I responded, "no worries, what's up?" Our conversation proceeded with a discussion around my gallbladder disease that was well in my past after surgery to remove the big, nasty, non-functioning bad boy. She said that she was having pain in her upper back and after eating a small portion of food, she felt as if she had eaten a huge meal.

When she told me about her symptoms and visits for chiropractic care that hadn't produced results, my mind was reeling. I don't like to think of myself as a pessimist, but the first thought that came to mind was a recurrence of her cancer. I felt guilty at the time to let such thoughts creep in, after all everyone has an ache here, a pain there.

She and I agreed that she should make an appointment with her family practitioner just to check out her concerns and for piece of mind. After all, if was something as serious as her gallbladder malfunctioning, she wouldn't miss it if the doctor said it had to go. We laughed about it and decided we would catch up as usual, on Saturday morning.

At First. . . . it was a Backache

It was late November 2008, Kathy was feeling tired, restless, and experiencing a nagging back ache that didn't let up. She had been going to her Chiropractic doctor for the back pain that she had been experiencing since early fall. After several visits, her Chiropractor told her he was not able to treat her pain and advised her to seek other medical assistance. She kept telling me that she just couldn't get enough rest. Sleeping through the night was another issue for her. It seemed to me that the lack of sleep may have been the reason for her not feeling well. The back pain was a huge concern for both of us. We had both read research that metastatic breast cancer goes to bones and liver but we weren't going there!

Hope is Priceless . . . .

First and foremost, I want to begin by saying that hope is priceless and exists if you are on firm ground or hanging by a thread. Therefore, I named this blog "The Journal of Hope" for my sister and her brave fight against breast cancer.

Kathy was diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) in December 2005. She endured chemotherapy, two mastectomies, radiation treatments, lung surgery and finally, cancer blocker drug therapy.

It has been 4 years and counting since the diagnosis. Kathy has hope, she has never lost hope!