Five Year Anniversary of Life Changing News

• "They found a really big mass. You need to get your life in order because this will be a significant surgery to remove it."

• "It doesn't look like cancer. The bloodwork doesn't show anything indicating cancer, but we won't know until we get in there to remove it and see what we're dealing with."

• "The surgery should only be about 1-1/2 to 2 hours."

• "Plan on an overnight stay at the hospital, but shouldn't be more than a day or so."

Today is October 19, 2016. That means it was five years ago today that this surgery took place. A surgery to remove a "large mass." A mass that my co-workers lovingly referred to as Cyrano. I looked as though I was 6-7 months pregnant with this "mass" inside of me so they decided it needed a name. I think it helped everyone make some sense of what was going on with my body and sometimes humor is the best coping mechanism. Either laugh or cry, right?

What wound up happening is that, once they opened my abdomen, they immediately found the unexpected and something the doctors did not understand. A very rare form of cancer. The "mass" was not a mass at all. Cyrano turned out to be one of my ovaries that had become massive inside due to a large quantity of mucin from a tumor on my appendix. They initially believed it to be ovarian cancer, scaring my best friends and family horribly. Then it was identified as appendix cancer. One of many quite rare cancers that doctors don't even know about. That began the last five years of my life. And the lives of those close to me.

The 90 minute surgery turned into five hours and the overnight hospital stay wound up being a five night stay on the cancer floor. Many phone calls. Many hospital visitors. Friends saying that they really needed to lay eyeballs on me after hearing the unbelievable news. Doctors trying to come up with a treatment plan for something they had no idea what it was. My best friend trying to figure out how to tell my family. My ex-husband. My kids. How do you tell these people that their mom, ex-wife, daughter, sister, friend was just diagnosed with cancer? Prognosis? No idea. We don't even know exactly what this is. My daughter was 15 years old and taking her driver's education class when the news came to my friends. My son was a young 20 years old and had just moved back home after living for 14 months on his own in Arizona.

Thus began the cancer journey. CT scans. Chemo or not chemo? Doctor appointment after doctor appointment. Lab after lab for this test or that test. Many barium drinks. The crinkled brows of many doctors when they hear of cancer. "Appendix cancer? I've never heard of that. How did they treat that?" "Are you in remission now?" The hearing of other people with this cancer journey. Getting to know a young couple online as the husband was diagnosed a couple of months before me. Journeying with them as his body succumbed to it a few short years later, leaving behind a beautiful young wife and nine month old baby girl. (** side note ** One of the positive things from this journey has been the friendship with his wife. Alyssa is an absolutely incredible young woman who I have grown to care about very much.... definitely a gift in my life) An interesting realization I had today was that my son is now the same age as Nick was during his struggle with this horrible illness. What a reality check that was.

I look back at the past five years and I remember so much. I think about the aspects of my life that have changed. The work God has done in me and through me. The changes in my relationships that I thought for sure were permanent. That I had faith in. The bond that has grown deeper with others, including with my kids, my best friend, and even my ex-husband (even though we will never be "together" again, we both sure love and appreciate the ability to remain family). My relationship with myself. My desire to live life to the full. To make memories. To travel. To fulfill my purpose. To love.  To try not to embrace the negative parts that Satan tries to blanket my life with.

Five years. It's hard to believe it's been that long, while at the same time it's hard to believe it's only been five years. Sometimes it seems so long ago. I'd like to end this post with one of the biggest things I have learned over the past five years. Gratitude. I've learned to focus more on what I'm grateful for than what is wrong with my life, with society, with this, that, and everything else.

I am grateful for:

• A healthy life
• A warm home
• The medical world and people who have gone before me who paved the way that allowed me to remain healthy.
• My amazing children
• My soulmate/best friend
• Relationships 
• My beautiful nieces and nephews - blood related as well as adopted 
• Humor
• A calling from God that allows me to use my passion towards walking with people on their journeys towards healing and just loving on them
• The ability to drive freely where I choose with a capable vehicle to get me where I desire to go
• My church family and leadership whom I love and respect in so many ways
• Affirmations from unexpected places
• The ability to watch my children grow and become adults I can be proud of
• The opportunity to live in a free country that allows us the ability to speak freely, worship how we choose, stand for what we feel is important, and travel openly where we choose
• First responders who are waiting to help us when we call
• The AWESOME artwork of God that we too often take for granted in the Pacific Northwest
• Technology - internet, cell phones, computers, and on and on
• SO many more things that I could be here all day listing. 

MOST of all, I am grateful for the love of a Heavenly Father who granted me healing and allows me to remain here on this earth to hopefully bless people as much as they have blessed me. And to show people God's love so they know they have someone who cares, even in the darkest of places. 

all contents (c) 2016 Laura Inglis