Stress

Well, my hubby goes in to the hospital to talk to the financial people on Monday. Yes, being sick is NOT cheap. Throughout this whole thing I have had many many bills. One trip on Life Flight is $15,000. Yes....and I flew twice. The bill from the biopsy surgery and one night in the ICU was over $28,000. Take my 5 day stay when I had the first preterm contractions at over $23,000 and then my one day stay the second time I had preterm contractions, my port surgery and the cost it will take to remove it. Now add in all the gas to get to the appointments....all the sonograms and high risk appointments. Yeah so anyway the bills have piled up. We have good insurance so much of this has been covered but the hospital has said we still owe about $9,000. We have copays and deductibles and all that. So Jason will go talk to them and see what we can work out. So far we have no Christmas tree and no presents for anyone. I don't think we'll have much this Christmas. I could care less if I get anything...I just want the girls to have a nice Christmas. I was referred to the American Cancer Society for mileage reimbursement, since we have a 1 1/2 hour drive one way each day and of course the drive back totally 3 hours....at the price gas is now it adds up. Not to mention hubby is going back to work and that is a 2 hour drive from where we are at. We would have moved closer to his job already if it wouldn't put us 4 hours away from where I get my treatments. So we are in the middle now. We'll be moving sometime in january. We are looking for a place. We want to buy, but I don't know if it will happen. Medical bills have hurt our credit. Our overall score isn't so good at the moment. We are trying to fix it thought. Ughh these are just some stressful things on my mind and I know for a fact they are more bothersome to the hubby. He bottles it up and it gets him really stressed out. I just get on my blog and vent about it. It helps!

3rd Radiation Treatment Down!

I have 17 treatments in total and I have done 3. I need prayers though because we are having some ice storms this weekend. I want the roads to be clear when we travel on Monday. I do not care for driving on ice! So far I am not feeling much for side effects. It seems I am doing okay at this point. Gabbi is sleeping right now, making some noises. I wonder what she dreams about. She moans and sometimes seems to actually laugh or giggle. But she is only 3 weeks....so I am not sure what she is doing. Now she is kicking her legs and making a sad face. Hmmm do babies have bad dreams? I wonder strange things. :) It's been a long journey getting my sweet baby here but I am thankful for every single second I have with her. God gave me such a wonderful gift. I have four beautiful little girls. I couldn't ever ask for something more wonderful. I didn't do much today. It's Saturday and I do not have treatments on the weekends. So I get to relax. My mother in law has been staying with us while I am going through radiation to help out. She left last night to go visit her mother. Her dad ended up in the hospital with pneumonia. He is about 90 years old so please remember him in your prayers. It's odd. My mother in law moved very far away, came up here to visit us. We happen to live about 50 minutes from her mom and dad. So her dad got sick and she was able to visit him! I think that's pretty amazing. I am going to add a few more pics. Baby is fussing so time for me to go! :)

Started Radiation

Well yesterday I went to my radiation doctor. This was my first appointment and I wasn't sure on what to expect. I went in, and the doctor examined me. The bulk of my tumor is in my chest. I still wasn't expecting the doc to come in and drop my gown to my waist. haha So I sit there quite cold while he pushes and prods on my neck and upper chest area. I felt quite exposed even though I should be used to this by now. I get asked several questions. Do I have difficulty swallowing? Any new problems to speak of? Etc....No. I swallow fine thank goodness. The doc says he thinks we'll do 3 1/2 weeks of radiation. It's 5 days a week. I have to go and be marked for radiation. Basically the radiation is localized. It will be targeted to the area that needs it. There are bad things that can come from radiation...so they don't want to expose areas to it unnecessarily. It can damage my heart...my lungs and other things. The side effects are scary! Fluid around the heart, heart rate slowing down, irregular heartbeat, lung scarring, difficulty swallowing due to damage to the esophogus. Now they told me they have to tell me these things, just like the side effects listed on a bottle of any meds. But still! I had fluid around my heart at the beginning of this cancer thing. It scared me to death. They decided it was just caused by the tumor and should go away. OK but we haven't had it checked since then. My question is what if that fluid is still there and this treatment causes more fluid? Well I am probably being paranoid but I pray that doesn't happen. OK, next they layed me down on the table where I get the radiation. I layed on this cold white pad. It was big and felt like an ice pack before you break it. It was weird. Anyway, they made me lay perfectly straight then looked at my spine and it got 100% straight by pushing me this way and that. Then they took that white pad and scrunched it up around me then I heard whirring. The pad started to scrunch up really tight around me like a cast. It was weird and cool at the same time. I will lay in that mold each time I go. It keeps me straight and alligned. Like I said, targeting only the area needing radiation is extremely important. So after this they mark me...with permanent marker. This keeps me alligned each time as well. They put tape over these marks and if they fade they will remark them. I cannot wash these off. SO attractive let me tell you. So, I get marked and then they take me to another room where I get a CT scan. That didn't take too long. I am eager to hear the results of this since I have NEVER had one in all this. I had an MRI but no CT because of the pregnancy. Anyway after all this I start the actual first treatment Wednesday. Should be interesting. It's going to be really interesting to see how we can afford the gas for this trip each day. At $3.00 a gallon 5 days a week and a 1 1/2 hour drive each way. Yikes. God provides though. It will happen somehow. Here's a pic of me marked for radiation. I hope people don't think I am making some weird religious statment by tattooing my chest. haha It's not permanent! lol