(KW) Picture this: May,
2023 – I was going about my business of being a Corporate Supplier Diversity
Manager by day, and a part-time Group Fitness Instructor by night. 2022 had been a big transition year for
me. I had been on a fitness journey and
had gotten in a lot better shape. I was
almost a year into a great, new job at GE Appliances. I had visited their Louisville
campus several times, each time, having a blast, and had great travel plans,
both personal and business, planned for the remainder of 2023. Well, you know what they say… ‘If you want to
make God laugh, make plans.’
I started having a couple of pains in my side. My first thought was that my dog had pulled
me too hard as I was walking him, but after a few nights of it not
subsiding, I decided to schedule a doctor’s appointment. I had researched it on WebMD and I was
*pretty* sure they were going to admit me for an emergency appendectomy. While I wasn’t in searing pain, when I went
to my normal family practice doctor for my 9AM appointment, I took a bag with
my deodorant, toothbrush, iPad and charger.
I told my husband to be prepared to come to the ER later that evening.
But the doctor’s appointment did not go how I thought it
would. I give credit to my family
doctor. She quickly dismissed my theory
about needing my appendix removed. She
asked a battery of qualifying questions, each one more serious-sounding than
the previous one. And to my surprise, I
found myself saying “yes” to most of them.
She typed, rapid-fire, on her keyboard and started ordering tests. I said to her, “You think this is cancer,
don’t you?” And she said, “We need to
rule it out.”
A blood test led to a CT scan. The CT scan led to a PET scan. The PET scan led to a biopsy. And the biopsy led to the conclusive findings
that I have cancer. When they called me
to schedule my first appointment at the oncologist’s office, I, of course,
knew. I angrily said to both my mother
and husband, “I wouldn’t be seeing an oncologist if it wasn’t cancer!”
The 9 days leading up to that June appointment were a
blur…surprisingly, I wasn’t an emotional wreck.
I was more in research mode. I
read everything I could find on the internet – ranging from the Journal of American
Medicine to blog sites. One of the best
things I did, however, was join a particular Facebook group of people who have
my exact type of cancer. It is amazing
1) how many people are a part of it, 2) how many are my age or younger, and; 3)
how many stories are just.like.mine.
Like, eerily similar. More on
this Facebook group, later….
We drove about 45 minutes from our home to Danville, PA,
where my medical system has their main hospital and campus. We met first with a Fellow, and then the
doctor that was actually the Chair of their Cancer program. Their message was dire. They both advised that I needed to start chemo
immediately and the goal was to prolong my life. I asked about surgery (because, as you can
image, I want it out of me) and was told that I was not a surgical
candidate. I rephrased my question and asked
what needed to happen in order to become a surgical candidate. To which the doctor responded, “that is
highly unlikely.” We left in a daze, but
at least had the sense enough to walk across the medical campus to the records
office. We asked for my scans and all my
test results and in 5 minutes, they handed over a disc. When we got in the car, I posted on that
Facebook group what had just happened.
Before we pulled in our driveway, I had no less than 40 other people
saying that their local oncologists had told them the same thing
when they had their first meeting. And
they shared that they had gotten a much different message and treatment plan
when they ventured out of their home towns and went to either a large cancer
institute, or had simply requested to meet with a surgical oncologist.
Thus began the largest “sourcing RFP” I’ve ever run. The month of June consisted of a routine like
this: I would call a major cancer center and talk
to their scheduling desk. I would
request an appointment as a new patient. They would request my scans to be sent
to them before they would agree to even a consult. My husband would burn a copy. I would FedEx them off. I would get a call back telling me yes, they
had received them and yes, they would schedule me for a consult.
Through both the Facebook group, and a woman at GE
Appliances who has become a dear friend, the name “Memorial Sloan Kettering”
kept popping up. Since we’re in Central
PA, we figured it wasn’t too far of a drive and that became the front-runner as
I searched for a new treatment “home.”
In mid-July, we made the drive to Manhattan. We met
with a team of doctors (not just one, which was really great) and they laid out
a plan. Or at least a path to a plan, if
that makes sense. They became the
“captain” of my medical team and started communicating with a local oncology
center (15 minutes away from our house) on the exact “chemo cocktail” that I
should receive, moving forward.
As we were driving back to PA that evening, I said to my
husband that I was worried that they had really said the same thing as the
first oncologist that we met with….but they had just said it nicer, and in a
much classier, snazzier building. He
disagreed, and said they said I wasn’t a surgical candidate yet and
they had laid out a path to get there.
And that, folks, is the first chapter in my cancer
story.
More posts/updates to come….
P.S. For privacy
reasons, I’ve decided that I don’t want to publicly share what type of cancer I
have or what stage it is. But, as most
of you will be able to gather from reading this blog moving forward, it’s not
an easy or simple cancer (not that any cancers are). A simple Google search tells me how dire the
statistics are, but I try to not doom scroll too much. I’m trying to focus my energy on 1) my
chemotherapy treatments, 2) my mental health, 3) my work – which fuels me and
give me purpose in life (not to mention, the most wonderful health insurance,
which I feel incredibly grateful and blessed), and; 4) my friends and
family.
