Three days to drink a gatorade - ouch!

I think the #1 piece of advice I would ever give someone going through something similar to me is to not take everything to seriously. It can be hard not to drown in our own pity party when confronted with a diagnosis that is unpredictable and revolves around your very existence, but you have to find a way to keep swimming! Everyone has there own way of dealing - I personally find great comfort in humour. I like to smile even when I feel like crying. When I'm crying - I like to try to laugh. Trust me on this one, it can be done! It reminds me of a funny story from a few years ago. I was driving my bestie Sarah (aka - Bing) to the airport and we got pulled over for taking a wrong left turn between 4 and 7 pm. This was one of those days that started out bad and just got worse. Here we are already running late, the traffic was ridiculous that day and so I decided to take a de-tour. Our de-tour ended up almost making poor Sarah miss her flight. To top it all off when the cops pulled us over I remembered that I had an overdue ticket from before not paid. (Nice - 2 tickets in less then a month) I'm freaking out thinking they are going to tow my car (because in lovely Ontario when you don't pay your fine on time - they temporarily suspend your license until you pay them a whopping $150 to reinstate it - Most excellent Ted)! So as we sit in the car thinking my car is going to get towed and Sarah is going to miss her flight - I start to tear up. Sarah is comforting me and I'm telling her maybe we should get her a taxi when out of the side of my eye I see the other cop in the car. With tears still streaming down my face I stop mid-sentence and say to Bing "Um is that other cop back there a hottie or what?"....WE BUST OUT LAUGHING. The lesson here is we can almost always find a way to lesson the stress of the situation we find ourselves in.

February 8 was the day my tonsil surgery was scheduled. Two days prior you have to go in for the pre-op exam to make sure you are healthy enough for surgery. I'm still a little vague on exactly what they checked that day that 'ensured' I was ready for surgery but apparently I was set. You see the nurse, then the anesthesiologist (umm he was a jerk) and then the regular doctor on site (totally nice guy). They do the usual mis-mosh of exciting things - weigh you (AHHHHH), measure your height, check your blood-pressure and that was it. That was it!! That was it except for the lovely anesthesiologist being extremely rude to me, telling me I was obese (yes you heard me correctly) and saying it was a real epidemic in our society. He was rude, arrogant and completely off-side. I'm not exactly sure where they find some of these bafoons in our health care industry but they really make it bad for all the wonderful, amazing doctors out there. I won't bore you with all the details but needless to say he wasn't my anesthesiologist after that initial meeting.

Tonsil surgery day arrived and I was totally nervous. I've never really had surgery before and although getting your tonsils out seems routine - I was scared just a 'lil bit. I was equally nervous about what they would find once they took it out. :-( ... Lucky for me my folks flew out to be with me during the surgery and then take care of me after. St. Mikes was great and all the staff as well (for the most part)! Dr. Lee my ENT was amazing and made me feel very comfortable and relaxed. Before the surgery he comes in to see you and make sure you are good. He also introduced me to my new anesthesiologist. UMMM hellooo...cha-ching...jackpot!!! He was straight out of Grey's Anatomy..."Hello McSteamy". All of a sudden I was completely aware that I was not in my Saturday night Best's and was in this ugly hospital gown with no make up and my hair tied back with my mother giving me the stare and trying to see if he had a ring on. Typical!!! (it was pretty funny though). Now from what I remember on all the TV shows (ER, Chicago Hope, Grey's, Private Practice) they wheel you into the operating room and by the time you get there you are already OUT. Not so this day. I had to walk myself right into the operating room and pull my lovely self right onto the operating table. There were jelly pads for my head and I had to stretch my arms right out on both sides of me. Then they hooked me up to all the heart monitors and ask if I want to hold my own oxygen over my mouth which of course I did. (umm can you spell A N X I E T Y) .. The last thing I remember is Dr. McSteamy saying he was putting a little medicine in my arm now and holding my handdd...and BAM - Out like a light.

The surgery went really well and Dr. Lee was super happy with the results as he was able to completely take my right tonsil out and it was encased. This means that anything that was in the tonsil had not spread. He spoke to my folks while I was still out and suggested it would be good for them to stay until I came back in for the results. When I heard this I knew it wasn't going to be good news. I just knew.

The next week was pretty brutal. Recovering from tonsillectomy at 35 is no walk in the park but non-the-less easier then what was yet or is yet to come. It took me 3 days to drink a small bottle of Gatorade because it was sooo painful to swallow. Thank goodness for liquid codiene. They tried to give me T3's to swallow when I was coming out of the anesthesia and I crackd some joke about not being able to barely swallow my own spit let alone a T3 and told them to sign me up for the liquid crack instead. haha The next two weeks were a liquid diet. I healed up great though with the help of my very holistic mother. She had all kinds of remedies and oils and stuff that helped me get back on my feet.

Check-up and diagnosis day arrives. I really thought we would go in and Dr. Lee would say how awesome the surgery went and they didn't find anything. Boy was I wrong. The surgery did go well and I healed awesome but no one can ever brace themselves for the following...

'You have Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma'! WTF!