Wednesday, September 7, 2016
The day I got cancer.
What began this journey you ask?
Well let’s journey back a couple days.
On the Sunday before, I was out with my sister. We went out to get Olive Garden in Myrtle Beach. I remember sitting in her car and having a really bad, sore pain in my hip. I didn’t really think much of it.
Tuesday.
The day before I got diagnosed with cancer.
I had talked to my parents about getting parents for our school’s career day that we had every Wednesday because I had a lot of bruises on my legs and I didn’t want people thinking my parents abused me or anything.
Well anyways … I went to school on that Tuesday morning, but about halfway through my first class, I texted my mom telling her I didn’t feel so well. So she agreed to come get me. I was sitting in my second class, which was my math class, at 10:30 when my teacher told me my mom was here to pick me up.
On our way home from school, we went to the store to get something to fix for lunch. We were checking out when I started to feel really faint. I told my mom I had to sit down because I felt as if I was going to pass out. I went and found a bench to sit on and I waited for my mom. That’s when I started to feel really nauseated. I got up to go find the bathroom when my mom walked out saying she was finished. I told her that I had to throw up and so we rushed to the bathroom. She told me I looked as pale as a ghost and then we went home.
I remember I went to the loveseat and just crashed. I basically stayed asleep until the next morning. My mom had woken me up at some point and told me I was going to stay home the next day.
Back to Wednesday, Sept 7
I woke up that next morning with this huge blister thing on my lip. It was filled with blood and there was blood in and around my mouth. We tried to clean it but it didn’t really work. I went into my room to go change into pajamas (because I never changed out of my clothes from the day before) and I looked in the mirror at my hip and there was a VERY large bruise on my hip.
I rushed into the kitchen, where my mother was, and showed her the bruise. She immediately called my dad, who was at work at the time, and told him he needed to rush home and I needed to go to the doctor.
In what should’ve been an hour trip to get home, my dad got home in about thirty minutes, and we went to the doctor. My mom told the nurse what was going on and they took me back and did all my vitals. The nurse said that my heart rate was high and asked if I was nervous and I said no. She finished what she was doing and took me back to a room.
The doctor came in and looked at my bruises and ordered a few blood tests. When she came back, she brought in the doctor that usually saw me and they looked very serious. My usual doctor told us that my platelet count was very low and it was 13 and that we should rush me to the Emergency Room.
We went to the ER and they basically took me back immediately. A nurse asked what my symptoms were and what was wrong with me and then she went to take some blood. She didn’t have much luck so she asked someone else to do it. It wasn’t very easy for them either, but they finally got it. When she went to take the needle out, I started bleeding everywhere. I bled on the chair/bed thing and the floor and so she moved me to the chairs my parents were in and I bled on them too!
The next thing I remember is my mom calling my sister and granddad telling them I was in the hospital and my platelets were super low. (If you don’t know what platelets are, they’re a part of you blood that clots the blood so you don’t bleed out. The normal low is 150 and mine was 13) My sister was with her boyfriend, but she drove over, as did my granddad. They hooked me up to some IV fluid and told me I had to stay for a little while as they had to do more tests.
A little later on, I came back to my room from using the restroom and everyone in the room looked like they were about to cry, or were already crying. And so I asked what was wrong, and the doctor looked at me and told me that the blood tests showed that I had cancer. She didn’t know what kind of cancer, so she had to send me to UNC (which is an AMAZING cancer hospital in NC).
While we waited for UNC transport to get all the papers they needed, my mom and sister went to our house and got some overnight clothes and stuff they would need for a few days. A nurse came in and asked if I was fine taking the helicopter or if I would rather go by ambulance and I told her I was terrified of helicopters and I would rather go by ambulance.
She came back a while later saying they were going to be sending the jet for me and would be here soon. The UNC transport team got there just as my mom and sister came back.
We went to the ambulance entrance and the loaded me up and we were off to the airport. When we got there, they let me off the stretcher and had me walk on the plane and get into another stretcher. They had me put on headphone and then we were off.
highkey_cancerr 