It’s been 3 years and six months since I started Cabometyx. The medication that not only saved my life, but gave me time I had no right to expect or deserve, if you asked papillary renal cell carcinoma. I joined the PAPMET clinical trial as one of its very first patients, and was randomly assigned… Continue reading Turn The Page
‘Twas a few days before Thanksgiving, and a boogeyman was lurking in my chest. What, that’s not how this story goes? It WAS the Saturday before Thanksgiving though as I lay in bed watching TV with my husband when I suddenly had sharp pains in my left rib. “That was weird,” I thought. I actually… Continue reading The Rougarou
“Oh, let’s go back to the start.” – Coldplay, “The Scientist” I was 17 years old the first time I stepped foot in Washington, DC. I had barely left the state of Louisiana before then; it was, after all, the first time I had ever left the South. Bright-eyed, with the world set before me,… Continue reading Full Circle
Time. The one thing we never have enough of. The thing that flies by so quickly. The thing we don’t appreciate enough. I stand and look around my life, and I don’t know how time has passed so fast. Somehow, my kids aren’t toddlers anymore; they’re halfway through high school. Somehow, it’s been ten years… Continue reading 6 Months Later
Well, we’re here. I didn’t expect to see three years since my diagnosis, much less to see three years with yet another (thank God, literally) clean scan behind me. Three years ago, I felt the walls closing in around me. I summoned up a strength I didn’t realize I possessed. I did not go gently… Continue reading trois
No disrespect intended to Rage Against the Machine, but I need to get this off my chest, because I have been stewing on this since I got the call a month ago today from my aunt that I needed to get down to Baton Rouge as soon as possible. I literally dropped everything in my life,… Continue reading Vaccinating in the name of…
Every 3 months, it’s the same routine. Get the IV started. Flush the saline in, giving that nauseating, mildly reminiscent smell through my bones of a salty day on the Gulf. Surrender myself on the table again, offering my body up to the God of Science Experiments. Stare at the ceiling, contemplating the results that… Continue reading Carry On Breathing
In August 2005, as I was about to start college at Loyola University in New Orleans, a little thunderstorm made its way through the city and wreaked havoc on my life. You may have heard of it – Hurricane Katrina. For years after Katrina, I looked at many things in my life as pre-K and… Continue reading Life Post-Hurricane
Year two. Still standing. Still here. Back to my new normal so much, I only stopped and thought to myself a few times, “Wow. Just think where I was two years ago today.” Another notch in the belt. Dr. V and my research nurse were both horrified and laughing when I told them today was… Continue reading Deux.
It’s interesting the things we cling to, the things that stand out, and the things we can’t get rid of. In May 2013, I walked across a stage at the San Diego Convention Center and received my diploma for my masters degree. I’d worked so hard for that degree in particular. I plowed through my… Continue reading The Dress
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