No one ever wants to hear what comes after the "but"...

More often than not, what comes after the "but" in a statement is something negative, a "catch", or a challenge to do something before you can realize the first part. For example: You can have ice cream for dessert but you have to finish your spinach. That dress looks great on the hangar but not on me. You can go to the dance but you must clean your room. The weather is perfect for a hike but we have no vacation time. You can buy the new car but you need to pay off the credit card first. The application is impressive but we have a pool of qualified applicants to choose from. Well, I'm here to tell you that does not have to be the case.Turn it around!

Yes, I have cancer but God is bigger!
Yes, I have cancer but it could have been worse.
Yes, I have cancer but my wonderful journey is just beginning...

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born... to quote Charles Dickens' David Copperfield; I will not take you that far back I'm afraid.We will begin with my trip this June to Germany to witness the miracle birth of my first granddaughter Haylen.

Upon arrival in Frankfurt on June 20th, 2014, I began to get symptoms of an allergy sinus condition. It was waking me up in the wee hours and when I would blow my nose, I would get bright red blood, although not a nose bleed. As time went on, I began to feel drainage down my throat as with sinus issues, but would then cough up blood clots. *See? Bad stuff usually follows the "but." I was thinking it was due to the change in climate or perhaps during the long flight the dry air on the plane caused me to break a blood vessel. My daughter had also mentioned having similar conditions when she arrived and hers had cleared up after a couple weeks. Not a second thought did I give it. I was there for much more important business like becoming a Granny and sneaking in a few tours of Germany, Switzerland, and France! Plenty of Facebook photos to document this grand adventure!

Even after I returned home, with the symptoms worsening, I didn't think to call anyone. My sister, a retired nurse is pretty upset about my naivete. Finally, when I began waking myself and hubby up several times in the night and finding a mountain of bloody tissues piled high on my night stand every morning, I called.

As luck would have it, I was also at the onset of an actual allergy sinus infection which I get every end of summer. My doctor sent me home to take OTC meds and return in ten days. So, 4 months after symptoms began, I was prepared for a cauterization of a leaky blood vessel. My ENT referral landed me in the office of a young doctor who has a straight forward approach. "I need to suction out all these blood clots so I can get a better look at the mass." What? "It's purple and bumpy, not like anything I've seen before" Really? "Oh yes, this is one I will be discussing with the board for sure." Then, he said the word "biopsy" and it hung in the air like a cartoon balloon. Five agonizing days of waiting, putting on a smile, and getting on with life. No tears, not just yet. Then his call... "The results of your biopsy are in and you have cancer." He went on to spell it out A-D-E-N-O carcinoma. Don't research it, just get PET/CT scans done and then we will talk. Everyone said don't look it up. But I did. And you probably would have too. Good luck finding it in someone's sinuses. I tried not to think about it. It was surreal. Had it metastasized from somewhere else? How bad was it? Trying to keep my chin up I told everyone that at least I didn't get a ordinary boring form of cancer! No not me, mine was one for the board!

More to come...