Wednesday, 18 January 2012

• That Moment.

  

  Around April last year my boyfriend said, "My kidneys hurt." It passed, not really thinking about it.

  Around May he said to me "I think I have a bone spur in my boobs." There was a really hard bump underneath each of his nipples.

  
  Around August he said to me "My back hurts so bad." He complained about it enough for me to say "We are going to the ER." My boyfriend doesn't have health insurance by the way.
  
  The ER took his vitals and then did an xray and said everything was fine, gave him some muscle relaxers and sit him on his way. 

  
  His pain stopped till about October and it came back with vengeance. Like I said, he had no health care so we couldn't really find him a doctor to take care of him. So we tried everything to stop the pain. Then his stomach started hurting. Then he couldn't really eat much with out feeling sick. THEN he couldn't use the bathroom much. And I kept saying "Baby, please go to the ER," which was usually followed by "I can't miss work, I don't have insurance, blah blah blah." It got so bad that he ended up taking a final warning at work to leave and go home.
  
  

  November 17th, 2011, he texts me while I am out. "Come home." So I come home and he tells me that the pain is so bad that he can't take it anymore and he wants to go to the ER.
  
  

  So I take him to the ER. We wait for about 5 hours and finally they call us back. He tells the doctor everything, who was kinda of stingy because he is a ER doctor and you find 21 year old people trying to score pain meds all the time... I understand. They said that the bumps under his breast were from smoking pot. He then tells the doctor that he hasn't been able to eat. So after a while they put him on pain meds for his back pain, take him into a cat scan and scan his belly. 

  
  November 18, 2011. Sitting by his bed I am a little worried. What the hell is causing him all this pain?
  
  

  The doctor comes in and he sits down and he looks at us and he says "Well, the results were very concerning. You have a 6 and half inch tumor that is pushing into your kidney that is making your back hurt." 

  
  Now, as I'm writing this, even though it has been 2 months from that day, I can't help but to tear up.
  
  My heart stopped. The doctor said, "I will have my surgeon come in and talk to you and we will get you a room upstairs tonight." AS SOON as that doctor walked out of the rooms I started to bawl. Just straight up cry like I've never cried before. I was so scared. All he had to say was, "Well this is going to cost a lot."
  
  It was about 3am and I am exhausted, starving and worried. They finally bring us upstairs, I slept in the chair that night. Later that day we have doctors and oncologist and suregons coming in and out of the room. We then find out that he has tumors all over his lungs too. What ever this is, it is spreading. They told us that the tumor in his back was so large and vascular that they couldn't do a biopsy on it because it would bleed out. They had to cut out part of his lungs.
  
  He didn't tell his parents he was in the hospital, nor his sister. I was the only one that knew. He was too scared to break his mom's heart. The next two weeks we spent in the hospital. There was days that I just cried and cried and cried at his side and I understand that you are suppose to be strong, but I honestly I couldn't do it. I could not hold back my tears. I was so scared.
  
  His parents eventually came (first time meeting them by the way!). I have not spent a night apart from him in over a year and I was not starting now. I slept in the hospital room with him every single night for two weeks.
  
  The day of his biopsy came - the day we found out if he had cancer or not. I remember sitting in the surgical room with his parents and it took 2 hours. I remember trying to be strong, trying not to cry.
  
  It felt like forever. 

  When the biopsy was done his surgeon asked us to step aside into this room. She said that it all went well, he was okay and stable. She pulled out pictures of his lungs and showed us and his poor lungs were really covered in tumors. Then she said it.
  
  "He has cancer."
  
  

  You know in the movies when everything is real slow motion in a tragic event and the actress falls to the ground all dramatically and cries. That's how I felt. I was devastated. I have never in my life felt so much pain like that before. I have been heartbroken and I have been hurt. But I was heartbroken in a different way. It felt like someone sucked all the happiness from my life and ripped my heart out. I just started to cry. I cried into his mother's shoulder and then I left and I walked out into a room of people and I just kept crying. I went into my car and I screamed on the top of my lungs and I just screamed and cried and hit my steering wheel over and over again and I was in so much agony. It wasn't fair, he is only 21 years old. He is just a boy. I can't loose him, I can't loose him. He is my world.. It hurt so bad.
  
  I called my mother, I asked if she would come down the hospital and she did and I just cried and cried and cried. I didn't know how to handle it. It was too awful. He is my life, my heart, my soulmate.
  
  We didn't know what type of cancer he had until a few days before Thanksgiving. It turned out that he had stage 3 testicular cancer, and that the bumps under his breast were caused by the cancer. He has been really positive through out the whole things. He was even happy when he had a tube coming out of his ribs for 4 days. Even now, with all of his hair gone, all his weight gone, He still smiles every day. Luckily the cancer didn't spread pass his lungs.
  
  Now here I am, exactly 2 months later. He has one month left of chemo and two more surgeries to go and he should be okay again. He is so lucky to have such a treatable type of cancer. I thank god that he had that doctor who gave him that cat scan, that he has one of the best oncologist, that we have such a supportive group of people in our life. That even our work (we work together) donated over 300 hours of paid time off so that he will be able to pay his bills while he out of work.
  
  

  We are so lucky to be so loved.
  
  I know that many people understand what it is like to lose someone to cancer, or to have someone almost be taken away. And I will forever understand what it's like to hear that the person you love so deeply has a illness that can kill you. I am now more than ever grateful for the funds that are provided for cancer patients. Since he has no health insurance he is been trying to get medicare and they put him on the angel fund which pays for all of his medications, which is amazing. 

  I am truly blessed to have such an amazing, loving, strong-willed boyfriend. To have such amazing people to support us. I will forever be grateful. 

  
  He has told me more than once how he would of not been able to go through all of this with out me, that he is so happy he has me and it just lights my heart up to hear him say that.
  
  

  Even though he has lost a lot of weight, all his hair and a huge rash from chemo... I don't think he's ever looked more beautiful to me.
  
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