I spent six days in the hospital. I don’t remember a ton. They put me on steroid injections and it was wild. I was exhausted but could not sleep, at all. I was up all night the first night watching tv. I am careful with tv in the hospital. My youngest was an emergency c-section baby who landed in the nicu with complications. You should have seen me. I was such a bad ass. They had me hooked up to all this stuff and I was all “Take me to my baby!!!”. C-section? What C-section? I just spent my days pumping and bringing the kid colostrum and stalking the doctors. But I was alone in my room at night. I tried to sleep with the tv on. Turned out to be a big mistake. I was awakened at 3am to a movie where I believe Sandra Bullock was being murdered. She was screaming and I think being strangled. It scared the crap out of me. I grabbed my iv pole and headed down to the nicu to see my kid. I don’t watch movies in the hospital. I see no need to be awakened to terror. I don’t even know what movie that was. So I had some gentle things on tv and just watched them as I tried to rest. I think I watched ocean waves all night, It was all I could handle. Leave Sandy alone!

I almost got to go home on the second day but they were debating about doing a biopsy…of my brain. Yikes. They wanted to drill a hole in my skull and get some samples of one of the tumors. So they kept making me fast and then letting me eat and then making me fast again. And then I thought I was going home but then they decided drill hole in the head biopsy for sure. Great.

So I had stuff going on the next week, I was supposed to fly to California and help my sister with her kids for a week. I love those kids. We were all looking forward to it. I had to call her and tell her the trip was off because I was in the hospital. I got her when she was pulling out of Starbucks. I gave her a brief description of what was going on. She started crying. Like really crying.

“Pull over!” I said, “Don’t get in an accident.” She pulled over and we continued our conversation. She lost her mom (my birth mom) eight years ago to stupid cancer. I hated doing this to her or my brother. Cancer is just the worst. It messes with families.

We got off the phone, the next thing I knew, she was here. My sister. She got on a plane and came to me. And she brought me a blanket. I am under it right now. It is big and plush and pink and soft and kind of heavy and it is perfect. I’ve known my sister for almost two decades now we have slowly built a relationship but when she pulled that blanket out of her suitcase, I knew. That is truly my sister. Only my sister would have brought me a blanket from her house. She stayed several days, hung out with my boys and helped me so much. I was told when I was a child that I would never get to meet anyone from my biological family. I am so glad it did not work out like that. We met when I was thirty-four and she was seventeen and we both gave each other a lot of side eye for a long time. Now she is thirty-four and I am the age our mother was when we all met back in 2006…and my sister, she’s my sister.

So the hospital was the hospital. Lots of tests and shots and blood draws. It is a blur. Husband was by my side but had to care for our menagerie of pets too. Eldest flew up from college, youngest was home for Spring Break. How is that for a cruddy Spring Break? You come home and your mom has a recurrence of cancer you haven’t gotten over dealing with eleven years ago?! That is no fun. He should have gone skiing instead or something. It is like I said, Cancer messes with family. He was seven the first time. My kids already went through this. Now? After eleven years?! Not cool.

I finally had the surgery where they drilled a hole in my skull. I got a lot of rest the next day. My sister went back to her family. My sons and hubby were hanging around. I finally got to go home. The day before I went to the ER was actually my eleven year cancerversary. I already find it annoying that I got diagnosed initially on April first but having the recurrence diagnosed on the 2nd, it’s just like, What?! Really?! This is stupid.