August 28, 2014

We were going to Lowes go pick up things to get the house ready to sell.  The Army says they are moving us.  In the car on the ride there I started to labor quite a bit to get breaths in to my tired lungs.  This problem had been present for nearly 8 months and had been getting progessively worse.  I just chalked it up to my asthma.

I had a similar episode the week before, but my husband was gone on a TDY and I couldn't go the ER and leave my kids alone.  This time he happened to be driving.  It was an unexpected return home that allowed him to be here with me. He went into Lowes alone as I lay in the car trying to capture my breath.  He came back out and things had not improved.  The ER was only a mile away, so he drove me there.  I had a very short loss of conciousness.

The ER dr. didnt hear any wheezing so she felt it couldnt be asthma.  She then proceeded to order an XRay and a ct scan.  A couple of hours later she comes and and asks me I have had fevers, sweats or chills lately. I answered that, "yes, actually I have had shirt soaking night sweats for over a year, and now I am sweating while I am sedentary.."  She left and entered a few minutes later and announced, "Your blood work is normal, but we did find an Anterior Mediastinal mass on your Ct Scan."  and she left abruptly.  My husband and I just exchanged a look of, "what the heck just happened."

We came home and he took the boys outside as I looked up the definition of Anterior Mediastinal mass. It looked as though the choices were surgery via sternumectomy (like in open heart surgery), or cancer treatment depending on whether the tumor was benign or not.  I was numb at either prospect.  My husband is gone most of the year.  How was I going to recover from a surgery, or go through a cancer treatment?  We have a TPR appeal hearing in October, are moving near Christmas, I homeschool our 11 and 14 year olds, and have been working on getting a diagnosis to explain why our 2 year old cant speak, though he tries his hardest.  Who would home school our kids, and take our 2 year old to his 2 weekly speech therapy appointments.  Soccer starts next week for the two older boys.  I was bogged down by all the reasons I couldn't be sick.  This was supposed be caused by my asthma.  I don't have the time or money to deal with this.

So I cried.  I cried hard.  I screamed at the sky.  "you have to fix this.  I cant fix this."  And we told the boys of what was to come, and my heart ripped in two at the thought of putting them through my recovery of either scenario.