This Star Won't Go Out

I read their book, Multiple Blessings, about a week ago. It’s mainly by Kate and her good friend Beth Carson, and it’s about being pregnant with sextuplets, and going through all the financial and emotional and physical difficulties. The book is full of stories of their faith, and many times when they basically gave up, but God came through! Those stories inspire me and made me remember it’s God who’s getting me through all MY difficulties.

What are my difficulties? Hmm. First of all, and definitely most difficult, I have cancer, and I’m sick. Second, our money and income stuff is slightly in shambles; though it may not be, I never really hear about our money stuff. Third, I guess there’s not that much of a third, just that I’m getting older, I guess. So, let’s talk about that wonderful cancer topic again . . .

Ah, I’m not sure exactly where to start. I’ll start with the whole friggen story! Yeah, that’s a great place to begin.

Let’s see, when I was twelve, actually no I was eleven, we were living in Plymouth, MA, duh. So then Mom & Dad decided it’d be just grand to move to France. We moved sometime toward winter, was it November?, to a town called Albertville in the Alps of France. That was an . . . experience. Maybe you’ll hear about o’l [sic] Albertville another time. After—wait, no. While living in Albertville my all-French 5th grade class went to a pool for Gym and we had to swim—I remember feeling so out of breath while having to swim four laps without stopping. Also, we had to run laps around our school yard, and I thought it was weird that I had cramps on my rib cage, but I thought I was just out of shape.

Also in Albertville me and Angie began walking on walks around town, basically at least every other day. We continued doing that all the way until we moved to a new town in France called Aix-en-Provence.

One time, somewhere between the summer and fall, we went on a long walk to a park site sort of nearby. We brought the keys from our apartment and were just getting ready to go inside our apartment again when we couldn’t find the keys. Suddenly I remembered leaving them on the grass and Angie and I walked part way back. Angie told me to go the rest of the way by myself. I got the keys and went back home.

My side hurt and I was extremely out of breath. I caught my breath in an half hour or so.

That whole losing-my-breath, coughing, pain-in-my-side thing started maybe in September or October. I thought the pain was regular old exercise pain or period pain. I also thought I was out of breath because I exercised too much.

While we lived in France, Abby was going to boarding school in Germany that was English speaking. Me, Mom and Angie went to visit her for two or so days.

When we got back, Dad figured any cold or trick-to-get-out-of-school that was causing my cough would be gone. When it wasn’t, Dad said, “Let’s get an X-ray.” So we did just that, and the X-ray showed loads of fluid in my lungs. The doctor said to go to the hospital. >:,S

We went to the hospital, and I think it was the next morning, they sent me into surgery for a tube in my side that would drain out the liquid.

Going in was definitely scary. I just laid on the bed and prayed so hard, asking God to just take care of me. A very nice surgeon lady held my hand while they shot sleeping medicine in.




Kandern, Germany,

JUNE, 2007


After surgery, I slept for the next day or two, in and out of consciousness. The tube itself was like a quarter of an inch, and was in my left rib, going through to the lining of my lung (not my actual lung, ha!). It drained a load of liquid.

A few days later, in the hospital still, they had tested and poked me, trying to figure out why I had liquid. They thought it was TB or pneumonia, or something like that. However, on Thanksgiving, the doctors came in and said I had cancer. **crap**

I’m not sure when it was, but a little bit later I had a lump in my neck removed, along with my thyroid and one (or two, or three?) para-thyroid.

A few days later, I was moved to La Timone, Marseille’s Children’s Hospital. They were more experienced with cancer in children, however thyroid cancer in children is especially rare, so they weren’t that experienced.

I had a dose of radio-iodine treatment, which was a pill that didn’t have many side effects. About a month or so later (maybe 2 months?) I had another dose, and a while later another.

They planned to do another dose when we got back from America, where we were going for two months? But it turned out we ended up staying in America for forever.

So coming to Children’s Hospital was a lot different than La Timone because they seemed to know what they were doing more. I had a dose of radio-iodine therapy, much larger, and worked on feeling good.