YouTumor

A very long year has finally passed. Youtumor.com is just over a year old now and March 9 is the 1-year mark of my life-saving and life-altering surgery. The events that followed, and what we had to do to get through it all, almost seems comical. But it wasn’t. Albeit, Scott and I have twisted senses of humor, it was not a laughing matter.

The most important life lessons I have learned came at a price; sadly. But I do firmly believe that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Although Scott would say that he didn’t really need to get any stronger.

We have been on a MUCH needed vacation. Although, our vacation was different than most people’s since we do not do “relax” very well. So we went on a ski-fari. The past two years, I have single-handedly ruined ski season. In 2006 I broke my face and last year that silly cancer thing took up a lot of our waking (and sleeping) moments.

Details to come later and maybe some stories. Places we visited were: Jackson Hole, Steamboat, Vail, Breckenridge, Crested Butte, and Telluride. We experienced this all from the family truckster!

Yesterday I was at Crystal Mountain skiing. It was a beautiful Tuesday afternoon in the sun and on empty slopes. 5 of us went up to enjoy the midweek fortune of snow and sun which are rare for PNW skiing.

SO, for the last run of the day Michael, Carolyn and I decided to hike up what is known as the King. I have never done it before, but Scott and I have seen plenty of people hiking up there on previous trips, but we have been unwilling to follow strangers. Fortunately, Michael and Carolyn know what they are doing, they’re not strangers, and have skied it a bunch.

Up we 3 went. It’s about a half hour of schlepping your skis up a decent slope and hiking in alpine boots is not an easy task but worth the hard work to try to find some untracked “pow”. We were just about at the peak when my phone rang. I thought it was Kathryn calling to see where we were at (she and her aunt were skiing with us that day but did not choose the hike) so I did not pick it up and waited until we were at the peak.

At 7,012 feet atop the King, I put my skis and poles down and got my phone out. I checked my missed call log and my heart stopped. It was a phone number I recognized and did not want to see, let alone see this number while looking down multiple chutes with names like Brain Damage and Pinball. The color drained from my face and I had to play the message to find out what was up.

Rewind to last Tuesday when I had a 3-month check up and we had not received the test results. Usually, if something is wrong they call and if all is normal they mail the results. I was feeling bullish because it had been a week since the test and no phone call had come.

This phone call turns out to be A-OK. It was the PA letting me know that the test results were normal. I had not received a phone call about good test results before and assumed the worst. Seeing that it was almost a year to the day (24th of Jan, 2007) when the C word officially entered our lives, I had a bit of a panic attack. Luckily, I did not have to fling myself off the King into Brain Damage. I just skied down (ungracefully) through some wind-packed powder, ended with a leisurely green run down to the Snorting Elk for some celebratory beer.

Check-up #3 is on the horizon and so is the 1-year (dare I say anniversary) anniversary of my diagnosis. It’s pretty amazing how fast a year goes, but I had some “things” to keep me busy and time really flew by. Needless to say, that when we rang in the New Year (from behind closed eyes) that Scott and I were both very happy to see 2007 behind us.

January is Cervical Cancer Awareness month. So to all the ladies out there who have not had a Pap in a long time; spread your thighs and get analyzed. (Scott came up with that one last year.) Also be sure to get the sample HPV tested as well. And for all you females that fit the mold for Gardasil (HPV vaccine); consider it. The actions you take now could save your life or at least spare you from the cut, burn and poison treatments I received last year.

Here’s to a happy and healthy 2008!