Unless you are in direct connection with a friend or family memeber who is in my cell phone, you might be wondering what in the heck is going on with the Eilers family. The best way for me to describe what I am about to share is like being ran over by a semi-truck and surviving. Little did I know God had his hands of protection wrapped around me as this semi was coming to try to take my life.
Without writing an essay (which I probably will anyways), I will give u the highlights of what this journey has been like. So in September of last year I started to have some random strange leg pain, which I thought about ignoring. But because it kept coming back in October I went to the doctors and they did lots of blood work which came back normal. So they told me it should go away, but if it does not then come back and we will go from there.
Well as you probably guessed, the pain did not go away and in Nov. and Dec. I monitored when the pain occured and discovered it was happening around my period cycle. So like the Doctor said, I scheduled an appointment with the Dr. this time my OBGYN, to hopefully get some answers. So now I sit in the Dr.'s office waiting for her to come in trying to think of ways that I can convince her that this pain is not normal and that I need something more done then blood tests. She comes in and listens and then offers me 2 options. Option 1 take birth control and hopefully that can monitor my hormones because that is the only thing that she can think could be causeing the leg cramps. Or option 2 have a laparoscopy done and then they can look inside my abdominal wall and see if there was any endometriosis or scar tissue.
I left the Dr.'s office with a prescription for birth control and thought I was making the right choice. It was not til I got home talked to a few people and realized I should have the laparoscopy. So I called the dr. and told her I changed my mind and she said okay we can set it up but It will probably be 2-3 mths. out, but If I have a cancellation, I can try to get you in. So I said okay, and a few days later got the call that there was a cancellation and what could of taken 3 mths. took only 3 weeks.
February 24th roles around, the day of my laparoscopy, it was a simple procedure and I just had this feeling, I cannot explain it, but I new that they were going to find something unexpected. I even communicated this to my husband so that he would not be suprised when the doctor came out. And sure enough after the procedure the doctor had found a mass on my right ovary. She was going to wait to get the biopsy results, but she told my husband, she had never seen anything like it before. Not words you want to hear from your doctor.
So the week goes by while we wait to go to the doctors to hear what the results are and again, I have this feeling that it is not going to be what we want to hear. I know now that was God guiding me and preparing me for what was to come.
Now enters the semi.....the day of my doctors appointment I was just going about my daily routine getting things ready to go to my doctors. (Which I planned to go to by myself) and the phone rings, it's Kaiser. The thought oh maybe she got the results early goes through my head and the conversation begins with a.....
Kaiser lady- "Hi is Bridgette Eilers there"
Me- "this is her"
Kaiser Lady- " This is the Kaiser in Sacramento oncologist office wanting to schedule your appointment with specialist Dr Skilling."
Me- "Who is this? I have not even seen my doctor about my test results. What is this for?"
Kaiser Lady- " I just have a note to schedule an appointment for you. Does next weds work for you?"
Me- "Why am I seeing a specialist, what is this about?"
Kaiser Lady- " I don't have that information, does next wednsday work for you?"
Me- "Yeah, I guess."
I will never forget this conversation. Not only did I get blindsided, but I did not even have any info about what the lady was talking about. I made a series of hystarical phone calls filled with pleas of reasurrance, questions, and worst case senarios. As well as to my husband to get off work, because I was for sure not going to this appointment by myself. Within the hour things had calmed down, Gregg was able to get off work and I had came back to reality and remembered that God is in control and in a few hours I will know what the heck is going on. I just made sure to tell the Doctor that I did not appreciate the unexpected phone call.
So we went to the doctors and basically she said, she cannot tell if it is cancerous or not because the results were not 100% clear. So she wanted me to see the specialist for a clear diagnosis. I thought okay now I get it, and again I was at peace and I knew that God was in control. So next wednesday rolled around and Gregg and I were off to Sacramento totally unaware of what was about to happen.
I had brought the pictures from my laparoscopy so that the Doctor could see them hoping that he would be able to rule anything out and he would just say we need to remove just your right ovary and the mass and we should be good. But again, I did not have a good feeling, I just new that this appointment was going to be unexpected. I shared with Gregg that I was feeling uneasy and now we are sitting in the doctors office waiting for him to come in. He comes in, talks to us for awhile, looks at the pictures and says okay this is what we need to do. Full hysterectomy and appendix removal. From what I see in the pictures you have Stage 1c Ovarian Cancer I can do the procedure as early as next tuesday.
I think for the rest of the appointment I was shocked and just wanted to click my heals and be at home. But we made our surgery date for that following friday and off to the hospital we went to get an EKG, chest x-ray and lots of blood taken to prepare for the surgery. Again, I could totally feel Gods peace around me and knew that God was walking right beside me and protecting me. Proverbs 3:5-6 say's it best. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths."
Still in shock we prepared for the surgery and I tried to wrap my head around the 6 week recovery time, but I knew that once this surgery was over I could get back to my normal life and everything would be great.
Surgery day rolls around and I am at the hospital getting ready surrounded by all of my family again at peace and joyful that God was with me and had given me this oppurtunity to get this taken care of. Again, I had the same feeling each and every other time that they were going to find something unexpected. I told Gregg about my feelings again cause I knew that this was going to be much harder to deal with.
Well the surgery went great, but the news was not so great. My diagnosis was changed to Stage 3 Ovarian Cancer. It has spread and become invasive even since my laparoscpy. Needless to say everyone was in shock and I remember hearing that it had spread into my uterus, they had to remove a layer of my bladder, it was in many other areas but he had got everything he could see. Very thankful for what I heard, I thought sweet now life can go back to normal, but then he said so we need to start you on chemo as soon as possible to get everything that I might not have been able to see.
So now we are here, I am recovering wonderfully thanks to my amazing family and friends and trusting God that he has everything under control. I am waiting to hear back from the doctor about my pathology reports to set up my chemotherapy schedule.
I wanted to start this blog because I know that this is just the beginning of what God has in store and just like he has protected and brought me safely to now, I want to continue to share the blessing and struggles that will come out of this season in my life.
I may not have a clue what my next step is or how the next 6 months are going to go, but I do know that God is walking with me and he will protect me just as he has already shown me.
So I leave you with these 2 verses that have helped me tremendously.
John 14:27 " Peace I leave you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid."
Psalms 30:2 "O Lord my God, I called to you for help and you healed me."
