How it all started...

Well as many of you know I had Rhabdomyosarcoma cancer as a 5 1/2 month old baby. I went through chemo and radiation at that time and they considered it completely cured. I had checkup for the following 15 years and still no sign of it. Then 20 years later, I was at home in P.G. going to school at UVU but about to return to Dixie State. I felt a lump the size of a marble on the front of my hip and with my history we were quick to get it checked. We were told it was a swollen lymph gland and that it wasn't threatening. When I moved back to Dixie the thing just kept growing and growing and to be honest I was a little freaked out. It wasn't until I was dancing one night for Misty's Adult Company and rolled over the top of it and thought i POPPED whatever it was, that I decided it probably wasn't normal to have a lump the size of a golf ball on my hip. I went home the next day and had an ultra sound and then went back to Dixie because I had alot to do. I was teaching the Snow Canyon Drill Team when my nurse called me and told me it was a possibility of cancer again. I'll be honest, I didn't take it seriously, so instead of going home immediately and getting it removed I went to Rebelette Camp in California with all my best friends! I'm so happy I got to go because it was my last time dancing.. I'd imagine for quite awhile. Once I got home, the doctors knew it wasn't something to mess around with right away and they moved very quickly. Within a day of meeting my surgeon I got the tumor removed and the next week was filled with hours at the hospital getting every test you can think of done. They knew right away that we were dealing with Rhabdomyosarcoma again. My doctors were completely baffled at my case because they don't believe that this is a re-occurence of the first time. The odds of me getting a rare childs cancer twice, and it coming back in an adults body is almost unheard of. Rhabdo is also a tumor of the muscle, and amazingly enough it found its way into my lymph node. Also they were questioning treatment because I'm not the typical cancer patient. I have heart problems and other issues from the chemo and radiation 20 years ago that make it really difficult for them to treat me like a first time cancer patient. It took a few weeks, that felt like years, of waiting to finally figure out what was going to happen. The whole time I was just thinking NO WAY! This can't be for real, but at the same time it never really hit me till later in my journey that it was for real. So there it is, thats how it all started! My friends and family have been amazing. My mom is amazing, it was pretty hard for her in the beginning to think about going through this a second time, but she is really just an amazing person! I love you all!