Hello and Welcome to my Blog (Post #1)

Here I am a week before the epic bone break - happily driving a convertible while my car is in the shop.

Hello, and welcome to my new website and blog! My name is Sadie, I am a 39 year-old mother of four, grandmother to one, cat mom to three, new graduate nurse, former roller derby official and skater, and current cancer patient.

In this initial post I will briefly recap my cancer journey from initial diagnosis to where we are now, as more backstory and information will be shared in future posts. After that, I will tell you more about what my dreams, visions, goals and purpose of this entire website/blog/venture is all about. There is so much to my story, and I am so truly excited and overjoyed to share it with the world! It is my hope that someone somewhere can find comfort in reading my story and relate to their own journey or that of a loved one. I am so happy you are here.

In 2019 I was diagnosed with Stage IIIC Cervical Cancer and had chemotherapy, radiation, and brachytherapy (internal radiation) as part of my treatment. As far as the effectiveness of the treatment, everything worked as desired and I was declared NED (no evidence of disease) on July 10, 2020. There will be a lot more I will talk about of this experience and the almost four years between then and now, but this is just of a brief overview for context.

The first time I've ever broken a bone - and look at everything it has become.

On March 21, 2024, I fell, breaking my wrist. One week later, I had an ORIF to fix my distal radius fracture. Hurray, I'm now bionic! Shortly after surgery, I noticed a pain in my side, back and chest that wasn't going away. It wasn't excruciating pain, but it was a constant pressure that made it difficult to do nearly anything, including sleep. As I sat there at home in this pain I racked my brain and experience in the healthcare field to determine what was causing this pain. I was able to determine many things it was not, but I could not figure it out for the life of me what it could be.

After two days of not sleeping I headed to the ER, thinking perhaps I had somehow bruised a rib, but knowing I had to figure it out - I just couldn't continue like this. The X-ray came back clear, taking a lot more options off the table of what the problem might be. They performed an ECG and ran some lab work, but everything came back clear for anything heart related. The nurse came back into the room with discharge papers in his hand, and I just thought, no. This can't be it, another time I've come to the ER with unexplained pain and they send me home with "cramps" and ibuprofen. Speak up. I politely said I didn't understand what they thought it was, had the doctor told him? This pain seemed too intense for just some unexplained muscle pain that might be from a fall a few weeks ago. The nurse got the doctor for me, and although earlier we had decided to not get a CT because the risk of a pulmonary embolism (PE) was quite low for me, he suggested we do one now, saying, "Then we'll know we looked at everything, and sometimes PEs can be sneaky." I remember thinking, It's not a PE though, I'm not symptomatic for it. There's no way. This is going to be expensive. But, I suppose this will be a way just see, maybe something will show, and they might not offer this test later, so I should just do it now. I agreed to do the CT, telling the ER doc, "Ok, I suppose we're here, and then we'll know for sure. And if not... I guess it's just muscle pain... it just doesn't feel like muscle pain." I was so worried about the cost, and seeming like a hypochondriac, but this moment, this decision to question the initiated discharge and to advocate for myself, it was the moment that made a HUGE difference in my cancer journey.

As it turned out, the CT was positive - but not for pulmonary embolism. Instead, it showed multiple nodules to my right lung, and the ER doctor highly emphasized that I should contact my oncologist that day. When I got home, I left a message for my oncologist and by the afternoon they had called back to tell me they had ordered for me to get a PET scan. One of the things a PET scan can be used is in cancer diagnosis, in determining if cells are cancerous, and where cancer had spread to. I had had a few in my history, and getting them approved generally took longer than afternoon. (From what I can tell, no insurance really wants to pay for them.) I had the PET scan two days later and met with my oncologist the following day.

Every time I look back on this picture it brings me such joy - this was a dream come true for me.

I'd like to take a moment of digression to tell you a few things you should know about me. First, before I became a nurse, I was entering my final semester towards my biochemistry degree when I received my first diagnosis in 2019. I had dreamed of working in medicinal research someday. I am a science girlie at heart, and I absolutely love research. It was my goal to be a researcher, even previously having the opportunity to intern in a research lab and do actual research! I love it. Secondly, I want to know everything about everything. I love looking for quality information on a topic and going into deep deep rabbit holes. I will gladly read peer review papers, especially those of particular interest to me. I will look at the organizations. I will correlate that with personal stories. I will find the information available. I will collect, compare, contrast. I will organize it. Third, I believe that the best patient is an informed patient, and I was going to make the best damn patient you ever seen. So of course during all this time while at home I had already done a bunch of research on lung metastasis from cervical cancer, including signs/symptoms, survival rates, treatment options, and anything else that was remotely somehow tangentially related. I was prepared for this appointment.

At this appointment, my provider placed three scans side by side - my previous PET scans from before initial treatment, after treatment, and now. The science girlie in me loved being able to see these scans instead of the usual of only being able to read the interpretations. We went from head to toe on area of the body. The nodules in the lung were lighting up. I was not surprised, I had felt it for some time. It was the only thing that made sense to me. Also, I had read the published report from the scans when they released in MyChart a few hours before. My doctor expressed that she knew how much I loved my amazing job, but stated she did not want me to work during this time, and would fill out any paperwork needed to accommodate as such. Her tone and responses throughout the conversation were serious and straightforward, and when I asked, "should I be getting things in order and tackling my bucket list?" She responded yes, although added that there have been many successful cases with others in this situation. My doctor explained that I was not a candidate for surgery or radiation, which I had also presumed from the information I had read online, and the only treatment left would be chemotherapy and possibly immunotherapy. The specific treatment would be determined by knowing if this was new cancer in my lungs (primary lung cancer) or if this was indeed cervical cancer that had metastasized in my lungs (secondary lung cancer, Stage IV cervical cancer). To determine which it is, the next step would be to get a biopsy done, so a referral was put in, and the appointment for the procedure was scheduled for a few weeks time. All of that rush to get to this point, and here I was now just to sit and wait.

Even though I was fully prepared for this appointment to occur exactly as it did, with the information that it had, I had a mixture of feelings after. For a few days, I was fine, it was what it was, and I just had to deal with it. I have always been a "do what you gotta do" type of person, and all I could think about was everything I needed to do to get things in order. Everything needed to be ready to go for when treatment would start, for during treatment, for the end, because I don't know how much time I have, and why didn't I do this all before? I'd have to figure out what to do about being able to live here if I can't work, and how sick was I going to be, do I need help? Should I move and stay with my mom if I was going to be very sick? I was in full fledged task mode. I had already ordered books on prepping for the end - I needed to have a will, and organize my finances and accounts so they could access what they needed, and be as set up as possible for after my passing. I wasn't thinking too much about my feelings or anything about the situation except what I needed to do.

As part of my appointment, not only did my doctor finally give me stronger pain medications (a life-saver!), but we changed and added some other medications in my routine. I am not positive if this contributed to this next bit, but it is entirely likely. There was a period of a few days where I was trying to experiment with how frequently I needed to take my pain medications while maintaining a level of comfort so that I could function. They were ordered as frequently as every 4 hours, but I wanted to spread that out if I could, for fear that I might end up in a spot where a refill took longer than expected, which had happened to me twice with the wrist fracture. Since I didn't wake up in the middle of the night to take a pill, I frequently woke up in pain and unable to do much of anything. It seemed like it took forever to get comfortable again. I am still having issues with this one right now.

During this time of initial experimentation for pain control, my mood changed, and I suddenly and entirely felt no desire to get out of bed or do any of the 'tasks' that I had been so adamant to complete. I put on iZombie (a favorite!) and "watched" the entire five season series. I ignored most all messages, emails, phone calls, and texts. I slept when I could, which happened more frequently and at random hours, ate in my room when I could get myself to eat, barely spoke aloud to anyone and overall wasn't really aware of anything happening outside my room. I felt like a horrible mother to be cocooned up, but I couldn't see a way to not be at that time. My teenagers were amazing, and seemed to be understanding that I needed this space and moment in time to clear my head, and they helped by checking on me and assisting if I needed help, as I was still healing from my wrist surgery. I later called this a "near state of catatonia" to my friends and family. I felt like I wasn't really anywhere, like I was empty on the inside, and towards the end of this phase I had this continuous monologue playing in my head, narrating my life, examining my life, my accomplishments, my legacy, my goals, things I had always wanted to do, things I wasn't sure I'd be around for, things I wanted to tell my kids someday in the future, thoughts I had on every passing subject. It followed me around, this voice, droning on and on. All of the thoughts that people have when facing death, here I was at 39 with the filling my head and drowning out any other thought. What was my life? What will I do all day if I can't work? I've never done nothing at all. Will I just get sicker and sicker laying in some bed until I cease to be? What had I accomplished? What is my legacy in this world? Yes, I had children, which is a certain type of legacy, but my children weren't me. What had I created from my soul and mind to this plane of existence? What had I contributed to this world to be left behind after I was gone?

I picked back up the book I had been reading, Being Mortal, which I had bought for my entire family before reading, hoping that it would help them into this transition of the likelihood of my death and being able to handle this difficult road that we were quite possibly going to embark on. It turned out to be a mistake to recommend a book before reading (who knew?) - but more on that one later. It was while reading Being Mortal, still in my foggy catatonia, that I got a notification from Libby that the book, Until I Say Good-Bye: My Year of Living With Joy by Susan Spencer - Wendel, would be returned back to the library soon. I hadn't realized how long I had it sitting in my libby stack. I picked up my kindle and switched books, absolutely devouring Until I Say Good-Bye in less than 24 hours. I sat in my room, reading about Susan's journey with ALS, her trips with family and friends, her thoughts and feelings. We were having very different experiences, but I felt like I could relate on some levels to her, and it made me feel seen. Then I got to the part where Susan described how a majority of the book she had written on a phone with only the sole use of her thumb - I was moved, and greatly inspired. Even with her degenerative disease limiting her ability to write to a single digit - Susan was so empowered to share her experience with others that she continued to do so.

I was highly motivated by the knowledge that in this time of great difficulty and distress, she was able to create something so beautiful and lasting, and it all was starting to become clear. I finally knew what I wanted to do, it was what I had always wanted to do, and what I would for certain do: write a book. I had always been a writer, since I was a little child, and it had always been my goal to be a writer, to publish a book. On a bucket list I made at 18, publish a book was there. I constantly have ideas about fiction books, sometimes I get some time to write them down, sometimes I get to write a few chapters, but I never seem to have the time to continue. Well, here it is, here is the time. Out of this horrible situation I was given one truly amazing gift: time to do what I choose. The fog I had been under continued to pull back rapidly as my mind flooded with ideas and my purpose finally became clearer and clearer. I knew what I was meant to do, I felt motivated, and most of all, I was excited at the production of my ideas. I was developing a plan for my future life and upcoming journey.

And here we are, the beginning stages of said plan, and I am so so excited to finally talk about this new passion project of mine. Here I will explain more about what I am aiming to do with this website, blog, as well as on other social media platforms. I asked myself a lot of questions when I started planning this endeavor, and it feels easiest for me to explain it in the same manner, so please enjoy below:

Why share your personal cancer journey publicly to the world?

I have three main reasons for sharing this journey with the world:

1. It might help others who are going through a similar experience or friends and family of someone going through cancer treatment.

2. It leaves behind my words, thoughts, and photos for my children, family, and friends that they can access when I'm not here anymore. A digital legacy, if you will.

3. It gives me a purpose in my life and fulfills my heart with joy to be able to make a bad situation into a possibly beneficial learning experience for others.

What type of content do you plan to share?

There are three main categories of "content" that I would like to share:

1. My cancer journey, including treatments, how I feel, how it affects me and my life, what resources and information there is out there for cancer patients.

2. My journey in preparing for end of life, not only legally speaking in the form of wills and powers of attorney, but creating a legacy for yourself of memories and advice to your loved ones.

3. A reflective journey of creating and accomplishing as much as I can from the Ultimate Bucket List!

How often will you post your blog or on other social media apps?

I am currently working on my overall goals with different platforms, which includes not only what type of content I want to go where, but how frequently would be ideal and realistic for me. I am also working on a list of "rules" or "boundaries" around this entire project to set with myself and with sharing this journey. For example, I would love to share as much as I can with my journey, but not to the point where it becomes a hassle to experiencing real-life opportunities or interferes with quality time with loved ones. Overall, I like to be thorough and detailed, but I plan to approach everything in a somewhat casual manner. I will do my best, but am also fully aware that my treatment and physical abilities may not always allow for updates as I desire, but will do the best I can.

What information will be posted where?

Well, first and foremost, there will be this website, which will be the main hub for all activities and information. It will include the blog, bucket list, recommendations and reviews, a place to support me (if you like!), links to different social accounts to follow, and there's a few other things that I would love to add, given the time and opportunity. I will use Instagram, Youtube, and Facebook to share my journey through treatment, the books I am reading, great resources I have found, as well as other things I determine are relevant to the journey or might be of interest to followers. My GoodReads and Storygraph will remain active, for anyone who wants to keep a closer tab on the books I am reading. An odd platform that I will incorporate is Pinterest, in which I am creating different boards on relevant subjects, such as: getting final affairs in order, bucket list ideas, resources for cancer, among others. I use this anyway for myself, so I figured why not share with others. I might utilize Tiktok and X (twitter), but am not exactly stoked at the thought of needing to keep those up-to-date unsure of how much effort will go to those platforms. I'm sure I will, but those might be the first to go.

How will I know when there is new blog post/content?

If you follow me on any of the social media platforms, new content should automatically show up in your feeds. There is always the option to set up notifications for every post, and if you need help setting that up, please contact me at sadie@justsadie.com and I would love to walk you through that. I am looking into newsletter options, but I am not interested in spending additional money and adding too much extra work at this time, but that may be possible in the future.

How close to real time will you post about your journey?

Depending on the specific platform, it can be right up to the second.

Wait - you mentioned you were going to write a book, what about that?

Yes, I do plan to still work on my book during this time, scheduling out time to do so and in extra free time I have. It is my number one bucket list item.

Are you just trying to monetize off your illness?

No, my goals in this venture, as described above, are purely non-monetary. However, if there is the opportunity to support my children through this venture, or put away for the future, as a mother of course I will do what I can to ensure the security of their venture.

How can I support you?

Thanks to technology, there are a few different ways you can support me. Right now, the current methods are through CashApp ($Just2Sadie), Venmo (@just2sadie), or you can purchase something off my Amazon Wish List by clicking here, or something off my Amazon TBR list by clicking here. If you would like to donate using another method, please feel free to contact me at sadie@justsadie.com.

What happens to all of this when you die? How will we know?

It is my hope to have prepared for someone to update my platforms when this event occurs.