A year ago today I was leaving Vegas after a very fun weekend. We had gone to the Justin Timberlake concert (my favorite past time... #1 fan over here) and enjoyed some good girl time with my good friend Brooke. We hit the road to head home and when we were about half way home I dozed off (Brooke was driving). Shortly after that I was awaken by a large bang and then Brooke trying to stay in control of the car. We had been side swiped by the car next to us changing lanes. The speed limit at that point was 80mph. Both cars gained control and pulled off. I immediately was concerned for my back since I had had back surgery a short 5 months before. Nothing immediately hurt except my neck was a little tender. We were SO lucky we didn't lose control and flip or hit the median, it is amazing we didn't have more damage to us or the car. We exchanged information with the other driving and the car was alright to drive and we headed off. It took about 45 min of driving for me to fully lose it and freak out. I was so upset at the thought of a car accident so soon after my surgery and that something so quick could derail all the progress I had made in my rehabilitation. But I was so grateful for Brooke handling it so well and that we weren't hurt fully. As the days went by I started to feel a bit of nerve pain down my arm so I decided to get it checked out. The doctor ordered an MRI of my neck to see if there was any disc damage - and there was. About a month later I had a steroid injection into one of my discs and I thought that was that. It was two months later that the neck doctor called me and said that they reopened my MRI and there was a very large lymph node that needed to be checked out. I called my general doctor and was seen the next day. Thankfully my doctor is very thorough and ordered a CT scan to confirm the findings - just to make sure it wasn't that I was sick the week of the MRI as that can make your lymph nodes swell as well. The CT scan confirmed it and that it was a bit larger. My doctor then ordered a needle biopsy to see what was happening. That biopsy was THE WORST thing. It was traumatic even. The lymph node was so hard/firm that it bent the numbing needle! The biopsy was hard for the doctor to do and required a ton of pressure so it was intense. And you need three samples, What was supposed to take 15min (I googled it before going in to know what to expect) ended up taking over an hour. Definitely a rough day. After that I waited for the results and after two and a half long weeks it came back that it was in fact metastatic melanoma. My cancer had returned. That was January 14, 2015.
And so here we are. I say that the car accident saved my life because I wouldn't have had another scan for who knows how long. After you have 5 years of clear scans they stop scanning you and just do skin checks. My last scan before the accident was December 2013. It is only because I was hurt just enough to see a doctor that I was able to find the cancer before it spread past the lymph nodes in my neck. If not caught then it would have spread fast and most likely be terminal.
It is crazy how something that seemed so terrible at the time could be such a blessing in the end. Something I am truly thankful for. Whether it was my Gram pushing that car into us or some other force, who knows (that's about as spiritual as I will get... but something or someone was looking out for me that day)
Although it has been a crazy year it would have been even crazier if the car accident didn't happen. Everything does happen for a reason, as annoying as that sounds.
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