The Return of the Blind Racing Writer
You guessed it! I’m back, and feeling better than ever! I missed being here, and I am looking forward to writing about racing once again. The year 2010 is looking better already!
To many of you that followed my columns from 2004 to 2006, I wanted to explain my absence for the last few years. Part of this involved pursuing other opportunities that wound up not leading to anything of real substance. Another reason for my being away so long has been related to a long, protracted illness for which I’m still recovering.
The bulk of this article will express what the last few years have been like for me. It is also timely for me to share this in the hopes that folks reading it will find encouragement during these difficult times. Hoping that I can help someone reach the next level of life by being a blessing.
So, what does this have to do with racing? Why everything! On the heels of Linda Petty’s Lymphoma diagnosis, I felt that you, the reader, could draw some strength from my story. Please feel free to contact me and let me know if you’ve been blessed yourself. Maybe we can share your story as well!
From The Beginning
My illness began with me having irregular menstrual cycles as a teenager. At that time, no doctor wanted to help me in balancing my hormones by way of birth control pills, so I spent many years living with the problem. My Mom and I just figured that all this would fix itself one day and not to worry about it.
As I became an adult, things degenerated to me having such irregular periods, that I’d go for years without having a menstrual cycle. When my cycles would come, I’d bleed out for almost two weeks at a time. Such a situation caused me to believe that the prospect of having children would be an impossibility. For some strange reason, I was at peace about this.
I dealt with these ongoing irregularities until something new and strange began to happen with me. Ever since the summer of 2004, I’d been plagued with uterine bleeding that would do more than come in and out for two weeks. I first noticed something was wrong around the end of August. Again, I didn’t think anything of it at first because having heavy periods was normal for me.
Throughout the fall of 2004, I began noticing other problems such as hot flashes, tender breasts and wild mood swings. Heavy bleeding would accompany these other symptoms, so I began to suspect that I was beginning the first stages of menopause. After all, I was 35 years old at the time, so what else was I suppose to think?
During the year of 2005, my hot flashes, mood swings, depression and overwhelming sexual feelings were becoming more than just an inconvenience. I’d have moments where doing things like writing my motor sports related columns had become a challenge. Keeping up with writing and blogging, especially in the last two years or so, wound up being too hard to resume. the last year alone, every writing project was often put on hold because I was in too much pain to work.
By the time 2008 came around, I became sicker, with a growing problem of weakness and severe pain. In February of 2008, I wound up in the hospital for intense vaginal hemorrhaging. To combat this issue, they gave me three pints of blood and then sent me home with the belief that all I had were uterine fibroids.
After this, I went for the remainder of 2008 battling a growing anemia issue that I thought had been resolved. The bleeding continued, but not as much. Things seemed to get better toward the fall, but then got worse again over the 2008 Christmas holidays.
At the beginning of 2009, the bleeding issue would come and go, with the worst of it happening when the weather would change. This weather sensitivity concern has been problematic for me over many years, but throughout 2009, it’s been particularly bothersome.
The beginning of the summer of 2009 wasn’t any different. I went about life, at least some of the time, without thinking of the problem that much. The only time things would bother me would be during my cycles. Unfortunately, that would be every two weeks out of the month.
As the summer of 2009 went along, things got much worse. It got to the point where I couldn’t do even the simplest of tasks. Walking and moving about became a challenge, and the pain I was in became more and more unbearable. It even was hard to rest comfortably in bed
Missing Time and Strange Visions
There’s much of 2009 that’s missing for me. I went from vaguely recalling the events on a stormy Friday afternoon back in August, to finding myself floating in a strange bubble of blackness. Try as I may, I can’t remove this blank space in time.
The blackness strangely turns into a hospital scene. I’m taken to a special room and examined by a thin framed woman with curly brown hair. She seemed to be wearing blue or green clothing.
When she turned me around and looked at me from front to back, she spoke something very strange to me. She said, “I see blood in there. If it’s as bad as I think it is, we’ve got to take it out. I’ll talk to someone else about this and see what he says.”
Then a man appeared within my field of view. Unlike the woman, his image wasn’t as clear to me. I do recall him saying, as the sun was setting in the western sky, that this is bad, and we need to remove it.
Needless to say, I was quite frightened and didn’t want anything done at first. Major surgery meant a long hospital stay for which I did not want. I was told that this must happen and that I’d be better off for it.
Then, within a few seconds, I was looking down at myself. The pillows around me, as well as the bed sheets, were covered with a mixture of blood and yellowish puss. I floated about to and fro, but stayed in close proximity to my body.
Then I heard a voice speaking. It was different than the other voices in the room. The voice said, “If you let them do this, it will solve all your problems.” I don’t know who spoke to me at that point, but the words made me feel at peace. I replied back by saying, “You mean I’ll have no more bad bleeding or anything like that?” The mystery person stated, “That’s right, no more bleeding! You’ll get your life back.”
After this, I found myself leaving this room and heading out to a much larger place. I heard many voices and saw many people. How did I see them if I’m blind? Well, I don’t really know, I just did!
Another point I’d like to interject here is that when I saw the thin framed, brown haired woman, I was still under the influence of the Propofol. I would, strangely enough, find out later on that the doctor that helped me out in real life looked like the woman in my dream. I found this out when my Mom described her to me.
Through this sea of sight and sound, were moans coming from me. I wanted to leave this place, but I couldn’t make my body move. My brain would tell it to do things, but my body would just remain limp and lifeless.
Then came the time I heard the babbling brook sound. Every time I’d hear it, I’d want water to drink. Instead of drinking water, I was given a wet sponge on a wooden stick. This would cause me to see many others using sponges on wooden sticks, taunting me with them. Why, because these people knew I couldn’t have this all the time.
Then came along the woman that walked through the hospital halls while sweeping with a broom. She was a shadowy figure that went by the name of Gwenaveer. This evil woman would torture everyone in the hospital, but I really don’t know what her reasons were for doing so.
As time went along, I could hear more conversations around me. One night, at least I think it was then, there were three other patients talking. There was another one that just moaned. All I wanted to do was go home! It didn’t matter if I could move or not.
A Strange Vision Confirmed
There was one vision or dream I had while I was in the hospital that later on became a reality. The vision began with an image of Talladega Super Speedway. First of all, I was watching a qualifying session taking place. After this, I heard someone talking about a driver or team making a sponsorship announcement for the upcoming NASCAR season. This particular announcement I heard in this dream also took place at Talladega.
Well, in September of 2009, a month after I had this vision, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver and team owner Mario Gosselin made a wonderful announcement. He told the world that tiremonkey.com would sponsor the DGM Racing team during the 2010 season. This announcement was made at Talladega Super Speedway, just the way I heard it in the vision.
When I thought I was going home
Well, one night, I believe it was late on a Saturday night, I had called out for the nurse. For whatever reason, I thought her daughter was angry with me and wanted me out of the way. I felt guilty for asking her to help me, but I needed it.
When she wouldn’t come, and when I heard her daughter getting upset, I talked about diving in to join the water lilies. See, I was so delirious from a high fever and sedatives that I thought the babbling brook sound I kept hearing contained water lilies inside of it.
For some reason, a male nurse named Tim came and told me that I was leaving. I got real excited because I thought it meant I was going home. Once Tim changed my clothes and moved me onto a different bed, I was then taken some place else. I couldn’t help it think about my parents at this point. Won’t they be happy to see me!
I was taken to some place where I could feel a draft. I thought, “I must be outside because it feels like it!” I also thought I could hear my parents talking to the doctor about what medicines I need to take while at home.
There was a large group of people around me. We all went inside of a small enclosure. I heard a motor running, and felt the bed turning, so I thought we were driving some place.
The more this went on, the more I felt confused. I could still hear the babbling brook, and talked about wanting something to drink. For whatever reason, they would not let me have anything to satisfy my thirst
I thought I could hear the voices of my parents, so I thought I was going home. When I’d call out for them, someone massaged my legs and told me to be quiet. It was some fellow, but I never knew who he was.
Then came the moment when I realized that I wasn’t at home, but still in the hospital. All the people that were with me left, and I got real scared, real fast! I felt alone and abandoned, not sure what to do next. All I could do was moan and scream.
When My Parents Visited Me
The first time that I consciously recall being visited by my parents was on Thursday, August 13, 2009. While I lie in a stillness that I couldn’t shake, I heard the voice of my Mom speaking. Even though both of my parents were there, my Mom did most of the talking. When I tried to communicate back, all I did was coughed and choked.
My Mom began telling me things that sounded rather strange. Nothing that she said to me could I remember. Hearing what she had to say left me feeling confused, dazed and even frightened!
When I did speak, I asked if I could go home. My Mom told me no because I was in I.C.U., that I was very sick and that I was doing better then everyone else around me. She told me, that back on August 10, 2009, I became totally bedridden. According to my Mom’s recollection, I could not move, speak or drink water through a straw. She said this then degenerated into shallow breathing and evil moaning that caused her to call for an ambulance.
After this, she told me that I wound up on a ventilator to help me breathe, which was hardly possible for me to do on my own. Along with that, I received almost a full bodies’ worth of blood to help boost up my hemoglobin level. Unbelievably so, my hemoglobin was at a deadly measurement of 1.6. This meant I only had 1 and 1 half pints of blood in my body at that time.
To diagnose the loss of blood problem, they first placed me into a coma with what is known as Propofol, or affectionately known as “Milk of Amnesia”. Once this took effect, they performed a CT Scan and an ultrasound. After a Gynecologist was consulted regarding my situation, I was then transported by way of helicopter to Florida Hospital South in Orlando where better care could be given to me.
Once at Florida Hospital, emergency surgery was performed on the evening of August 12, 2009. a Gynecologist conducted a complete hysterectomy, removing all female organs. This was due to a suspicion of me having uterine cancer
The doctor talked with my mom before and after the surgery was completed. She told her that though things looked suspicious, she managed to snag all the tumors. She also told my Mom, that after having conducted exploratory surgery, it looked as if nothing else had spread to my other bodily organs. Finally, she expressed that if I didn’t have the surgery, I would’ve died.
Altogether, I was laid up in the hospital for two weeks. Nearly a week of that time was spent in I.C.U. being hooked up to monitors of all types. At first, I had up to nine tubes stuck in me. This would rapidly improve after my surgery.
Other Strange Issues
There had been a deep concern, with me having almost lost all my blood, that there might be brain damage. They performed a CT Scan of my brain, just to make sure of things. Miraculously, there wasn’t any damage anywhere!
Due to the extreme loss of blood, all of my muscles failed me. I woke up in the hospital with a huge problem, I could not sit, stand, walk or feed myself. The most I could do was talk and moan. I even had to wear diapers for a while.
Another strange element came up in all of this craziness, memory loss. Since the surgery, my memory’s been fine. I just have trouble recalling certain events from earlier on in the year of 2009. In some cases, this loss of memory goes back to as far as last February.
Eating And Drinking
This illness also killed my appetite, causing me to lose loads of weight. Even though I had been dieting, losing 70 pounds all in one shot is something no one ever plans to do. The good thing is, that a few days after my surgery, I was able to go from mouth swabs, to taking in liquids, to eating solid food.
It was hard to eat because I had a terrible infection that created a huge part of my problem. the tumors in my uterus got so large, they began eating through all the uterine lining. This caused a rupture that allowed for bacteria to enter in without too much trouble. This same rupture created the severe bleeding that almost killed me.
This infection was so bad, that it spread throughout my entire body. Just that alone was enough to take my life. Such a systemic infection is known as being “sepsis”. Similar infections can also happen to diabetics. It took me two weeks just to heal from that one!
My Recovery
While I was recovering in the hospital, I received some basic physical therapy. Leg and arm movements were the beginning steps of these tasks. By the time I left the hospital on August 24, 2009, I could sit up, feed myself and lift my arms above my head. The ability to carry out other movements without help was still to come.
Once I got home from the hospital, I was really able to begin my recovery. Every day, something new would happen because I was committed to getting better. After three and a half months of hard work, prayer and determination, I received one-hundred percent of my life back.
Yes, It is Cancer
The doctor told us that I did have stage 4 Uterine Cancer. Because of this diagnosis, I’m also having to deal with the reality of cancer treatment
What is Chemo Therapy?
My doctor told me that I needed Chemo therapy. The doctor feels the cancer was successfully removed by way of the surgery, but she wanted me to go through the Chemo just to be sure. She was impressed about my overall health and that the cancer did not spread beyond my female organs.
When I first heard about having this Chemo treatment regiment, I got scared. I remembered back on all the horror stories I heard over the years as to the awful side-effects and such. People losing their hair, getting really sick, no energy and lots of vomiting seemed to be quite extreme things to go through, but extreme circumstances call for extreme measures.
What didn’t help either was my recollection of how my Grandfather died of cancer. The Chemo was so hard on him, that he was unrecognizable toward the end of his life. I didn’t want to be sick anymore, especially not like that!
My doctor felt that I was healthy enough to go through such treatments, so I figured I’d try it and see. I wanted to live, so why not?
Well, back on October 13, 2009, I had surgery done to have an implant placed under my skin. This implant is called a “Power Port” and is used for certain types of Chemo Therapy. This implant is triangular in shape, an is situated on the left side of my chest.
The procedure was quick and painless. The worst part involved waiting for the surgery to begin. Once it was done, I could go home.
My Chemo Treatments
On October 15, 2009, I went to the Florida Hospital Cancer Institute to begin this Chemo Therapy process. It was scary at first because I didn’t really know what to expect. All I could do is ride off of God’s grace and strength to get me through it.
Once settled in a bed, the nurses began hooking my port up to an IV. I only had to be stuck once, which was a blessing. Before sticking me, the nurse used something on me called freezing spray. This is to numb the area, so as to make the pain of the needle stick less noticeable.
After I was hooked up to the IV, we began with what they called hydration. This consisted of pints of saline solution, mainly so the kidneys would function properly during the infusion process.
This Chemo infusion consisted of two drugs, Taxol and Carboplatan. These weren’t administered until I had been given several antidotes. These antidotes were to help with vomiting, neuropathy, kidney damage and blood pressure problems. Before each medicine was given, I had to have these antidotes.
The first drug given, Taxol, would take three hours to infuse. The second drug, Carboplatan, would take just one hour. Altogether, the entire procedure took 6 hours to complete.
During these Chemo sessions, I would eat and drink just fine. The first day, I had crackers, Ginger Ale and a tuna salad sandwich. These food selections are carefully chosen to help the Chemo infusion process go more smoothly.
Toward the end of the first day, I fell asleep. The relaxed way that I felt surprised me. I walked away wondering, what was I scared of anyway?
Altogether, I’ve had six Chemo therapy sessions. Each one, for the most part, taking place on a Thursday.
My Chemo Therapy is once every three weeks. After the first nine weeks, we evaluated the progress of the cancer with the use of a CT Scan. So on December 14, 2009, I had a CT Scan done of my abdominal region.
My doctor did not see any tumors, but she was concerned about my lymph nodes being swollen. She theorized that the swelling was due to the massive infection I experienced when my uterus ruptured. I have another CT Scan scheduled for February 22, 2010.
The biggest problem here involves the fact that when I was in the hospital last August, the CT Scan that was done had been too opaque to see anything inside me. Basically,she had nothing to compare my scans to from the first time. This time, she will have December’s scans to use as a measuring stick.
Side-Effects
The side-effects from the Chemo haven’t been as bad as I expected. The most I’ve had to deal with is heart burn, some nausea and the loss of my hair. To avoid dropping hair everywhere, I shaved my scalp clean. Having a bald head hasn’t been as bad as I expected either!
As a matter of fact, the bald head issue has inspired an ongoing joke around my house. My brother and I joke about me looking like a baby, which is quite comical! We all laugh constantly about it.
Just before Christmas, I was blessed with a free wig. This wig is short and is dirty blond in color. It was donated to the Florida Hospital Cancer Institute, which allowed for me to have it at no cost. I plan to donate it back when I’m done with it.
Aiding Side-Effects
Along with the antidote medications they give me during my Chemo infusions, I also take vitamin supplements to prevent loss of essential nutrients. My ongoing issue seems to be keeping my potassium levels stable. All I can do is take the supplements when needed. Another way to keep things under control is by trying to eat and drink as much as possible.
Thoughts of Deeper Meaning
I look at my story as an opportunity to bless those around me. My faith in God has increased because of the huge miracle he’s performed. Every time I, or my mom shares this story with others, it blesses them.
I would also like to say that there is truth in the power of prayer and focusing of positive energy toward a bad situation. Many special folks have been praying for me. The numbers run in the hundreds! They are even yet now still praying, even though they don’t know me! What a blessing! I wish I could thank them all personally, but that’s not possible. All I can do is pray that God will reward them for their faithfulness to stand in the gap for me.
Well, this story is an unfolding one. In spite of that, I hope me sharing this with you all will be a blessing. If I can help at least one person through the sharing of my story, then the going through this would have been all worth it.
