January 2002
I was twenty-one years old the first time I started to feel something different.  I had a small bump just below my belly-button that didn’t hurt but I knew something wasn’t right.  The bump continued to grow.

February 2002
I turn twenty-two!!

March 2002
I started going to the doctors to run some tests.  They did a cat-scan, MRI, bone scan and a biopsy.  Nothing came up with all of the tests so they finally decided on exploratory surgery.

April 2002
Exploratory Surgery- They were able to collect tissue this time and found it was Ewing Sarcoma.I can’t believe I have cancer!

May 2002
Late May they came up with a plan of attack and gave me a port-a-cath and immediately started chemotherapy.

May 2002 – January 2003
I had heavy chemotherapy and radiation.  Within two weeks, I lost my hair and was super sick and weak.  One of my chemotherapies entailed me spending up to three and half weeks in the hospital.  I would stay twenty-four hours a day for two to three weeks doing chemo and go home and rest for a week and then back to the hospital to start all over again.  I did three sets of chemo and I also did an outpatient chemo that kept me in bed, sick and throwing up all of the time. In October I started five weeks of radiation which meant they had to move my ovaries from “the field of radiation”.  My hair started to grow back!

January 2003 – March 2003
MAJOR surgery!!  They removed my right pelvic bone.  I had one month to heal and then it was back to the hospital for another set of chemo to insure the cancer was gone.  My eyebrows and eyelashes fell out.

April 2003- June 2005
Over the next couple of years, I did scans every three months.  We did find a small nodule in my right upper lung but they felt it was benign because of how small it was.  I started school to become a nurse specializing in Oncology because of how amazing all of the staff that worked with me was.  I went to The Healing Odyssey cancer camp and it was truly amazing!! I then started at Hoag in bed board.

In May of 2005, my friend that inspired me to BELIEVE that I can beat this illness, passed away.  Kristen Beachem was such a loss to me.  She died from cervical cancer at thirty eight years old.

August 2005- September 2005
I felt like something was wrong.  I got a brain scan and they found a brain tumor.  Six days later, I had a craniotomy (brain surgery).  I began chemo and radiation.

October 2005
We then realized the nodule in my left lung was growing.  They did a biopsy and my lung collapsed.  THAT HURT!!  The Ewing Sarcoma from my pelvic bone had metastasized to my lung.  I stopped the chemo for my brain.

December 2005 I did Gamma Knife (radiation surgery for the brain cancer).  One week later I started chemo for my lung. February 2006 I switched chemos because the last one wasn’t working.  The new one worked!J November 2006 I had RFA.  This is when they inflate my lung with radio frequency waves to kill the cancer.  It worked!  I started back on chemo for my brain… again.  The chemo for my brain continued till April 2007. December 2006 My friend Cathy Salios dies of lung cancer.  She fought along side me for years and passed a few days before her fiftieth birthday.

May 2007
They found a nodule in my left lung.  It was too small to do anything so they left it alone which was basically a waiting game.

December 2007
I loose another friend, Brandon McGuiness to hodgkins lymphoma.  He started the F*CK CANCER organization and died at twenty-six to pneumonia. 

March 2007
I loose my friend Noah Wilard to melanoma that spread to lymphoma.  I HATE CANCER.  Noah and I had traveled all over the Caribbean on his grandfathers boat.  We had so many amazing memories together.

August 2008
The nodule in my left lung is growing.  Time for surgery again !

November 2008
They did RFA to my left lung.  I had Pneumothorax (my lung collapsed and filled with fluid and blood).  I started coughing a lot and it HURT!  Just walking up the stairs would make me out of breath.

January 2009
I had appendicitis and started to be concerned about my cough not getting any better.  It started to become harder to breath and my cough became more and more shallow.

February 19th 2009
I got a cat-scan and they found a tumor in my left upper lung that was eight centimeters by eleven centimeters (about three and a half inches by four and a half inches).  This was the first time my cancer hurt.

February 20th 2009 I turn twenty-nine!  Happy freaking birthday to me.  One week later they do more scans because it is becoming more painful to breath.  The tumor had grown another two centimeters.  It continues to grow and my oncologists decide they want to remove my lung.  They run a test to see how much oxygen is going into each lung and find that my left lung is not getting any. February 27th 2009 After all my tests, I meet with my surgeon and he says he can’t remove my lung because of the location and size.  It is too close to my heart and major arteries.  This is freaking me out.  March 2nd 2009 I meet with my UCLA doctors.  We decide to do the same chemo that was used for my first cancer.  I know what I am going to go through and it is not good. March 4th 2009 Thanks to donations from friends, I get my eyebrows tattooed.

March 5th 2009 I have my head shaved…again…for the fourth time. March 7th 2009 I check in to the hospital and get started on my two chemos.  They also decide to give me steroids, which makes me puffy and miserable. Thank you for all of your prayers and donations.  I will continue to update you on my treatment and progress. Thank you to all my guardian angels!