WOW. life just comes atcha sometimes. Recently I posted a blog about getting away from life's trials, after this post I received dozens of emails asking me to tell more about what happened with Trystan. One person left an anonymous comment, that left me to believe it was Trystan ....Over the past few years I have posted so much personal stuff about my life and there are times people will leave an anonymous comment, those have never bothered me because I understand and can appreciate if they want to express to me how they feel without revealing who they are thank you for your comments by the way I look forward to seeing them, if it was you Trys I hope your life is going well I continue to pray for you, if it was not Trystan I hope you will understand why I am cautious.
With a lot of prayer and consideration I decided I would blog about some of the details of what happened with Trystan and how we came to find out she was not being truthful. Please know that I, in no way shape or form want to re-live this again, it has been a terrible experience and I am still trying to make some sense out of it. With that being said I also want to make some awareness so that others will not have to go through this, actually most of you are much wiser than I am and would not allow yourself to be put in this situation, but if you know someone like me have them read this if you feel they are.
Those of you who know me well, know that I am not a complicated person, I say things like they are and everyone knows where they stand with me, however, I open my life up to people because I love people and want to badly to help and be there for anyone who needs it.
I started this blog before I was diagnosed with breast cancer, for the purpose of sharing a part of me with my family, especially my children, maybe a part of me that they don't always see, a peek into my heart and soul. After my diagnosis this blog made it easier to express myself, share the details of my journey with the VILLAIN, little did I know it would have an impact on many woman who were also being treated with chemo and radiation. Those woman have touched me and strengthened me in ways that I really would not be able to explain, they are woman who truly understand the struggles of being a mom, a wife and juggling the effects of the VILLAIN taking over our lives. I also thought for me, it was important to journal my entire journey every detail so that woman could know exactly what a person goes through when they get this type of diagnosis.
I began to get a lot of emails from people all over the nation and even some in Europe who were experiencing the same thing. I loved every connection I made with these woman and emailed each one of them back. One day I received an email from a woman who was going through chemo, she only had 2 more rounds and wanted someone to talk to. I began to email her, the story was heart wrenching she explained how she and her 2 year old daughter were in a car accident 5 years ago and her daughter did not survive as she was lying in a hospital in a coma, the doctors told her husband that she would not make it through the night, he went home wrote a suicide note and took his life. After many months of being in a coma, she did wake up, imagine her devastation finding out her only child and husband were gone. She then had to endure months on rehab, learning how to read, write, walk and talk all over again, now she was living with the VILLAIN. I cried when I read that email, I could not believe any one person could endure what she had and at such a young age. I remember praying that night, asking the Lord to please relieve her of her pain from chemo and strengthen her with FAITH and HOPE, just like I had been strengthened through my experience. I felt this connection with her, something I had never felt before and I continued to keep up with her progress. When she had her last chemo, I celebrated that day with her, our conversations became daily and were emotional as well as humorous, I think it's safe to say we trusted and admired each other. She shared with me that not only was the VILLAIN a big part of her life, she was dying from kidney failure and needed to be admitted into the Mayo Hospital in Rochester. My heart went out to her and I continued to talk and email her everyday. One email I sent her was me telling her how I wanted to start a non-profit organization for women with breast cancer who do not have insurance. Through the contacts I have made with all these women I realized many of them do not have health insurance, and many states will help them pay for treatments but not for reconstruction, so I wanted this non-profit to help those women get the reconstruction if they wanted it. I asked her what she thought about my idea, and she was very supportive and wanted to help me.
She explained to me how her family was not close, her brother and sister in law have 15 month old twins, she told me her brother was the drummer of the band REM, I had no idea who they were.
She explained that when she was in the car accident with her daughter, Honda had given her huge amount of money for her payout (200 million) the second highest payout ever from the Honda company.
She then told me she was going to donate a million dollars to my organization, you can imagine how excited I was because I knew this would help to jump start this organization and get the help to women right away. She told me about an organization she has, she bought a home in Hilton Head on the beach for children with terminal diseases to go with their families for a week, she then sent me a magazine article she was featured in about her organization and the fundraiser she did for it in July of 2010. REM. Loretta Lynn and several other performers came to Hilton Head and did an all day concert, she told me she would help me to get my first fundraiser organized and that she had all these connections to help me.
I was so grateful to her for her generosity and told her I could never repay her for all her help, but that she would be blessed. Her stay in the Mayo hospital was long and dreary. We talked everyday, sometimes for several hours, I just did not want her to be alone and I enjoyed getting out of my little cancer world and helping to cheer her up. She asked me if it was OK for her doctor (Dr. Williams) to email me and give me updates on what was going on with her, because she did not want her mother knowing she was in the hospital or her brother to know the severity of her illnesses, I said yes and her doctor began to email me every morning and sometimes nights to give me updates. I was told her kidney was only working at 20% and that she needed a kidney transplant, she was peeing straight blood by now and her heart was failing. Both she, and her doctor asked me if I would be willing to give her my kidney, after discussing it with Eric we decided it was the right thing to do, however I was not sure with my health condition if I would be a good candidate, her doctor assured me she knew I was a match, and that she knew God had brought her and I together for this reason. During this time was when I too was having some issues and needed to see my gynecology oncologist, Dr. Magtibay. She and I talked about everything with each other, she told me about a time when she was in John's Hopkins Hospital for kidney failure, she was blessed to get a kidney from a donor, however while she was in the ICU a nurse physically abused her by putting a drug into her IV which made her paralyzed, but she was awake and aware of everything going on, he raped her and vaginally cut her up, she was rushed to the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale for a vaginal reconstruction surgery and her doctor was Dr. Magtibay, with the assistance of Dr. Williams they were able to "fix" her but the trama from this event has never left her, she could not sleep and was deeply emotionally scared from it. Dr. Williams begged me to please try and get her to talk about it with me since she had never had any therapy and refused to talk to anyone about it. I prayed as to how I could help her, being sexually abused myself I felt like I could talk to her more freely about it, but I knew this was going to be emotionally draining on me as well, I have never discussed with anyone the details of what happened to me as a child, teen and young adult, nor did I want to start now, after all I had put all of that stuff behind me, except for one little thing, when the doctors told me they wanted me to get a hysterectomy it always scared me and brought up some past issues, this is the reason for me never agreeing to that surgery, until now. I began to talk to her, I told her little at a time hoping she would open up to me. During this entire interaction with Trystan my children were extremely worried about me, they told me that they felt something about Trystan was not right and that I needed to let go a little and get more information about her. This was difficult for me to hear because I was enjoying being able to have someone to talk to, especially someone who could totally understand what I was going through. (I forgot to mention that she and I had become friends on Facebook early on in the friendship also) There were several times she was near death and her brother would text me and ask me to please pray for her. I had been emailing Blake and telling him about Trystan, he emailed me one week and suggested we have a family fast for Trys, so I suggested it to her brother, at the time Trystan and I had just had surgery on the exact same day in January but she never came out of her sedation. I explained that we would start the fast on an evening and close on the following night, 24 hours with no food or drink and lots of prayers. The next day she woke up--it happened to be on my birthday--I had posted that the only birthday gift I would care to have would be for her to wake up--and she did. All of this time she was supposedly in the hospital her doctor Dr. Williams was emailing me and having me update her "Care Page" which is available through Mayo Clinic so everyday sometimes several times a day I would update the page so all her friends could keep up with her recovery-or lack of. I received emails and comments on my blog from Loretta Lynn, and her brother and sister in law. Just when we thought she was strong enough for me to come and visit, Dr. Williams emailed me one night and said that Trystan needed some vaginal repair done and that she was going to call Dr. Magtibay at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix and ask him to do her a favor and fly out there for a couple of days to do the surgery, she told me that her and "Paul Magtibay" were friends and collegues and that he "owed" her for some things she had done for him. For any of you who have followed my blog you should remember that Dr. Magtibay is my gynecology/oncologist, Dr. Williams told me that when Trystan was abused at John's Hopkins she had to be flown out to Mayo Clinic in Phoenix to be operated on my Dr. Magtibay, she asked me to never discuss this with him as there is a dr/patient confidentiality problem with her discussing all these things with me. In the mean time I received an email from Blake telling me that a woman in Scotland named Shannon had emailed him and told him that she was in fear of me being hurt and that he should tell Eric right away about Trystan being a fraud (the same thing happened to her) except that she did not have cancer.
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