Tracey Halfmann Hibbler
My life prior to cancer was pretty typical. I was born on July 6, 1980, in Carson City, Michigan. I have a younger brother, Kyle who was born four years after me. I grew up and have lived most of my life in Fowler, a small rural farming community. I spent the majority of my childhood playing with my brother and neighbor boys. For fun, we would play in old abandoned barns, go for bike rides or play in the fields. Once in high school, I focused my studies on computers and art with hopes of attending college one day, for what? I really wasn’t sure. I knew at a very small age that I wanted to be a wife and mother more than anything. So, I never really had the career planning on the front burner.
After graduation, I attended college for about a year. Then I accepted, what I thought, was going to be the job of my dreams. Growing up in Michigan, especially just outside Lansing, everyone had someone in their family who worked at General Motors. I was lucky enough to land a position doing clerical work through an employment agency. It was good money and good benefits. But by about 2001, things were really starting to take a turn in the automobile industry and in my life as well. I married and divorced my high school sweetheart of five years. In a matter of a year, decided to quit my job and move to Florida to explore new opportunities. Of course there was a more significant reason for my move, I had met the love of my life, Ryan.
Florida residents, but your state is not for me! I was so homesick. I missed trees and plush green lawns. I yearned for a field and the sound of countryside in the summer time. When 9/11 happened, I knew I had to come home. I was scared living in a Navy base town and wanted to be home again. Ryan and I came back and moved in with his mother. A few short months later, we learned we were pregnant and due August 2002. I was finally going to be a Mom!
Devin was born August 7, 2002, which is also my Dad’s birthday. I joke that it was the best gift I could give him, his first grandchild and a grandson at that. Life was good, hard to adjust to but good. In 2003, Ryan and I were married in a small private ceremony, aka the county courthouse, and finally became husband and wife. The following year of 2004 was hard and special all at once. My brother was deployed to Iraq, which I found especially stressful and emotional because I was pregnant as well. On December 20, 2004, we had our daughter Amelia. The balancing act of part time jobs and motherhood was not for me. After the birth of my daughter, I quit working and focused on being a Mom. Sure money was tight and we could hardly splurge - maybe once in awhile a trip to McDonald's but that was about it. Looking back, I am glad that I had that time with my kids while they were little.
In 2008, I decided to go back to school. I don’t know if I found my calling while watching Discovery Health at all hours of the day and learned I could get a degree and assist with surgeries in the operating room. But I knew that was what I wanted to do with my life. It was at school one day in 2009 that I learned something was wrong. I was studying with a friend of mine, and I had the worse stomach ache ever. I thought I had food poisoning from the salad bar at school. Once the diarrhea started and wouldn’t end, I became worried. The next day when I passed stool, I discovered it was mostly blood. Since my maternal grandmother had colon cancer, I knew that blood in the stool was not something to mess around with.
I saw my primary care physician later that day, 03/25/09, and she scheduled a CT scan to rule out a diagnosis of diverticulitis. I had my scan on 03/26/09, about half way through my spring semester. It was an early afternoon appointment. I wasn’t even home for ½ hour and the doctor’s office was calling me to tell me that I had an appointment with my primary the very next day to discuss my results. I was worried and asked why I needed to come back in. Of course, they wouldn’t tell me over the phone. My initial reaction was something along the lines of, “Oh great! Ryan’s vasectomy didn’t work and I have a baby in there, since I have irregular cycles”.
My friend went with me the next day for my appointment. She had some errands to run so we just went to St. Johns together. I went back into the room alone, thinking what can it possibly be? I was fine, really. I was tired a lot, but figured being a mom, wife and full time student was to blame for the fatigue. The doctor came in the room and told me that I had diverticulitis and that she was going to prescribe me some antibiotics to take care of the infection I had from it. I am thinking, "Really? You couldn’t just call a script into the pharmacy? You had to tell me face to face that I have little pockets that collect seeds and things in my colon? Whatever lady!" But then she said, “Tracey, there is something else. You have a mass, we cannot tell what it is from the scan, but it looks like it could be cancer. It is unlikely that it is, and I am only referring you to a nephrologist just to get a second opinion. Meanwhile I would like you to have another scan just to make sure”. The scan showed an “indeterminate 3.2 cm left renal complex cystic mass which is suspicious for renal cell neoplasm giving the imaging appearance. Given the age of the patient, other benign processes such as multilocular cystic nephroma is also considered in the differential diagnosis. Recommend urology consultation and consider follow up MRI with gadolinium to further characterize.” She drew me a rough circle, showing me the dimensions of the ovoid mass on my left kidney; I smiled and shook my head. I knew, I can’t explain it, but the moment she threw the C card at me, I knew that cancer was there. The rest of the appointment was a blur, I walked back into the waiting room and wouldn’t look my best friend of 25 years in the eye. I just handed her my keys and told her to take me home. Once I got to the car, my head was spinning. The birds were chirping louder than ever, the sun was beaming down on my skin, all my senses were heightened. Sara was scared, and once I finally spoke she understood why. How can I be 28 and hearing the words, you might have cancer? Up until this point, I never had ANY symptoms.
At home, I grabbed my husband and took him to the bathroom (funny the things you do for privacy when you have kids) and told him to sit down. He refused and said why, what is it? I told him, the C card and all. He, like everyone else in my life went into automatic denial once I told them. My brother cried when I called him, I desperately needed him to be strong for I didn’t know how to tell my parents that their only daughter might have cancer. My parents cried and hugged me, and told me that it wasn’t cancer, they just knew. My Dad gave me Holy Water and told me to rub it on my back. My Mom’s mother, my grandma Joyce, also was fighting cancer (colon cancer) at that point, too. I don’t think my Mom knew how to handle the two most important females in her life having cancer, or even the thought of it.
Ironically, we had a cookout and bonfire that night at my friend's house. Deanna, my other best friend of 25 years, lost her Dad to cancer when we were seniors in high school. She did was she does best, keeps you happy and distracts you. I kept joking, saying, “these carcinogens ‘blackened hot dogs’ sure are tasty. Come on cancer bring it on because if you think I am going into hiding and going to shut down at the thought of you, you have severely under estimated me."
The rest of the semester was a blur, I couldn’t sleep, but I could eat. I think I ate all my favorite foods everyday for two months. I followed up with the nephrologist on 04/07/09, who told me to see an urologist and that was a pointless appointment. I filed for Medicaid because I don’t have insurance and was denied so I just let the bills pile up. What else was I supposed to do? My husband was laid off, money was tight, and cancer was the last expense I needed. I talked with my grandma in great detail about a good urologist to see. She told me about her doctor, Dr. Eric Stockall. She said, “Tracey, he is cute, you will like him. He is a very handsome man, and he really cares about his patients”. Getting in to see the urologist was a bit tricky. That man is a busy guy. Once Dr. Stockall saw me and realized that I didn’t have any symptoms, he ordered an MRI which I had on 04/10/09. It came back just as puzzling as the CT scans. He decided either way I was going to have to be opened up and investigated. He wanted to schedule my partial nephrectomy while I was still in class that semester. I declined. I told him school is first, cancer is second. I will do the surgery the day after my last final, but not a moment before.
The biggest disappointment at the time was the fact that Ryan and I had finally found a house to buy. We submitted our bid and had a signed contract. We were to close a week after my surgery. We were finally going to be home owners, and the cancer stole that from us. I was racking up a mountain of debt. We didn’t know what the surgery was going to bring. Was it cancer? If so, had it spread? What was our financial future going to look like? So we backed out of the home purchase. It broke our hearts. I still cry driving past the house. It was perfect, on a paved road, in the country. It was old and had all that old farmhouse charm. It was on an acre, with a good sized garage / barn for Ryan’s man cave. The real kicker, it was only 45k …. our mortgage was going to be less than our rent!
On May 14, 2009, I had a partial nephrectomy. learned that it was cancer and that it had been removed. It was a relief to finally know what it was and that it was gone. The pathology report stated, “Specimen labeled “left renal mass FS make sure margins are clear” consists of an ovoid mass measuring 4.0 cm in greatest dimension. There is attached bloody adipose tissue. Part of the mass is covered by brown-tan tissue which inked blue. The other surface is capsulated or covered by fat, which is inked black. Sections of the tumor are yellow with hemorrhage and cystic change…pathologic stage: pT1a, pNX, pMX”. I went into my surgery knowing that I could wake up with a few little scars or wake up with a full fledged incision. I had the latter of the two. Last summer, I kept in under wraps. I showed the scar to very few people. This summer, however, I have decided to wear my bikini and share my battle scar with anyone who asks.
Recovery sucked…bad. I woke up, looked around and asked if it was cancer. My family told me it was, I smiled at a few onlookers and passed out cold again. I did that for a day. I was the most awake when Ryan brought Devin and Amelia to see me. It hurt so bad that my kids were scared to look at me. I did look scary, I had a drain coming from my left side, an IV, catheter, epidural, blood pressure cuff and these stupid inflating leg warmer things that drove me batty. Yeah I know they were on me to prevent blood clots, but they were annoying. When they removed the epidural and asked me to rate my pain it hurt, not as bad as I thought it would, but it hurt. They said, oh we have something to take care of that, Dilaudid—it is 8 times stronger than morphine. I was awake and lucid…and then it was good bye world, hello nausea. I had started eating food prior to the Dilaudid. After the Dilaudid, I didn’t keep anything but frozen slushies and ice cream down. I was nauseous for 2 weeks straight. They prescribed everything under the sun for the nausea and nothing worked. I cried because it was my wedding anniversary (6 years) and I was in the hospital positive that they were trying to kill me because they couldn’t stop the puking. I called my husband and begged him to come back to the hospital (a 45 minute drive at 4 am) because I needed to see someone to feel better. They tried running a tube through my nose down my throat to pump out my stomach contents to get the puking to stop, that sucked too…I wouldn’t recommend that procedure. The dry heaving with the incision, just thinking about how bad that hurt even now makes me have shivers. I refused all pain meds after that, I just wanted to be normal again.
Coming home was like making an across country trip in a freakin' sled across mountains. Okay, I don’t really know what that is like, but every bump, crack, dent in the asphalt, was my enemy. I passed out on the way home. Once back to the apartment, I came inside and just sat on the couch and reveled at the beauty of my kids. Sara had kept my house intact, fed my kids and husband, got Devin off to school and calmed their fears about cancer. Devin and Amelia didn’t know, not really anyways, just how serious cancer was at that point. They were just glad that I was back home with them. I slept and puked for 2 weeks. The stairs were my enemy. Sometimes I would cry at the thought of my bed up there, so far away from the first story of our place. It wasn’t until January of this year that Devin cried about me having cancer. We lost my grandma Joyce to cancer which was like losing a parent for me. To lose my inspiration for fighting cancer was and is difficult. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her. When Devin realized that cancer is what killed her, he went into overdrive and let all his emotions go about my cancer. Ryan will admit to me to this day that he has not dealt with my cancer diagnosis. He doesn’t know when he will be able to face it and deal with it. It is like a black cloud that hangs over our marriage - always hanging between us waiting to be discussed.
The hardest part of all of it, for me has been what I've lost to cancer. I lost the house of my dreams, my great credit standing, and the feeling of being part of the majority of other people. For me there are people who have never had cancer and there are people who have or have had cancer. I now belong to the second group. I have a hard time understanding how I had a disease that so many other people have had; yet, I feel more alone now in my life than I have ever felt. I feel like only fellow cancer warriors understand what I feel like. I did my first Relay For Life this year, and it was so emotional for me to see all the other cancer survivors there walking that survivors lap with me. It ticked me off that my grandma lost to cancer and that now I have an even higher chance of losing to cancer myself. I get what I call “scan freak out mode” where prior to my follow up scans I am super anxious, a loony toon. Waiting for the results from the scans is even worse. Then, when I do get my reports everything scares me. Every little mention on the report of something that isn't perfect scares me. For example I have learned that I have fatty liver disease, but it wasn't until the doctor actually told me that was what the spots were on my liver that the scans were referring to, I was scared that it was cancer. The same thing with my lungs. My last scan mentions a "tiny nodular density within the left lung base" but then follows it by saying it is "stable". My urologist says not to worry, it looks like nothing but that scares me because it seems that kidney cancer shows up in lungs when it spreads. So now I am playing the waiting game again until the end of this year before I have another scan. I wonder about my lung, and wonder if I should see an oncologist, but without insurance that seems like a daunting task.
I am still NED and just celebrated my one year anniversary of my nephrectomy. Since my surgery I have had scans on 08/10/2009, 10/05/2009, and 03/10/10. My next scan is scheudled for December 2010 (it will be nine months after my last scan). I will then follow-up with my urologist the first week of January. If the scan in December looks good, I won't have another scan for a year (December 2011). That is a good thing but also scary at the same time. I worry something will develop during that long time-period while I'm not having scans frequently. I think it's normal to worry between scans; but none the less, I worry about it.
The rest of the semester was a blur, I couldn’t sleep, but I could eat. I think I ate all my favorite foods everyday for two months. I followed up with the nephrologist on 04/07/09, who told me to see an urologist and that was a pointless appointment. I filed for Medicaid because I don’t have insurance and was denied so I just let the bills pile up. What else was I supposed to do? My husband was laid off, money was tight, and cancer was the last expense I needed. I talked with my grandma in great detail about a good urologist to see. She told me about her doctor, Dr. Eric Stockall. She said, “Tracey, he is cute, you will like him. He is a very handsome man, and he really cares about his patients”. Getting in to see the urologist was a bit tricky. That man is a busy guy. Once Dr. Stockall saw me and realized that I didn’t have any symptoms, he ordered an MRI which I had on 04/10/09. It came back just as puzzling as the CT scans. He decided either way I was going to have to be opened up and investigated. He wanted to schedule my partial nephrectomy while I was still in class that semester. I declined. I told him school is first, cancer is second. I will do the surgery the day after my last final, but not a moment before.
The biggest disappointment at the time was the fact that Ryan and I had finally found a house to buy. We submitted our bid and had a signed contract. We were to close a week after my surgery. We were finally going to be home owners, and the cancer stole that from us. I was racking up a mountain of debt. We didn’t know what the surgery was going to bring. Was it cancer? If so, had it spread? What was our financial future going to look like? So we backed out of the home purchase. It broke our hearts. I still cry driving past the house. It was perfect, on a paved road, in the country. It was old and had all that old farmhouse charm. It was on an acre, with a good sized garage / barn for Ryan’s man cave. The real kicker, it was only 45k …. our mortgage was going to be less than our rent!
On May 14, 2009, I had a partial nephrectomy. learned that it was cancer and that it had been removed. It was a relief to finally know what it was and that it was gone. The pathology report stated, “Specimen labeled “left renal mass FS make sure margins are clear” consists of an ovoid mass measuring 4.0 cm in greatest dimension. There is attached bloody adipose tissue. Part of the mass is covered by brown-tan tissue which inked blue. The other surface is capsulated or covered by fat, which is inked black. Sections of the tumor are yellow with hemorrhage and cystic change…pathologic stage: pT1a, pNX, pMX”. I went into my surgery knowing that I could wake up with a few little scars or wake up with a full fledged incision. I had the latter of the two. Last summer, I kept in under wraps. I showed the scar to very few people. This summer, however, I have decided to wear my bikini and share my battle scar with anyone who asks.
Recovery sucked…bad. I woke up, looked around and asked if it was cancer. My family told me it was, I smiled at a few onlookers and passed out cold again. I did that for a day. I was the most awake when Ryan brought Devin and Amelia to see me. It hurt so bad that my kids were scared to look at me. I did look scary, I had a drain coming from my left side, an IV, catheter, epidural, blood pressure cuff and these stupid inflating leg warmer things that drove me batty. Yeah I know they were on me to prevent blood clots, but they were annoying. When they removed the epidural and asked me to rate my pain it hurt, not as bad as I thought it would, but it hurt. They said, oh we have something to take care of that, Dilaudid—it is 8 times stronger than morphine. I was awake and lucid…and then it was good bye world, hello nausea. I had started eating food prior to the Dilaudid. After the Dilaudid, I didn’t keep anything but frozen slushies and ice cream down. I was nauseous for 2 weeks straight. They prescribed everything under the sun for the nausea and nothing worked. I cried because it was my wedding anniversary (6 years) and I was in the hospital positive that they were trying to kill me because they couldn’t stop the puking. I called my husband and begged him to come back to the hospital (a 45 minute drive at 4 am) because I needed to see someone to feel better. They tried running a tube through my nose down my throat to pump out my stomach contents to get the puking to stop, that sucked too…I wouldn’t recommend that procedure. The dry heaving with the incision, just thinking about how bad that hurt even now makes me have shivers. I refused all pain meds after that, I just wanted to be normal again.
Coming home was like making an across country trip in a freakin' sled across mountains. Okay, I don’t really know what that is like, but every bump, crack, dent in the asphalt, was my enemy. I passed out on the way home. Once back to the apartment, I came inside and just sat on the couch and reveled at the beauty of my kids. Sara had kept my house intact, fed my kids and husband, got Devin off to school and calmed their fears about cancer. Devin and Amelia didn’t know, not really anyways, just how serious cancer was at that point. They were just glad that I was back home with them. I slept and puked for 2 weeks. The stairs were my enemy. Sometimes I would cry at the thought of my bed up there, so far away from the first story of our place. It wasn’t until January of this year that Devin cried about me having cancer. We lost my grandma Joyce to cancer which was like losing a parent for me. To lose my inspiration for fighting cancer was and is difficult. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her. When Devin realized that cancer is what killed her, he went into overdrive and let all his emotions go about my cancer. Ryan will admit to me to this day that he has not dealt with my cancer diagnosis. He doesn’t know when he will be able to face it and deal with it. It is like a black cloud that hangs over our marriage - always hanging between us waiting to be discussed.
The hardest part of all of it, for me has been what I've lost to cancer. I lost the house of my dreams, my great credit standing, and the feeling of being part of the majority of other people. For me there are people who have never had cancer and there are people who have or have had cancer. I now belong to the second group. I have a hard time understanding how I had a disease that so many other people have had; yet, I feel more alone now in my life than I have ever felt. I feel like only fellow cancer warriors understand what I feel like. I did my first Relay For Life this year, and it was so emotional for me to see all the other cancer survivors there walking that survivors lap with me. It ticked me off that my grandma lost to cancer and that now I have an even higher chance of losing to cancer myself. I get what I call “scan freak out mode” where prior to my follow up scans I am super anxious, a loony toon. Waiting for the results from the scans is even worse. Then, when I do get my reports everything scares me. Every little mention on the report of something that isn't perfect scares me. For example I have learned that I have fatty liver disease, but it wasn't until the doctor actually told me that was what the spots were on my liver that the scans were referring to, I was scared that it was cancer. The same thing with my lungs. My last scan mentions a "tiny nodular density within the left lung base" but then follows it by saying it is "stable". My urologist says not to worry, it looks like nothing but that scares me because it seems that kidney cancer shows up in lungs when it spreads. So now I am playing the waiting game again until the end of this year before I have another scan. I wonder about my lung, and wonder if I should see an oncologist, but without insurance that seems like a daunting task.
I am still NED and just celebrated my one year anniversary of my nephrectomy. Since my surgery I have had scans on 08/10/2009, 10/05/2009, and 03/10/10. My next scan is scheudled for December 2010 (it will be nine months after my last scan). I will then follow-up with my urologist the first week of January. If the scan in December looks good, I won't have another scan for a year (December 2011). That is a good thing but also scary at the same time. I worry something will develop during that long time-period while I'm not having scans frequently. I think it's normal to worry between scans; but none the less, I worry about it.
I don’t know what advice I can offer, other than I feel as though everything happens for a reason, and GOD will not give you more than you can handle. So I figure if He handed me this burden to carry, He must feel that I am very strong to handle it all. I also try to follow my motto for life which I had tattooed across my shoulders on my six month anniversary of being cancer free, “that which does not kill me makes me stronger.”
I hope now, as I embark on my 30’s that they are better than the 20’s like everyone says. I am looking forward to many more years of my life. I think I will always be scared and that is all right; the fear reminds me that I am still alive to have the fear in the first place.
Tracey Halfmann Hibbler
Carson City, Michigan
Updated: September 2010
I am having an unplanned CT tomorrow (I am not scheduled until late December). I began noticing a small amount of blood in my urine over the weekend. Ironically I do not feel like I have a UTI or anything going on, but none the less the doctor feels a CT should be done to see what is happening.
Since my doctor will be out of town until next Friday, I will not get to discuss my results with him until then. You better believe I will be waiting at the radiology department on Monday to get a copy "for my own records" so I do not have to wait any longer than necessary. I will be in touch. Tracey
Thank you Tracey for your update. Please keep us posted as to the results of your scans!
Updated: September 2010
I am having an unplanned CT tomorrow (I am not scheduled until late December). I began noticing a small amount of blood in my urine over the weekend. Ironically I do not feel like I have a UTI or anything going on, but none the less the doctor feels a CT should be done to see what is happening.
Since my doctor will be out of town until next Friday, I will not get to discuss my results with him until then. You better believe I will be waiting at the radiology department on Monday to get a copy "for my own records" so I do not have to wait any longer than necessary. I will be in touch. Tracey
Thank you Tracey for your update. Please keep us posted as to the results of your scans!
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