As I sit here, even now, I hesitate to share the ins and outs, smooth sailing and challenges, all that I have faced in my short 25 years of life. I keep coming to the conclusion that even though I started this blog for fun, my love of food and cooking it, and something to do, it seems to me, God might have different ideas for it. Who knew?! While I wanted to remain mostly anonymous I quickly realized how impossible that was to actually do. What I cook, how I do it, and why all stem from other parts of my life. To make this a blog worth reading, you need to understand me and my life. Who is the ginger?!
Alright, I guess it's about that time to actually get to the story telling... But where to begin?! How to start? I have no idea, so just bear with me please? This will be the first installment in how many ever it takes to tell the story of ginger.
Since this is part one I will begin with the first thing that changed my life forever: I was born.
HAHA no no no, only joking. What really happened was I turned 16. I know, sounds weird right? Such a right of passage that everyone does and that usually ends in a girl sitting on a table with her crush blowing out 16 candles... wait, that was a movie wasn't it? Mine didn't go that way.
Ever since I was a little girl I had been a ballet dancer. I had quit all other sports to pursue it and did it as much as my mom would let me. Every summer, when I was out of school, I would go to a dance intensive where we danced 5 days a week for 6-8 hours a day. It's called an intensive for a reason. Well, in 2003 my knee started really hurting me. But not while I was dancing, it was fine all day and then I would get home and it would turn red and hurt very badly. My father tried different techniques to get it to stop which would have worked if the problem had been in the muscle. Since they weren't working though my family and I decided to get an MRI to see what the deal was. I wanted to get it done with before my 16th birthday the next week. We really thought it was an ACL problem that would be semi-easy to fix. I wanted to get everything fixed so that I would be A-OK to dance n the fall productions; especially the Nutcracker. I was finally at the stage I could get a solo or a part not in the core! We could never have prepared for the results we got.
I went and had the MRI and some x-rays done at one of my dad's friend's places and awaited the verdict. He put the x-rays up on the lighted board and then stepped out to make a phone call. While sitting in the room waiting I noticed my dad looking at the x-rays with concern.
"What do you see?" I asked him.
"Well, that spot that is all fuzzy in the bone above your knee is not supposed to be there"
"Not supposed to be there?!," I thought. "What does that mean?! How does something get into your bone that doesn't belong there? I don't understand." I really just didn't understand.
The doctor returned and began speaking with my dad like I wasn't even there. I couldn't really follow because they were talking in doctor's jargon. While trying to listen to them talk and still trying to understand the x-ray I caught the words "tumor" and "cancerous" and began to think, "they must be talking about someone they both know now, not me. No one has said anything to me about my leg so it's not about me."
My subconscious must have known something was wrong because I excused myself to the bathroom and as soon as the door clicked shut the tears just started falling uncontrollably. I felt ridiculous thinking, "I'm in a doctor's bathroom crying and I don't even know what's going on! Dev, you are being absolutely silly!"
I came out of the bathroom and my dad and I left. In the car I was still trying to hold tears back but really still wasn't sure why I was being so emotional. My dad took my hand and looked at me. He said "we will do whatever we need to beat this. It's going to be ok."
That was the moment my fears were confirmed. I had cancer. It was in my bone. And everything changed.
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