Mesothelioma Patient Caregiver Shares Her Story

My name is Jeanette, and my connection to Kim is that we are childhood friends. We grew up next were to each other literally, and we've been friends for 50 years. We know each other so well We always know what's going on in each other's lives. One year when my husband and I and my daughter traveled to California, and we had one of our get togethers. She told me she wasn't feeling well. She'd had a pain in her left side that hadn't gone And I think she was getting to the point where she was starting to get worried. So she ended up going to the doctor and having some tests done. One time she called me up, and she said, Jay, I've been to, you know, all these doctors. And now they're thinking it's one of these things. And the very last thing she said or mesothelioma. She said, doesn't think it's that, you know, how could it be that? And I thought to myself, well, there's no way. There was a little discussion with not only that physician, but others trying to really figure out what was going on with her. And so that's when we went to see an expert surgeon, a specialist in mesothelioma, and he confirmed the diagnosis. He said you definitely have mesothelioma. And so he spent a lot of time with us. We had a lot of questions I kind of tend to be the girl with all the questions. So I just really appreciated here this renowned specialist in the field, taking so much time with us and just really discussing the disease, what her options were, explaining to her that she was, first of all, in an early stage of the disease that it was in her left lung, and that she was young, strong and healthy. And he was the one that started speaking about the surgery that she eventually ended up having. She was really the person that helped everybody else. And now she needed help. I really tried to offer her emotional support. As you can imagine this is just a devastating disease, and it was really a hard diagnosis to hear and to comprehend. I was trying to be a friend that she could call on, somebody that she could talk to about what she was going through. Didn't really matter what it was. I just tried to really be there for her to support her to listen to her. I had very little basic knowledge of mesothelioma before her diagnosis. During my initial phone call with Missy at Asbestos.com. I found her to be warm, friendly, engaging, really supportive, and she really wanted to know about Kim's situation, she wanted to know about our relationship. And so I feel like during these conversations with her that she became a personal advocate. And I think that was really huge. It was really great to have someone that we felt was in our corner. After our initial conversation, Missy offered to send both Kim and I packets on mesothelioma. And, of course, we were receptive to that. When the packets came in the mail, we both found that they were extremely helpful. It really helped educate her and I both on what she was facing, what she was looking at and what, her path would be through this process. There was a path that we knew we could take to figure out what specialists might be the best for Kim, where they were located, what their specialties were, and there were also resources for Kim, people that she could call to ask questions about about the procedures and the process that she was about to go through. I knew going into this that Kim would recover, that she would make it through this. Kim is very strong. She's resilient. She has a will to live. And I think really for her, that was critical. And so even when things got tough. I always knew that she could make it through. And there was a lot of times that was just one foot in front of the other. Just one treatment, just one, you know, walk down the hall, one, you know, wave of nausea to get through. Was just kind of the process, and she got stronger as her incisions started to heal, and she was getting out of bed and able to do more. She was so strong that it for me, it was just easy to say, yes, you know, you can do this. You can get through it. And by being involved with her and being kind of a support person that I was able myself to just comprehend and realize and decide really that I could be strong for her as well.