May 6, 2009-  Before the sun had risen I was up at 5am. With no breakfast in my tummy and no makeup on my face, my mom & I headed to the hospital. Not sure why but I was channeling the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the 1990 cartoon), and my mantra walking into the hospital was “Let’s turtalise em!”  Yes, let’s turtalise these tumors!!

We checked into outpatient, signed some forms, and headed back to get prepped for surgery. Here is my small complaint… what is the first thing you wake up in the morning and do?? Most people go to the bathroom. Prepping for surgery they want you to pee in a cup to run some tests, general procedure. Well I couldn’t go, so they ended up having to draw blood. I hate needles!! The IV is bad enough, and more needles set me over the edge..

Surgery was a few hours and I woke up in Recovery with minimal pain. I did a swoop surgery to remove 10 tumors from head to toe… more like head to thighs and my poor boobie (boob) was a wounded in battle. Released from the hospital about 1pm and home to veg the day away on the couch. I tossed my cookies a few times due to the anesthesia, and really want some Strawberry Kefir to settle my stomach.

May 7, 2009-

I woke up at 1am in a lot of pain and failed at my countless attempts of opening my bottle of pain med’s. Child proofed sucks!

Plan today is to convince Tyler (my brother) to get me some Kefir… rest would be good too.

Final Notes-

I went under the knife again…. And kicked some serious ass!  Another surgery pulled off flawlessly!!

The River Bank Run this Saturday in Grand Rapids (Michigan) and my cause is simple- I’m doing this for Neurofibromatosis (NF), a genetic disorder that I live with. I’ve been doing the fulltime patient gig since the age of 7, with more than 20 surgeries under my belt and many more to come; it’s easy to lose sight of hope. This is where you have to keep your head high and keep on fighting. What I do sucks, but it’s crucial to never give up.

Check out my First Giving page for more information on the fight the cure NF.

http://www.firstgiving.com/jessicastone

All4aCause: All4NF

Peace, Love, Rock on!

Jessica Stone