I Can't Believe It

Many of you reading this have heard the story of my diagnosis. For those of you who don't I will give you the shortened version. Nurse for 24 years and last two months of it a Nurse Practitioner. Never sick, in good health, vegetarian (but ate fish) for previous 15 years, exercised, maintained appropriate weight, didn't smoke, and drank occasionally. Married , three healthy children and at that time my daughter, Michelle, was in senior year at Boston University, my son Jay (short for Gennaro), entered second year at Northeastern University, and my son Mario was 8yrs. old and in third grade. Married 23 yrs. to a Volkswagen mechanic and one of the smartest men I know. I practiced my Catholic Faith. I had many friends and family that loved me. Sounds like a perfect life.
Then in the third week of October 2007 a sunden severe and excruciating pain developed in my stomach. As all nurses do, we tend to minimize our symptoms so 2 days after the pain started I finally called my PCP where after ruling out gall bladder disease he sent me to the ER for further testing and pain control. Two days later after having a colonscopy I received the diagnosis of Colon Cancer. I was also told that the CT scans of my liver did not look so well either. Next step would be surgery.
So I transferred from the Suburban Hospital I was in to Brigham and Womens Hospital, a major teaching hospital in Boston. They are affilialted with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a world renowned cancer institute. In fact a walkway joins the two together.
The night after surgery when I was able to comprehend things, my surgeon came to my room to tell me the news. All through laproscopic surgery (the good news), he was able to remove about ten inches of my colon, rejoin the two ends, removed 30 lymph nodes which all tested positive for cancer and biopsy my liver (7 large tumors and innumerable small or non-defined tumors) with a positive biopsy. I asked him to tell me the stage (I knew already) and he said stage 4. I remember looking him straight in the eyes and said in one of my most sarcastic tones "and there ain't stage 5."