I am Thankful for being healthy

What I am Thankful for
By Tony Catinella
Exchange Staff

After a year full of surgery, blood, stitches, needles, medicine, and exhaustion, I can easily say that on this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my health. As of today, I can finally say that I am healthy.
Last January as I received a routine surgery of removing my wisdom teeth, and while receiving X-Rays of my mouth, doctors found giant cells growing in my right jaw. After receiving a biopsy, doctors diagnosed me with giant cell granuloma. In other words, I had a benign tumor growing rapidly in my mouth which required major surgery. If I resisted surgery and let the tumor grow it would have ultimately destroyed my teeth, my mouth, and my physical appearance.
When first diagnosed with the tumor, doctors informed me that the process would require multiple surgeries and the right side of my jaw would be removed and replaced with a bone in my hip. They said the surgery would even change my facial appearance. I was scared. My whole future was flashing before my eyes. “I am a Mass Communications major,” I thought to myself, “how can I speak or even appear on TV with a deformed face?” Well, health issues are usually uncontrollable so I had to deal with my problems. In fact I was lucky that my tumor was benign and not cancerous.
Within a day later of learning the news of my tumor, fittingly on Friday the 13 of January 2006, I started bleeding intensely from my mouth. The bleeding was caused by my wisdom teeth surgery wounds mixed with my growing tumor. The bleeding was uncontrollable. I had a mouth full of gauze which quickly soaked with blood. The blood dripped all over my sink, my pillows, my floor, my clothes; it could not be controlled. As I write this, I can still remember the thick salty taste of the great amount of dark red blood that filled my mouth and made me gag. After realizing that the bleeding would not stop, my dad rushed me to emergency room of Mass General Hospital in Boston at 2 a.m. After patiently waiting in a hospital room for eight hours, that’s right, eight hours, I was seen by doctors.
The doctors stitched my mouth up, took X Rays and a CT scan, and re-informed me that I had giant cell granuloma. This time they delivered me good news. They explained that there was a new surgery created at Mass General that removes the tumor without destructing my jaw.
A month later, I went under the knife and had my tumor removed. The surgery required the scooping out of my tumor and the removing of bone in my right jaw. After the surgery I went over two months without eating solid foods. I was limited to soft foods which were usually broken up in a blender. I drank disgusting protein shakes and ate pudding and Jello so often that the scene of them today makes me sick. In the process I lost 20lbs which is a lot for someone my size (5’6’’).
One week after the surgery, I was put on a medicine called Interferon. I was required to take this medicine daily for at least six months to prevent the tumor from growing back. The medicine also helped the bone in my jaw to grow back. Taking this medicine is annoying. Like an Epi pen, I had to inject myself in my thigh with this medicine every single night from March 1- October 30. The worst part of the Interferon medicine wasn’t injecting myself daily with a needle, but it was the side effects that came with it. Interferon made me extremely tired every day. It gave an active person like me, no energy. I was exhausted almost everyday while on it. The tiredness put me in bad moods and gave me mood swings.
Last spring semester I had to return to school with this medicine and one of the most annoying parts was that I could not mix alcohol with it. While my fellow classmates guzzled down beer, I was lying on my bed, weak as an insect.
But I did it. I got by. I’m healthy now. I’m cured, and most of all I’m thankful for having my health. I think of the people with worse diseases and realize that they can not be cured. I realize how lucky I was to have a medicine to fix me. My medicine only lasted 8 months. Some people have to take medicine everyday for the rest of their lives.
What I learned from this experience was to never give up. I also learned to never take your health for granted. Take each day, one at a time and everyone should be thankful each day that they are living on this earth. Well I know I am.