Devon Volkel's Blog, page 58
June 3, 2014
May 31, 2014
May 20, 2014
May 19, 2014
Testing for orange tip
Testing for orange tip
May 18, 2014
Good times, good friends
Good times, good friends
May 15, 2014
My Story
My name is Devon Volkel. I am a mother. I am a writer. I am a cancer survivor. And I have a story to tell.
When I was pregnant with my son in 2008, I noticed that he didn’t move around a lot. I didn’t have good health insurance and so I was going to a clinic with 18 different doctors. It was very impersonal for a very personal experience. When I was 28 weeks, an insensitive doctor poked his head in, said, “Devon, has anyone ever told you your son might be breech?” and left the room. I panicked. “What does that even mean?” I asked myself. I freaked out. I called everyone I knew to calm my nerves. “It’s okay, Devon, they can try and turn him and if they can’t, you’ll just have a c-section.” It was the general consensus about it. So I let it go and refused to see that doctor again. At 38 weeks, he was the only one available. He apologized and asked if I had ever found out. I returned with a “No.” Sure enough, Gauge was breech, so we set up a version, which is a manual attempt at turning him in the womb. When I went in for my version, they found out his arms and legs were out like a frog. It was too dangerous to do it. I had to try to get him to turn myself over the weekend. I began to have contractions the next day and went in, thinking I’d just be sent home. They scheduled the c-section for 3 p.m. that day. As I was lying on the operating table, I looked to my husband who had a tear in his eye. The doctors asked if Dusty—my husband—would like to watch his son being born. He stood and watched Gauge come into the world. But something was wrong. There were no cries at first. Silence. My heartbeat returned to normal when I hear his sweet cry. They wrapped him up, put him to my lips to let me kiss his little head, and took him to the NICU. “He’s having a hard time breathing Devon. We’re gonna take him somewhere to help him breathe.” An hour later there was still no word. No baby at my side, no people coming in with smiles and balloons, no fun statistics. Only ominous glances and sorrow-filled smiles. Finally, my nurse decided to wheel me to the NICU. We entered, I saw an array of doctors and nurses crowded around where my baby was, and then she wheeled me out. I didn’t get to see him until he was three hours old. Hooked up to a plethora of machines with a very swollen head. No one knew what was wrong. His left leg was purple. They decided they must have broke his femur when pulling him out and put him on a fetnel drip, wrapped the bottom half of his little body in a cast, and still had no words for me on what was wrong with him. Days later there was still no change. I got to hold him for the first time on the third day. On the fifth day, when everyone was at work, the neonatologist came to my room to tell me that she feared Gauge would not make it off the ventilator, he wasn’t acting like a normal baby. Keep in mind he was currently receiving a narcotic for pain-what baby wouldn’t act normal? After I cried harder than I ever did, I let her tell my family what she had just told me. Then, when they were getting ready to go say goodbye to him, I said, “NO!!! He is not going to die.” This fight arose in me that I had never felt in my life. A drive that said he would make it because I couldn’t live without him. Two days later he was accidentally extubated while they were lying him on my chest. He was able to breath alright without the tubes. When they took him off of the fetnel drip, he started acting like a normal baby. Go figure. Gauge still had to spend a month in the NICU and he came home on oxygen, but he came home. He was diagnosed with Congenital Myopathy and cannot walk, but he is the most amazingly bright little boy I have ever met.
A year or so later, I had an idea for a story come to me. I sat down and a series worth of novels fell out of me. I thought it was an amazing story and looked to find an agent to help me publish it. I found one right away, and she became one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I will continue more about the story later.
Two years later, my husband and I had just been married in September of 2011. We had been trying to get pregnant and were overjoyed by the news that we were. I was looking to get better care for this pregnancy and so I went to a different doctor. He wanted me to get some additional blood work done, but said I had until November 22nd. This was November 7th. I had Dusty watching my kiddos—I had become a day-care lady in the interim—and so I decided to just go that day. The next day, my doctor called me and told me my blood counts were dangerously low, to take my husband alone to this doctor, and that was all he said. Dusty and I went the next day and the word “Cancer” was all over the building. The doctor came in, asked me some questions, and told me that I had Leukemia and had to go to Denver for a month to receive extensive chemotherapy. He informed me that my platelets were down to 8,000, a normal persons is anywhere between 140,000-160,000. I had to go to the hospital that night to receive my first of many platelet transfusions. On November 9th, I arrived in Denver and was given options. I had been diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and was informed it moved fast. They couldn’t save me and the baby. If I didn’t start receiving chemo, I would be dead within days, the cancer was in 97% of my bone marrow. On 11/11/11 we gave my guardian angel back to the stars. The cancer went right into remission, I didn’t lose my hair at first but had shaved it off anyway to have some sort of control over an uncontrollable situation. The day I found out I had cancer, I said to it that I was going to kick its ass and make it my bitch. I was determined to live because I was not done with the world yet. I snuck out of my room, walked the grounds of the hospital, and sneaked cigarettes. I refused to be a cancer patient. It was a tiny part of who I was. I kept in touch with my agent and made the many, many, many changes to my novel that she requested. To this day I am still in treatment, almost done in March of 2014. I eventually lost my hair the summer of ‘12, but I was a pretty bald chick. I do tear up when I think of my baby, I wanted her so bad, but I know she was my guardian angel and she will return to me again one day. “An angel came to my side and stayed long enough to save me.” -Jimi Hendrix.
All along we said that 2013 was going to be a better year. Well, three days into it my daddy went into cardiac arrest and almost died. He pulled through, but gave us quite the scare. Then in February, I started noticing Gauge doing weird things. He began wetting the bed all the time, so much that we had to go back to pull-ups at night. He was very skinny and always thirsty. When I looked up the symptoms, I found out he may be diabetic. I had my friend come over to test his blood. He was at 358. Normal is 70-120. I rushed him the ER where they admitted him and began treating him for diabetes. He was then diagnosed with type one, the worst kind. The hardest part is stabbing him with needles, telling him it’s to help him, looking into his beautiful five year old eyes when he tells me, “Mommy, I don’t want to have diabetes anymore” and not having the heart to tell him it’ll never go away. If I could take it from him, I would. I would endure it all. Why my son? Why the one who already had a horrendous start into this world? I screamed at the world louder than I ever had at this point. He is doing well right now, even checking his own blood. Eventually we will get him on the pump to make his life easier, but still. Why him?
I kept telling myself it was going to get better. That my 30’s were going to be awesome. I was born on St. Patrick’s day and wanted to celebrate in style, Vegas style. I deserved a break. The morning of my 30th birthday, I woke up to an email from my agent saying that my novel had been picked up by Penrose Publishing! The very first thing that I saw was this email. It was fitting, I had to be in Vegas because that is how big I felt that day. I knew that I had a good story and that the world would enjoy it as much as I had. It came out on October 13th of this year. The title is, “A Witch’s Aura.” It is, besides my son, my greatest accomplishment to date. It goes to show you that no matter what you go through in life, never give up on you or your dreams. I am in the process of writing more novels, publishing my book of poetry, and writing a book of spells that goes along with my book, along with ingredients for the spells. My motto is never give up, no matter what happens. And to those fighting cancer, positive mental attitude is what pulled me through. I never let it define me, I never let it have me, I was the ruler of my body and Leukemia wasn’t welcome anymore.
I hope my story inspires you. I hope my novel speaks to you. And I hope my battles help at least one person fighting theirs.
"Climb the clouds to find your dreams." -Devon Volkel
https://www.facebook.com/AWitchsAura
http://www.penrose-publishing.co.uk/Authors/Devon%20Volkel.php
May 14, 2014
Lilies are so gorg!!
Lilies are so gorg!!
May 13, 2014
Mama and baby boy #babylove #mamasboy
Mama and baby boy #babylove #mamasboy
May 12, 2014
http://www.penrose-publishing.co.uk/A...
Fires burn and candles twitch. Fabric’s love and trust is stitch.
Unravel doth thou bends with doubt. Frays and shreds and rips with gout.
Mend the frayed and seal the lost. At any price, at any cost.
Winds of change who crook the trees. Ignite the night and bend the breeze.
Lift these thoughts from (lover’s) mind. Wreck the weak and mend the blind.
Take my trust and infuse it here. Within this realm, which is sincere.
Frejya my lovely, Goddess of protection. Make it be done, make the correction.
Blessed Be.
©Devon Volkel
