Rebecca Olds:  

Hello! After high school, I went to Bay De Noc for my LPN degree. Lori Schultz and I lived there together for a year. We had a blast. It was lots of hard work, but we managed to pull through. After Bay, Lori and I lived together again and I went to work at Bell Memorial. I worked in Pediatrics for four years. I met my husband during that time and, after dating for two years, we were married on 9-16-83. Two days after we were married, we moved to Haslett, Michigan, near East Lansing, so Brian could go to MSU for his geology degree and his teaching certificate. I worked as a nurse for a pediatrician for a year and then four years for an ear, nose and throat physician. Brian had been laid off before we were married and when they called him in the fall of 1988, we jumped at the chance to move back to the UP. After that, I went back to school for my RN at Northern. I nearly finished, when I became pregnant. I had my oldest son, Travis, on March 8, 1990. I went back to school, but I became pregnant again and had my youngest son, Connor, on July 10, 1991. No more school after that! I was a stay at home mom until Connor was in Kindergarten and then I began doing medical transcription. I typed full-time for seven years. My life really changed on January 3, 2005. After two weeks of abdominal pain, I had surgery to remove a mass in my abdomen, which turned out to be lymphoma. I had a tumor wrapped around (and inseparable from) the blood vessels supplying my lower leg. My leg swelled up right away. I was diagnosed with Stage III B-Cell Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and given a 50-60% survival rate after five years, with Stage I being the most survivable and Stage IV the least. What a shocker that was! After my first chemo, my leg just went downhill and I ended up having my right leg amputated below the knee, which is something I was prepared for by then. After six rounds of chemo, I was considered cured! However, I got MRSA, but not a severe cas...Expand for more