The Cancer Story Part 3

So I was in the hospital at first for 2 weeks.  Every day begging to have tubes removed, every day asking the Dr when I could go home.  He was a gifted surgeon and literally felt and discovered my microscopic tumors. However, he did not have the best bedside manner and didn't always take time to answer my questions, or explain things unless my husband was in the room with me.  This was frustrating.  I remember discovering the sad side effects of not having a colon.  I was spending much of my time in those first 2 weeks getting help out of the bed, having to drag all my tubes and the TPN line with me to the bathroom, sitting there and dealing with the runs, feeling actually like I had no muscle control over that situation, and then getting back into my bed, which was a process, only to need help to get back out of bed like 20 or 30 minutes later.  The doctors were playing around with my pain meds and also with anti-diarrhea meds.  Not a lot seemed to be helping.  I would buzz the staff often asking if it was time for pain or anti-diarrhea meds yet. 

Finally after 2 weeks of being in the hospital and slowly having tubes removed, they took out the catheter but I still had a drainage tube in me.  However the day I returned home I ended up in horrible pain.  That night my husband took me into the ER. I was screaming off and on for the hour drive to the hospital due to the pain and because of the runs, I wasn't sure if I'd make it to the hospital in time.    I was given pain meds and sent home.  The next day I saw my Dr. for a check-up but ended up getting admitted because of the pain and also because it appeared that I wasn't outputting enough urine into my catheter.  I was in tears.  I didn't want to go back in to the hospital and I did not want to go no TPN again.  That night I was in so much pain I couldn't sit, stand, or even get into my bed.  I can't describe the pain.  It was unlike any pain I had ever felt before.  I would scream in pain, my eyes would roll back into my head as I felt like passing out or falling over from the pain.  The nurses would come into my room and tell me they could hear me in the hall but it wasn't time yet for more pain meds. I found myself crying out to God, begging Him to either heal me or take me.  I was so ready at that point to get to heaven and be free from this suffering and be in a place I have longed for.  I would listen to Chris Tomlin's song "Home" and long to go to Heaven.  The thought of dying and being in my Savior's presence brought me much settled peace.  I wasn't afraid.  Yet I knew I had a husband and kids who weren't ready for me to die yet. 

I finally I remember the next morning three doctors came to my room, they did an ultrasound on me and then in the local language we heard, "Wow, that's a lot of fluid!"  My now fairly empty abdomen was filling up with fluid.

That's when things happened very quickly as within minutes a catheter was placed in me again, much to my dismay because I actually found it really painful when it was in before.  And then right there in my hospital bed, they re-cut open one of my sites where I had a drainage tube and they put in a new drain.  Within seconds it filled up with fluid.  I was then taken down to day surgery where they inserted another drainage tube.  I was in tears.  I had just been released days before.  This meant I would have to stay in the hospital and be away from my kids and my husband longer.  At some point I went for a CT scan of some sort where they discovered the fluid was coming from my bladder which appeared to have been nicked during surgery.  This meant that that fluid was actually partly urine...gross!!

So I stayed in the hospital for almost a week and then I was sent home with the drainage tubes and the catheter still in me and if I  had to use the washroom I had to wake up my husband to help me get up, carry all my tubes, and help me in the bathroom. We both were lacking so much sleep.  However, a few days later I was back in the hospital. I was unable to keep food down due to my stomach being sensitive to food, tastes, smells and to the side effects of the strong pain meds I was on.  I was continuing to lose weight.  They eventually cut me off the strong pain meds due to the side effects (causing me to throw up, etc) and i was forced to have to be ok on just Tylenol type meds.  Each time I would beg to go home.  My little girl was having such a hard time not having me at home.  If friends brought her to see me she'd scream and throw a fit when it was time to leave me at the hospital.

Near the start of the cancer fight my husband bought me boxing gloves. It's something my sister-in-law had bought my Father-in-law when he was battling his own cancer fight a few yrs prior. Over time a few of my friends signed those pink gloves and they are now on display in my home.  But I remember one day I was so frail and so weak, and SO so ready to go be with Jesus.  My wonderful husband made me put those gloves on, even though I didn't feel like I had fight in me, he took a picture of me and sent it to my friends asking them to pray for me.  Finally after 4 weeks of this in and out of the hospital my husband finally asked the Dr. what we were gonna do about the bladder tear.

The day before this my Doctor, who had delivered my daughter a couple yrs prior, came to see me.  She told me I should ask the surgeon about doing a day surgery to fix the tear and said that often even obgyn's nick bladders during c-sections, etc and it's an easy thing to repair.  So when my husband asked the surgeon if we could consider surgery he told us to give him 24 yrs to think about it.  It was almost a relief when he came back that next day to tell us we'd have surgery again.  Not that I wanted to go under the knife once again but I wanted to fix this problem so I could begin to heal and move on.

I was in the hospital for another week healing from that surgery.  The first night I was told I couldn't get out of bed.  My legs were placed in some sort of casing that was there to try to keep the blood flow going since I wasn't able to get up.  Remember, I have no colon so I was needing to go frequently to the bathroom. This meant that my wonderful, servant-hearted hubby spent that night bed panning me together with the nurse or with a dear friend who came for a couple of hours to help out.  Yep it was not my favorite moments but I fell in love with my husband even more.  And then the next day he sent me this song: My Only Love by Matt Maher.  I had tears in my eyes as I listened to it.  It was humbling to say the least.  After another week in the hospital I was able to go home.  However I continued to struggle with pain and with eating. I remember one day my husband came walking into the room, taking one look at me and being worried.  He didn't say it then but he wondered if he was gonna lose me.  My skin was greyish in color and I was around 77 lbs.  He later told me the look of my skin and on my face reminded him of what his Dad looked like on his death bed.  I was weak and frail and unable to do much.  When we went for a check-up he was relieved I was readmitted.  Though again he didn't say anything because I was so disheartened that I had to stay again.  At this point my veins were so small and I was so dehydrated that it was hard for them to put TPN back into me and thy struggled to even insert it in my the vein in my neck.

I knew that 6 weeks with the catheter wasn't helping me heal any faster.  That night I begged the Dr. to remove it.  He did but then this meant that I was up for the washroom about every half hr for sure peeing.  My bladder had to learn how to work on it's own without having the use of a catheter.  After about 5 more days I was finally released to go home.  This was April 13th.  My goal was to be home for my son's birthday and that I was.  I was so thankful for my girl friends who helped to put things together for my son's birthday party since I was in no shape to plan or even attend the party. 

Due to all the hospital stays, frequent bathroom trips, crappy hospital toilet paper, etc I had a horrible and totally painful and big fissure.  This hindered me from being able to sit or really be able to do much and took till June to really heal. 

When I look back on those moments I can hardly believe I made it through all of that suffering.  And now that Christmas is just around the corner I am excited to put ornaments on our tree.  Each year we get an ornament to describe and tell a story from that year.  I made this appendix cancer ribbon (well I painted it) and I look forward to December 1st when we will set up the tree and I can put this ornament on the tree with a whole lot of gratefulness that I am alive to celebrate Christmas together with my family.