Sunday, November 9, 2014

How I was introduced to my Cancer :-(

Three weeks ago my oldest daughter Brianna was marching in the band for her High School football team(Go Big Blue!!)  Made the hour and a half drive to her school to watch the game. As I'm watching the game, and my daughter playing in the band; I started feeling like I had really bad indigestion. Indigestion got worse as the night went on, but no big deal. After the game took my daughters back to my parents house and visited for a bit before going to bed or at least couch for me when I stay at there place. Next day seemed fine went on with the day knowing I had to meet my girlfriend Saturday night, so hugged my girls goodbye got a reluctant grunt from my son and left and made the hour and a half drive back to Sacramento where I live.

That whole week I was feeling crappy couldn't place my finger on what was wrong, but I ended up treating everyone horribly, especially my girlfriend. I pushed her away not wanting to be around anyone.

October 20th is my mom's birthday so the girls and I had planned to surprise my mom by me coming up to there house the Saturday after while she and my dad went to San Jose for a Sharks game. Drove the hour and a half again up the hill and stopped in Jackson to cake mix to bake my mom's birthday cake. Felt the indigestion and a bit more pain associated it with the changing weather and maybe my back. Got up to my parents house, my youngest daughter Taylor and I made the cake, and waited for Grandma & Grandpa to get home. We had a great time I didn't eat much because I still had that indigestion. My mom suggested using this foam roller to help straighten out my back thinking that my be why I was in the pain I was in. I dealt with it, though I did borrow a couple 800mg Motrin's from my dad.

Next Monday at work I felt all of it indigestion, "back pain", and just general awfulness, I called my doctor and she said to come in so I went in to the hospital as she suggested. Got checked in and the ER doctor sends me for an ultrasound. Ultrasound looks like I have Gall Stones so the ER doctor calls the surgeon to have my Gall Bladder removed. I'm told no big deal it's a simple procedure they can do it without opening me up really bad, and I'll be ready to leave the hospital sans Gall Bladder in a day and a half. The best part here is they gave me some really good drugs. First time since my knee surgery at 21 that I got Morphine. :-)

There were scheduling issues with getting me into surgery, so all Tuesday I waited. I wasn't allowed to have anything but meds by mouth so I was just a bit hungry seeing as all I had was a small salad at noon on Monday. My girlfriend showed up with the cutest stuffed animal for me, showed me how much of an ass I was the week before with her that she was there for me at the drop of a hat like that. She sat by my bed  waiting for the surgery center to open. She had a late client appointment so had to leave around 3:00 or so but my dad was coming down to take my son Alex to his one college class. I told her I would call her and let her know when they were taking me in.

When they came to get me for surgery I let everyone know that I was going in and not to worry I'll see them when I was out. Before they took me I had to give up my last bit of dignity, I had kept my underwear on since being admitted even though they told me to take everything off and just put on the horrible hospital robe. The orderly wheels me up to surgery, which takes me outside across the parking lot to the main hospital, but it's nice and cool outside the perfect fall evening I thought as we head into the main hospital from my room. When we get up into the OR nurse asks me tons of routine questions and they get me on the table. Anesthesiologist doesn't even warn me and knocks me out. I wake up with my girlfriend an my dad over my bed and a tube down my throat. Julia is telling me that they aborted the surgery, because the surgeon took one look at my abdomen and said that is not a Gall Bladder problem. He said that there was a protrusion coming out from my liver pushing out and that was what was causing everything going on. So now they scheduled me for a CT scan to see what was actually going on(I'm thinking why didn't they do that first instead of the ultrasound.)

My dad has to go back up and pick up Alex and trek the hour and a half back up the hill. Julia stayed with me and went with me when they took me in for the CT scan. Again I can't believe how much of an ass I was to her that last week. The doctors do the CT scan and come back to me in a couple hours saying that they need to do a biopsy on the nodule protruding from my liver. Scared as hell I mean they stopped a surgery granted not a huge one but getting someone into the OR can't be simple. Now they tell me they want a biopsy. Fine do it get it over with. Julia leave about 1:30 or so in the morning a real trooper, I know if she hadn't have been there I would have been going completely nuts.

The next morning they schedule me for the CT Guided biopsy. Do the procedure and the doctor who is doing it says to me with something like this we assume cancer till we can prove it isn't(Scary!!) He also told me to go buy a lottery ticket because a lot of times things like this even out in strange ways(No luck for me in that way anyway). He does the procedure which doesn't hurt too bad, just uncomfortable because I can feel him moving my diaphragm around with the big ass needle he's putting in me. That's done and the hospital says that now I can eat finally, and that I can be released. Good news I assume till they tell me it will take 2 days to get the biopsy results back. Julia comes and picks me up and takes me home. All the drugs are wearing off and I can feel the area where if feels like the doctor stabbed me with a sword.

I'm taking it easy on Thursday staying at the apartment, my car is still at the hospital so I'm not going anywhere. I did walk up the street to the Togo's to get a sandwich, then to the Jamba Juice right next door, but the walk that normally took 10 minutes took me over an hour. Julia came over and stayed the night. Was really nervous about the results coming back the next day.

Next morning Julia had an early client so she drove me over to the hospital to pick up my car and she motored on to her 9:00 appointment. I moseyed around all day taking things slow but got a lot of things done. I drove to work around 3:00 because I knew most of the people wouldn't be there but my bosses would be. I walked in and talked to my boss and first thing he gave me a huge hug, this is the first place I've worked for that I felt truly cared that I worked there. I told him what I knew of what was going on and told him I would let him know what was happening next. I left the office about an hour later.

Just after pulling out of the parking lot I get a call from my doctor. She has the news that I've been afraid of the biopsy came back as Cancer. I nearly crashed the car when she said it, but I managed to keep on top of everything. She told me that they didn't have the exact pathology of the cancer cells and that may take a bit longer to figure out, and asked if I wanted the referral for Oncology immediately or if I wanted to wait for the full pathology results. I opted for seeing the Oncologist as soon as possible, which she scheduled me for the next Monday.

More to come from this exciting journey

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