Exquisite

I'm sitting on my bed staring at the baby. I should be putting away laundry, doing the dishes, organizing the mess in the computer room, cleaning the living room....but I can't stop staring at the gorgeous, drooling bundle in my bed. I'll never have the chance again to just let the world stop and enjoy my baby. I can't imagine this beautiful, perfect baby will one day scream that he hates me, will one day leave me and will someday break my heart. What could possibly be more heart-wrenching than a child? I sometimes wonder why we become parents in the first place. I know, biologically we must repopulate, but on a purely emotional level, why would we choose this? That sounds cold, but I don't mean it like that. I mean that, especially with my older son, any hurt of his becomes my hurt. The thought of him being scared or sad becomes my pain, on top of any other pain I already had. My love for him and for the new baby is so all consuming that it makes my heart feel stretched and thin. I used to get so annoyed by women who would cry at tragic stories about children in the news. I didn't understand the problem, it wasn't their child that was hurt or killed, sure it's sad, but nothing to cry over. Something inside you breaks when you become a mother, every child becomes your child. Maybe it doesn't break, maybe it becomes complete, maybe that's how it was supposed to be all along.

The Plan

So the plan, as it stands now, is to remove the gargantuan tumor on my thyroid as well as half of the thyroid itself. This is a much better prospect than the other option that I was facing. With only taking half the thyroid, I get to keep the other half which will likely mean I don't have to take synthetic thyroid replacements (fun fact, thyroid replacement meds are made out of pig thyroid...) I also will not have to be subjected to 4 days of radioactive iodine and the subsequent banishment from civilization that mess entails. I guess they will take out the diseased half and test it one more time and if it passes the benign test, they will close me up and let me go. If they find that it was malignant after all...well, we'll deal with that later.

Future Jen has Arrived

Well, apparently I did deal with it just fine. I had yet another biopsy done and, again, it came back benign. The doctor told me the results with the caveat that we will only know for sure when the actual tumor is removed and dissected in February. Why do so many things need to be removed from my body and dissected? I'm sure it has something to do with eating lead-based paint in all the various rental properties I was raised in. At any rate, it's been an incredibly long time since I posted so here's what's new...I had something else removed from my body, but not dissected. Lane Thomas made his arrival on October 14th at 8:16 a.m. as scheduled. He is healthy and beautiful and I am so blessed to be his mother! I had a great pregnancy, for all my physical failings, I'm actually really good at being pregnant. I had a tubal ligation, so, sadly, this baby factory is closed. I felt confident in the choice to shut down production, my husband and I agreed a long time ago that we did not want more than two children. Well, he didn't want more than zero for a long time...But anyway, I had no reservations about the decision until about an hour ago when I started packing up my maternity clothes. Not being a crier, I was surprised when I started sobbing unexpectedly while folding up the shirts I'd been wearing for the past few months. I don't want to be pregnant again, I certainly don't want anymore kids, but there was such a sense of finality in that gesture. Shutting a door on an exciting and special time of my life, I guess. I will never again be pregnant. Why is this so sad? I'm not great at being a mother, kids in general stress me out. I think it's more the ending of a time period, rather than actual sadness about not having more kids. This was the last big thing, you know. I've graduated high school and college. I've had the wedding, the grown up job, bought a house, built a house and had my kids. The next milestones, the next "big things" won't be mine now, they will be my children's. Is that a selfish viewpoint? Am I sad because there won't be anymore parties or presents for me? Yeah, kinda. Being on the cusp of 30 is a strange plateau, at least in my situation. I did all the big stuff so early that there's this long expanse of horizon ahead that's just nothing but existing. But that's not so bad, there's not much chaos or uncertainty in existing. I think I'll just find comfort in that.

Winner Take Nothing

A few days after the confusion of the last visit, I received a call from the second surgeon. She informed me she had sent the pathology reports to her pathologist whose diagnosis differed a great deal from the first report. It appeared that the second pathologist did not feel that the tumor, though unusually large, was malignant. This changed everything.

When I met with the second doctor again she felt confident that her pathologist's findings of a benign tumor were solid. This meant that, even though the tumor had to come out because of its size, I could postpone it for awhile, have only the diseased half removed, not have to take synthetic thyroid replacement and, best of all, avoid radiation treatment altogether. I was cautiously optimistic. After a lifetime of having metaphorical rugs pulled out from under me, I knew enough to keep my relief to a minimum. Again, my inherently cynical nature proved correct and saved me from extreme disappointment.

A few days after receiving that news, my original surgeon called. He said that he received the new pathology reports and did not agree with them. He said that he felt very strongly that the tumor was malignant and needed to be removed in its entirety with follow up of radiation. He personally wanted to make sure that I was going to follow up on it and not just take the benign diagnosis at face value. Well, crap.

Now at an impasse, I am confused to the point where I have dissociated completely from the situation. I will have another lymph node scan in August and pending the results, will plan for another biopsy after baby comes. I prefer to think of it as future Jen's problem and I have confidence that she will deal with it just fine. As for present Jen, I'm going to enjoy my pregnancy to the best of my ability because I know that it will be my last.

Lymphatic Overachiever

After nearly an hour of scanning my lymph nodes and making disconcerting sounds, the ultrasound tech said that a doctor would be in to talk with me. Super. My husband and I sat fretting in the dark, stifling room wondering what fresh hell the doctor might be looking at. After a few minutes a J-Crew-esque man strode in with a clipboard. He asked me when I had my thyroid surgery. While my mind said a string of expletives that may still be hanging in space over the hospital, my mouth said, "I have not had any thyroid surgery. Do you have the correct chart?" I could not believe that so many people could get such seemingly simple information so astoundingly incorrect.

He frowned at his chart and and mumbled something. I told him the whole sordid affair and we eventually ended up on the same page, figuratively. He said that all of my lymph nodes were clear of any malignancies (yay!), but interestingly, I had several more lymph nodes than normal people possess. How could I be surprised at this, given all my other medical abnormalities? I asked him if this was a problem or if it somehow led to me being in this particular situation. He said that while having so many nodes was unusual, it wasn't to blame for any of my problems. I then questioned how I came to have so many lymph nodes. "You are just an overachiever," he informed me. Oh dude, if you only knew.

This lack of concrete answers to my various bizarre organ issues led me to think up several scenarios of my own. I asked around my family to see if I ever lived near a nuclear reactor, lived under power lines or ingested a large amount of paint chips, though no one could confirm any of these. I prefer to think that, in-utero, I had a twin and I ate him/her to retain my supremacy and will eventually rule the galaxy with my superpowers. We'll see how that works out for me.

OMG, Get Bill!

So, after the previous occupant was shuffled hastily from the ultrasound room, I was plopped in the chair. The doctor lubed up my neck with ultrasound jelly and took at gander at the beast within. She mumbled some things to herself and then called for her nurse. "Hey, where's Bill? Get him in here, he needs to see this!" I couldn't move my neck, so I couldn't share a bewildered glance with my husband. The nurse returned with the Bill in question and also the aforementioned Dr. Christian Brooks-Brothers-Izod. The doctor again called out for someone else to be brought in to view whatever the hell is lurking in my neck.

I was reminded of an In Living Color sketch with David Alan Grier--the gist of which revolved around giant hemorrhoids, his ass exposed, and a clueless nurse that kept calling people in to look at them, including the janitor. I honestly had to fight the urge to crack up and probably looked like a mental case at that moment. The doc was talking in doctor-ese and pointing out all kinds of things about my apparently giant and fascinating tumor. As quickly as I was pulled into the room, I was shuttled out and told to go to the 4th floor to have a scan of all my lymph nodes. The 4th floor is where I met Daniella, who so eerily resembled Tangina from Poltergeist that I was momentarily speechless when she called out my name (thank God my name isn't Carol Anne). She had a thick French accent and a matching thick French attitude.

"Why are you here?" she barked at me. I told her that my doctor had sent me up to have a scan of my lymph nodes. "I know that. What are we scanning?" "Ummm...my lymph nodes?" She asked again what we were scanning and why I was there. I asked her if perhaps I was in the wrong place and she assured me that I was not. The conversation stalled from there....

She had what I assumed was my chart in front of her and after being called Robin earlier in the morning, I was hesitant to trust anything anyone said. She took me back to the scanning room and asked me when I had my thyroid removed. Are you freaking kidding me? "I haven't had it removed. I have a tumor on it and was told to come here and have my lymph nodes scanned. That is all I know. I don't know what else to tell you." She made a harrumph-ish noise told me to lie down on the bed. I stood there debating whether to leave or do as she commanded. I thought French people were supposed to sound sexy, she sounded decidedly unsexy and pretty much terrifying. I decided to go ahead and lie down, if nothing more, just to see what the hell could possibly happen next.

I'm a Stranger Here Myself....

The surgeon at the first hospital sent my records to the second hospital for my second opinion. In a completely unprecedented move, they called me a few hours later and got me in the next day. I wasn't sure whether to be glad or terrified. I was now going to a specialist who worked on nothing but thyroid problems and specialized in thyroid cancer. I felt comfortable with her level of expertise and was curious to see what they had to say.

My husband was able to accompany me to this visit, which was nice since it not only was an hour away in a sprawling, mega-hospital, but would entail an entire day of tests, scans and prodding. We arrived at the appointment on time and waited for my name to be called. When I was finally called back we were put in a room with very off-putting machinery and equipment designed to go up your nose or down your throat. I felt I would politely decline either option if asked.

A young, blonde frat-boy looking resident came in clutching a clipboard and chewing gum. I know I shouldn't judge someone on how they look, but the kid reeked of elitism and expensive hair product. Also, his first name was Christian, which also made me dislike him. I know. I'm a jerk, but he was poster child for an Ivy league upbringing and looked like he loved nothing more than abusing the staff at the country club. I may be judgmental, but I'm often correct. He strode into the room, looked at me and said, "Robin?" Um. No. Not even close.

He looked perplexed, glanced at his clipboard, the room number and back to me. He mumbled an apology and left. My husband and I knew that this was the precursor for a bizarre and stressful day. Another 15 minutes passed and Dr. Christian ShoeTassels returned after, I'm guessing, taking care of Robin.

He got my name correct and began asking me about my previous pancreatic surgery, interrupting every sentence with medical jargon questions to which I did not have the answers. He then described my current tumor and asked what my plans were. Um, that's what I'm here to discuss. He said that it looked like the tumor was not a big deal, very common and I might not even need to have it removed.

All of this was news to me, but it made me feel a little relieved, albeit skeptical. Dr. Christian Fancyslacks didn't seem terribly trustworthy, so I reserved a full-fledged sigh of relief. He said that the surgeon would be in to see me in a few minutes and left.

The surgeon came in a few seconds later and began questioning me in rapid-fire succession. She was a tiny little thing, with a slightly clipped Asian accent. I actually really liked her right off the bat. She took one look at my neck and said that she wanted to do an ultrasound now, as in this very second. She yelled at the nurse to get the current patient out of the ultrasound room and get her equipment ready. A confused patient was yanked out of the darkened ultrasound room and my husband and I were herded in. This was all very strange indeed....

That Sinking Feeling

The day finally came for me to meet with the surgeon again. Even though I was sure of what he was going to say, I still had a glimmer of hope that he'd say everything is cool, go back to your previously scheduled life. No such luck. I sneaked a peek at the chart where I could barely make out the word "carcinoma." This is not my first rodeo, so I know what that means. He explained the results and what they meant for me. He felt that this growth had been malignant since I first learned about it five years ago, but the technology wasn't there to give an accurate diagnosis. He said since there was no ultrasound done as they did the biopsy, they just jabbed randomly and came up with benign results. I didn't care to ruminate on that, all I cared about knowing whether or not they'd have to remove the thyroid while I was still pregnant.

Everyone thinks that pregnancy is a beautiful time where you live your life, not for yourself, but for the health of the beautiful being that is growing within you. Rainbows, kittens, unicorns, all that jazz. Bullshit. Maybe it's like this for better people than me, but I found this to be an extremely difficult position to be in. I hadn't really felt the baby move yet, didn't know the gender and still didn't really, really believe I was actually pregnant. It's hard to be selfless and benevolent for someone that you have never met. If I had a malignant growth, I sure as shit wanted it out of my body as quickly as possible, I didn't want to wait until after the baby was born.

Of course, I'd never put my baby in danger, but the claustrophobia of slowly dying to keep someone else healthy is hard to live with. It wasn't really that dire of a situation, but when it's YOUR health, it's hard not to be a little bit overdramatic. The doctor assured me that the cancer was not fast moving and waiting until baby comes is really the best course of action. I agreed, but still decided to take a trip back to the teaching hospital in the big city where I had never thought I'd have to return.

I stayed calm in the office and asked all the right questions. The doctor must have thought I either didn't get it or didn't care. I calmly got in my car and drove away from the hospital. Then I freaked out. I went through all the stages of grief in about 10 minutes, from "this cannot be happening again" to "why is it always me" winding my way through bargaining, depression and then to "well, here we go again, I did it once, I can do it again." I've always been a bit accelerated when it comes to emotions.

I wasn't sure how I was going to handle the total removal of my thyroid, working out the right dosage of synthetic thyroid hormones, radiation treatment, a conspicuous scar that looks like a murder attempt and a brand new baby, but I guessed I'd cross that bridge when I got there.

I Meet The Needle Again

I had one thyroid ultrasound at one doctor's office and was then told I'd have to have another one at the surgeon's office. The first ultrasound was no big deal. The second came with the threat of another fine needle aspiration. I met with the surgeon who looked over my medical records (which are now the thickness of a Tolstoy novel). "You're only 28?" he asked. Yeah, I know. I've heard it all before. I'm a medical freak.

He said that the first ultrasound showed a very sizable growth on my thyroid, so large that it was creating a bulge on my neck that I hadn't noticed until a few weeks ago. He said that he needed to take a look for himself and then would need to do a biopsy. I must have turned several shades of gray at the mention of the biopsy. I said that I had a really bad experience with the first one, but that I'd do the best I can not to pass out. He asked me to explain my first experience. I edited out my terrorist theory and gave him the short version. He was appalled that I wasn't given a numbing shot and that the procedure hadn't been done using an ultrasound in order to get a precise reading. He assured me that this one would be different. I was not swayed.

The numbing really did make a difference and I was proud to stay conscious the entire time. He got several slides of nasty looking goo. He said that (shocker!) my growth was unusual in that there was a large, solid mass surrounded by a more gelatinous mass. He said would meet back with me in a week to discuss the results. Great, a week to fret.

I spent the next few days assuring everyone that this was not a big deal, everything would be fine, while completely freaking out on the inside. I knew that, once again, my body was trying to do me in and that the growth would most definitely turn out to be cancer.

Pardon the Interruption

Jet back to 2005 with me, won't you? I forgot to add the thyroid biopsy which occurred after the scan. After my adventures with radioactivity and passing out on bathroom floors, I was told that I needed to have a biopsy of the growth. This would not be a surgical procedure, but a "fine needle aspiration." That didn't sound so bad, aspirations are a good thing and using fine needles sounds...well, sounds fine, I guess. I had been worried that some manner of robot would be sent down my throat to cut out pieces of my thyroid, so this procedure sounded like a cake-walk. I brought my husband with me for moral support anyway.

I should have known better. We were called back and a doctor who kind of resembled Saddam Hussein came in. I'm not trying to be racist or call him a terrorist, I'm just stating the facts. I would later feel that he was an absolute terrorist of my neck region, but honestly he really did look like 90's era Hussein, not spider-hole, prison Hussein. There was no small talk or explaination of what would be happening. He sat me down on a stool and pulled out a syringe best used for horses, or maybe rhinos. He jabbed it all the way in my neck not once, not twice, but three times. No numbing, no nothing. I don't do well with people touching my neck. I really don't do well with giant needles being stabbed in on three occasions. As the last needle plunged in, I passed out. I fell backwards off the stool and was grabbed by my husband and the nurse. The doctor seemed to take personal offense to the passing out and pinched the bridge of my nose with completely unnecessary force. He said it was to get me to come to, but I'm pretty sure it was just to be a jackass.

I wrenched away from him as my eyes teared up. He glared at me and told me that he'd never had anyone pass out from this simple procedure before. I thought my husband was going to punch him and I wasn't going to stop him. The terrorist, I mean doctor, said that I might experience some bruising and then he stalked out of the room. My husband and I looked at each other with the same message on our face, "What. The. Fuck?"

The next day my neck was black and blue and the bridge of my nose didn't feel much better. I was pretty convinced by then that I was going to die, if not of thyroid cancer, then probably of PTSD from the biopsy horror. Yeah, I know, I was kind of a sissy back in 2005.

Good for Today, Bad for Tomorrow

I finally got a call that the growth on my thyroid was benign and would likely go away over time. I was prescribed a beta-blocker for my heart palpitations and sent on my way. I was relieved that nothing was wrong and my life could continue as previously scheduled (well, for awhile anyway). I never got a second opinion or did any follow up on the growth because it was good news, nothing to worry about. I wish now that I had gone elsewhere for one more check.

Let's fast forward several years to May 2010. In the meantime I went through a miscarriage, a difficult time getting pregnant again, a long-ass labor, the appendix and pancreatic adventure, a diagnosis of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and miraculously another pregnancy! I hadn't intended to get pregnant, I figured that it just wasn't going to happen for me again. Plus, I have a foot long scar down my abdomen, a boat-load of internal scar tissue and an abdominal wall that will never be the same. This pregnancy, while ultimately a gift, is also terrifying for all of the unknowns. No one can really tell me what my abdomen will do as it expands. I've been told that the scar will expand with my belly, but will never contract. I suppose after the pregnancy I can go windsurfing and not need a sail. I've also been told that the scar tissue will break apart toward the end of the pregnancy and will not feel good. But no one knows for sure. "For sure" That is what I want to hear. I want to hear that my body will do what it is made to do, for sure.

I finally felt relieved when I heard the baby's heartbeat for the first time. Since the pregnancy caught me off guard, I really didn't want to believe it was real until I heard it for my own ears. Even 4 pregnancy tests didn't convince me. The doctor said everything sounded great, but wanted to know why my neck was so swollen.

My what? Who cares? I told her that I had problems with my thyroid in the past and she set me up an appointment for a thyroid ultrasound. Not this debacle again....

I Feel Bad About My Neck

The doctor's office called and said that I indeed had several heart palpitations (duh). After doing further bloodwork, it was decided that my thyroid was acting up. I was referred to the Nuclear Medicine department of our local hospital. I didn't like the name of the place or pretty much anything else about it. I was told that I would be doing a thyroid scan involving radioactive materials. Pretty much all I know about radioactivity is that exposure to it is most often bad, unless you are Peter Parker. I would rather take the Peter Parker option and become a superhero. Unfortunately, I was not given the option. I was given, however, FREAKING radioactive pills to swallow! AAAHHHHH! I dutifully took my radiotracer pills 24 hours before the procedure, fully expecting to either be dead or glowing green by the next day.

I showed up to the Nuclear Medicine office ready to be detonated or whatever they were going to do. I had to put on a fashionable hospital gown and lie on a cold table with a bunch of intrusive looking camera equipment trained on me. It was much like how I imagined many alien abuctions end up. My instructions were to lie still for 30-45 minutes without swallowing. Among my other many superpowers is the gift of overproductive saliva glands. Basically....I drool like a St. Bernard. Sexy, right? I can assure you that not only is lying still for 45 minutes torturous for me, the not swallowing thing was akin to waterboarding. I ended up having to swallow at least once before I choked, making the test last even longer.

In that 45-60 minute span I was able to name all of the states alphabetically (except Pennsylvania, I always forget the Keystone State) and then hit a majority of the capitals. Of course, I had no way of telling if I was right or not, so I just assumed success. Chicago is totally the capital of Illinois, right?

Finally the nightmare ended and I was able to go back out to the waiting room. I was called back in and told my thyroid was enlarged a little and there was a nodule on the right side. It could be indicative of cancer or it could be a benign growth just hanging out. This was the first time EVER that anything like this had happened to me. Well, plenty of bad shit has happened to me, but it was the first time I felt like my body was trying to do me in. First of many....

I scheduled my biopsy and asked where the restroom was. This was also the first time that I passed out. I looked in the mirror at my gray face and black, hollow eyes. My hearing transitioned from the deafening sound of my blood rushing to quiet far away sounds to silence. My vision grayed and I crumpled down on the cold tile. (I actually don't remember how I got to the floor, but I like to think it was a graceful and dramatic crumple.) I was only out for a few seconds and then realized that I was on the floor. Not only was I on the floor, I was on the floor, in a doctor's office. Gross. I splashed water on my face because that's what I'd seen people do on TV and figured it must be the thing to do. I wandered out of the doctor's office and sat in my car. I was 23, these things don't happen to people my age. I had it all together, husband, good job, mortgage, dog....I couldn't have cancer, could I?

Weird Science

My recovery from the abdominal surgery was fairly routine, nothing much to write home about. I think I'll go a little further back in time to 2005 when I had my first health scare. I was a sickly kid pretty much from birth. I always had something weird: unusual skin disorders, faulty bladder valves, scarlet fever, etc. I also had all the geeky health problems that likely contributed to my lonely, friendless days in elementary school. I was the kid with post-nasal drip, astigmatism, hay fever and scoliosis. Factor those gems in with my unusually advanced vocabulary, penchant for correcting spelling and grammar and love for Nick-at-Nite, I wasn't asked to a lot of sleep-overs. My childhood, however, is a post for another day.

Once I hit 17 or so, I stopped getting sick all the time and was pretty much healthy as a horse until 2005. It was then that I started getting night sweats, vertigo and heart palpitations. My body is incredibly odd in its functioning and one of the weirder attributes is my heartbeat and blood pressure. I have tiny, infant sized veins that are prone to collapse when a needle is anywhere near them. I should have higher than normal blood pressure just due to the minuscule size of my veins. Not so. My blood pressure is always very low, even under the most extreme circumstances (stress, contractions, full on labor). My heartbeat is slow and hard to find. I'm convinced that I'm at least 1/4 dead, but this has yet to be medically proven. So, when my heart started racing and feeling...well, the only way I can describe it is effervescent, I was a more than a little concerned.

At this time I was a patient at a ancient doctor's office (by that I mean both the doctor and the office were ancient). The medical equipment looked to be out of an episode of Dr. Kildare. I was told that I needed to be hooked up to a Holter Monitor for 24 hours to check my heart beats. Ok, sounds fair. What I was hooked up to looked suspiciously like the Panasonic cassette player that I received from Santa in 1987. I was basically taped to a small boombox and had 10 sticky pads with wires on various points on my body. So many questions ran through my head. Not the least of which was wondering where the hell they found cassette tapes in 2005. I hadn't seen them in stores for years. They either had a whole stockpile of them or had a secret DeLorean making trips back to 1985.

Once I was hooked up and looking fully like an 8th grade science project, I was sent on my way. Somehow I survived my 24 hour torture and came back the next day to be unhooked, unstickered and de-taped.

Exit Stage Left

Finally, it was time for me to go home. I got the go ahead from the doctor and was wheeled to the car (not by the same kid that experienced the stool softener incident with me, thank GOD). It was after 8:00 p.m., but all I wanted was some real food. I really wanted pizza, but that would be out of the question for weeks. I was told to keep a bland diet until I knew how my body would react to the reduced pancreas function. Goody. The only thing I could think of that is relatively bland, but instant was Subway. I nibbled on a plain, dry oven roasted chicken breast on wheat and contemplated my good fortune. I was alive. I no longer had a ticking time bomb in my gut. I got to go home to my boy and my bed and my life. Walking in the door for the first time was beyond description. Home never smelled so good. We weren't sure if I would be able to make it up the stairs, but before I even knew what I was doing, I was in my bedroom just walking around touching things. The first few days at home were a blur of painkillers, naps and chicken broth. My son stayed a few more days with his grandparents since my husband had to work and I couldn't care for him. My husband's company was wonderful and let him switch to an 8-hour day-shift so that our son could go to daycare and maintain a normal schedule. Normal except that all of the duties that I did were now performed by my husband as I lay on the couch watching. I hate feeling helpless and I really hate people having to do things for me. I almost wished I was back in the hospital so I wouldn't feel like such a burden just watching my husband single-parent our child. I felt useless. It's one thing to be away and not able to help, it's quite another to be sitting in the same room and feeling like a lazy bum. Being the stubborn-ass that I am, I may have not listened to all of the doctor's advice about taking it easy. As soon as I was able to stand upright I started in on laundry and little chores that wouldn't exhaust me. When the doctor told me I could resume working in 6-8 weeks following surgery, I heard 3 weeks and jumped back in. I don't know if I did any permanent damage, but looking back now, I don't think I did myself any favors either. I still have a lingering soreness to the entire left side of my abdomen 2 1/2 years later. If I sneeze really hard there are times that I swear my insides are going to fall out on the floor. This may have happened regardless of pushing myself too hard, who's to say.

Oh the indignity...

I had already experienced this indignity less than a year previous, so I was prepared for the odd request. Before I could leave I had to do an act that a lady never partakes in. I had to...shall we say...pass wind. I have my doubts that this is a legitimate medical rule, I think that it's just a fun little rite of passage that doctors and nurses subject patients to, like freshman hazing. Once I had solemnly sworn that this act had occurred, I was wheeled down to pick up my discharge papers and medications. The indignity wasn't over yet. An acne-prone young man came to wheel me around the behemoth campus of the hospital to pick up my various prescriptions and papers. I don't know why they couldn't have just been brought to me, but it was nice to have a change of scenery after 10 days. I was wheeled to the pharmacy where I was to pick up a nice collection of antibiotics and painkillers (or as some call it the "Courtney Love Special"). When I got to the pharmacy, after spelling and then respelling my last name (Nope, F as in Frank. No, no T, just F. No, really) they gave me one bottle, but had questions about a missing prescription. Apparently I needed a stool softener and one was not prescribed. The conversation was as follows, "There's nothing here for a stool softener, but you're going to need one." Me: "Ok." Pharmacy tech, "Did they talk to you about a stool softener?" Me: "No." Pharmacy tech, "Well, you're going to need a stool softener. Definitely. No one said anything about a stool softener?" Me: (turning red and shrinking into the wheelchair) "Um, no." Pharmacy tech: "Well, we'd better get you a stool softener. I'll call upstairs and make sure, but we'll get you a big bottle. Of stool softener. You'll have to wait over there until I can get the bottle. Of stool softener." There were people in line behind me and the nice teenager hovering near the wheelchair, so I was pretty much mortified by this point. I don't really enjoy people wondering about the consistency of my bodily waste. I am convinced that the pharmacy tech got a dollar every time she said stool softener with extra points for volume and clarity. I finally was awarded my economy size bottle of STOOL SOFTENER and was on my way. Of course, I figured I'd now have to change my name and get a wig in case I ever met any of those people again. You'd think after experiencing the various indignities of childbirth, I'd be over these prudish and Puritanical sensibilities. Not so much.

First Steps

Nope, not mine. My son's. My family brought my son to visit me after a few days. Not being able to hold him and snuggle was almost worse than not being able to see him at all. I was under strict order not to lift or hold anything over 10 pounds for the next four weeks. I still hadn't ventured out of my hospital bed, so this seemed like no big deal at the time. I got to kiss him and talk to him, but he was busy and squirmy and wanted to crawl around, testing his relatively new prowess on all fours. I learned later during my stay that he started walking around with use of a baby activity walker thing. I wasn't there. I wasn't even in the same area code. This crushed my new mommy heart, but I tried to be excited for him and his progress. This was not at all how it was supposed to go. I had imagined the event long before he was ever born. The memory was filmed with a hazy filter, in slow motion with instrumental music and me holding his sweet little hands, perhaps in a field of daisies. Stupid parenting magazines make it all look so beautiful and serene. I hated to think that the world was still spinning even though I wasn't much a part of it. I'm such a control freak that I prefer to think that everything freezes when I'm not an active part of things. Days 5-10 just kind of melted together in a mash up of the Discovery Channel, naps, visits from friends and family and really unappetizing foods. The nurses made me go on short walks every few hours which should have felt good, but were mostly just exhausting. The first time I got to take a shower was a blessed event, the highlight of my day. I got to switch from hospital gowns to actual pajamas, it was then I knew that I was really going places! When my catheter was removed I was informed that my bladder was nearly twice the size of a normal woman's bladder, a condition (a super-power, I like to think) that I was apparently born with. I always knew I wasn't normal, so this was no surprise to me, although it did answer a few questions. The surgeon and his pre-pubescent interns came to visit me and check me over one last time. I was doing great, but had to keep the tube that was draining pus and other undesirables had to stay in for the time being. Having to cart around a tube with a ball full of pus isn't a great way to win friends and influence people and draining it was a totally disgusting procedure. They were feeling like I could go home soon as long as I took it easy and didn't pick up or carry around my son. I'm not sure what I did, but somehow I convinced them to let me go home that night. I probably just told them I was doing it anyway, I don't remember. They had a nurse come in and give me a bunch of inoculations against pneumonia, tetanus and a whole host of other things. Being spleen-less in a germy world isn't a desirable status I guess. The shots hurt like a mother, but I didn't care. I was just ready to make my grand exit and go home! I still had a few other tests to pass before I got the green light to go....

The Mystery of the Gel Type Treat

The day came when I was finally allowed to have real food. I was told in the morning that I would be able to have a light snack in the afternoon and if that went well, I could have dinner. The word snack always gets me excited! Snacks are delicious and much preferable to real food. Of course "snack" to me would entail pretzels or chips, an Icee, some french fries, lovely Snack Bar items. What came to me on a chipped plastic tray was not delicious nachos or salty pretzels...it was a solitary cup of what I thought was Jello. Ok, I could handle Jello, it's sick people food, that's fine. What was not fine was the actual product inside. The foil lid described the contents as...wait for it.....Gel Type Treat. Are you kidding me? Gel type? As in gel-ish? Gel like, but not ACTUAL gel? And treat? Really? If you have to point out that it's a "treat," it's likely not. I was starving so I went ahead and dug in. The taste was, well, there really was no taste, it was more of a lukewarm, semi-solid, vaguely salty concoction with an orange-ish aftertaste. I ate more out of sheer desperation, but couldn't force myself to finish it. I was almost more disturbed by the name than by the actual taste. When the nurse came around to collect my garbage I asked her why exactly this was referred to as "Gel Type Treat," it seemed a little more nefarious and vague than necessary. She said that most of the food had to be suitable for vegetarians and gelatin was not. And that, my friends, was the day that I learned exactly where gelatin comes from. How I missed that memo, I don't know, but you can't unlearn information like that. She told me that the "treat" that I consumed was made from processed seaweed rather than various and sundry horse parts. I didn't really like either scenario and am happy to refrain from both Jello and Gel Type Treat for the rest of my days on Earth. And, in my afterlife, if Jello shots are served in Hell, I'll just opt for Zima. You know there'll be Zima there.

The Unveiling

It had been 3 days and I hadn't dared (or cared) to check my incision. The nurses had checked on it, but I was so loopy that I didn't bother to take a peek. I was bored on day three and had a smidgen of energy so I thought I'd give it a look. At my own request I'd made my family leave. Not in a mean way, but they had their own lives and staring at me sleep in a hospital bed isn't what I wanted. I have an almost pathological need for people NOT to see me when I'm not 100%. I didn't want anyone in my delivery room, except my husband, I never let people see me cry and I especially don't like to feel like an animal at the zoo when I'm hooked up to a catheter and mumbling like a crazy homeless person. I truly appreciated the visits from family and friends, but I'm just really uncomfortable with situations such as these. I prefer being dressed, clean and have full control of both my emotions and my bodily functions when I am in the presence of others. It's like old Southern ladies with hats and gloves, I just like to be "done up proper" when entertaining. Anyway, so I was on my own for the day and figured I'd explore my battle wounds. My stomach, only 10 months previous, had expanded to the point of near explosion while housing my son and between the deflated balloon texture and the still recent C-section scar, things were already pretty dismal in the ab department. Luckily, I was not in the running for any bikini modeling jobs and belly shirts had long ago gone out of fashion. I tried to peer down my gown, but I couldn't see much. I tried to lift it from the bottom, but the effort was too exhausting. I think I napped in between, because I lost some time. I finally maneuvered a flap away from the back of gown and was able to check out the damage. Holy crap and then some. My incision was around 11 inches long with 20 gleaming silver staples and a nice, scabby patina. I was NOT expecting that. I figured the pancreas couldn't be that big and surely my two spleens didn't require a foot long exit point, so I truly was not anticipating the carnage that my eyes were seeing. My plans to be the next Hawaiian Tropics girl would have to be put on hold indefinitely. I decided that rather than be dismayed, I should come up with a good story about how it got there. I settled on a ninja attack. I was rescuing senior citizens from ninjas when I was brutally stabbed. Do ninja's stab? I should have changed it to pirates.

The Devil and Kirstie Alley

Or, alternatively, my adventures with Oxycontin. The second day after my surgery I was more alert. I wasn't in a lot of pain, just very uncomfortable, what with there being a giant tube in my neck and a catheter in my nether-regions. The doctors decided to put me on Oxycontin. I'm pretty sensitive to narcotics and had never taken anything as heavy as that. I was kind of excited to start taking it, now I'd have street cred, which, you know, is of utmost importance to white girls in the rural Pacific Northwest. I could now talk about my sordid past with OC, you know, ox. (Yeah, you caught me, I totally just Googled street names for Oxycontin) So, anyway they shot me up with the ox and I settled back for what I hoped to be a peaceful and doped up evening. If only...I drifted off to sleep and was immediately assaulted with the most realistic dreams. I could see, smell, hear and taste everything as vividly as if I was awake. I could hear a demonic voice talking in a foreign language and flashes of disconnected images would come in and out of focus. Images of babies drowning in bathtubs of blood, people screaming and somewhere in it was Kirstie Alley. I'm serious. I can't couldn't make up something that bizarre. Even two and a half years later I can totally recall the deep reds and blacks and taste the metallic blood from that nightmare. I'm not sure Ms. Alley's role in the whole production, but I definitely saw her. I woke up in a cold sweat and the next time a nurse came to check on me I told her that I was never taking that painkiller again. She paged the doctor and he asked me if I had been having some strange dreams. Strange was not even the word. I've had plenty of strange dreams in my day, this was a hell of a lot more than strange. They switched me to Dilaudid and life was much easier after that. Well, I suppose easy isn't the right word considering. I still wonder about that night, about that dream. Oxycontin itself couldn't manifest images in my subconcious, they had to have been there all along. Which begs the question...what the hell is lurking in my head?

A Tale of Two Spleens

As I became more awake and aware, my surgeon came back to talk to my husband and me. He said that the surgery only took 6 1/2 hours and everything went relatively well. He said that they removed about two thirds of my pancreas and both of my spleens. I never took Anatomy in school, but I'm pretty sure a human should only have one spleen. Always one for bucking the trends, I was born with two, a normal one and an "accessory" one. A mini-me, if you will. I think everyone should have an accessory spleen, they go with everything. The surgeon was pretty excited to find two spleens, guess you don't see that everyday. I suppose for surgeons it's like the feeling when you find a crumpled dollar in your pocket. Anyway, Dr. Dad-from-Alf said that I was very lucky and would make a full recovery without having to have chemo, take insulin or have any further abdominal surgeries. I was so exhausted that I don't remember anything else until about 2 days later. I know that I was somehow magically transferred to a private room, a huge one with a beautiful view of the city and the mountains in the background, but how I got there, I really don't know. The only downside was being right next to the landing pad of the LifeFlight helicopters. It wasn't only noisy, but kind of a downer. My surgeon came back to check on me and to have me sign papers turning over custody of my tumor to the school. To say that was a weird moment would be an understatement. I almost thought about saying no and keeping Ted in a jar next to my bed. The doctor told me that the tumor was rare and would be cut in 8 pieces and transferred to various schools to be studied. I was expecting to be paid handsomely for this wonderful opportunity that I was giving the students. I was thinking a library could be named after me, some royalties from the schools, an honorary doctorate and maybe being asked to be the keynote speaker at graduation. I was assured that none of this would happen. If only he knew that it wasn't the Percoset talking, I really am that bizarre. So, I signed over full custody of Ted, giving my consent for a piece of me to be cut up, studied and discussed. I think maybe I feel a little honored...aaand a little creeped out. I'm sure that in a few years I will be approached to donate my overactive brain to science for future generations to ponder and fear. It could happen.

Too Bad for Darla

I could hear Darth Vader faintly next to me. What the hell? Am I on the Death Star? I slowly came to and realized that it was me breathing into an oxygen mask. I didn't open my eyes, I just laid there and listened. Two interns were near my feet talking to each other. They were talking about someone named Darla and saying what a bitch she'd been lately. I thought it was hilarious since they didn't know I was awake. I hoped for more juicy gossip on that bitch Darla, but then a bad thing happened. I started getting more awake and taking in more oxygen. That's not the bad thing...no, throwing up the few contents of my stomach whilst wearing an oxygen mask was the bad thing. The two interns stopped their conversation, took the mask off and rolled my head to the side. Dry-heaving when your guts have just been opened, messed with, stirred around and then sewed shut is a painful experience, even under the pleasant haze of pain killers. They wheeled me into a recovery room and said that my family would be coming to see me shortly. My neighbor on the other side of the curtain was a large woman, whose lungs did not seem to be impacted at all by whatever surgery she had just come out of. She moaned like a dying wildebeest and wouldn't stop. I am a very stoic person, not much given to bouts of hysteria or great shows of emotion so I was a little annoyed at this. My husband came back to see me, a mix of concern, relief and terror on his face. I think the terror was due to the wildebeest next door. I couldn't talk much and I was still pretty rummy.

Scrubs

Having major surgery done at a teaching hospital is a little unnerving. I was 26 but the interns that surrounded me and stared at me like the contents of a Petri dish were even younger. It was like bring your daughter to work day every day there. My surgery was scheduled for the day after Valentine's Day. My surgeon told my husband and I to get a hotel room and go out on the town the night before. Before that happened though, I had to drop my now 10 month old son off at daycare so that his grandma could later pick him up and care for him during my stay in the hospital. Saying goodbye to him and wondering if perhaps we'd never see each other again still makes my eyes well up with tears. I knew that everything would be fine, but kissing his chubby cheeks and walking away was heart-wrenching. What if I was wrong? What if something went wrong in surgery or what if the anesthesia killed me? That happens sometimes.

I tried to be strong. My husband got us a fancy hotel room, we went out to a nice dinner and walked around the city enjoying our last moments together outside of a hospital. We had to be at the hospital the next morning at 6:00 am. Not knowing our way around the city, we got lost. It was a tense and terrible way to start the morning. We were late to the hospital, but it didn't seem to matter. The nurse checked me in and asked me to remove my jewelry. As I slipped off my wedding ring and gave it to her, my breath caught in my throat. What if this was it for me? I remember when my mom died all my dad got back at the hospital were her clothes and her wedding ring. What if my husband had to go through that too? The nurse handed my husband my ring and he kissed it as he put it in his pocket.

It only got worse from there. I was bombarded with forms to sign with ominous headings such as Durable Power of Attorney, Advanced Healthcare Directives, etc. Did I want to sign a Do Not Resuscitate order? Did I want to donate my organs upon my demise? How long would I like to be kept on a respirator if I was brain dead? I wanted to scream at these people and make them shut up. Couldn't they see I was only 26? These things don't apply to me. I signed all the papers and named beneficiaries and decision makers. I felt like I needed more time, more time to tell my husband exactly how to raise our son: make sure the seams on the socks are right, he hates it if they're not, don't give him popcorn, keep a baby gate by the stairs, raise him to be a man who will never forget how much his mother loved him. I needed more time to tell my tell my husband how much I appreciated him and how he saved me from myself at a time when I needed it most. More time to tell my family thank you, to tell my co-workers how to do my job. I didn't get more time. No one does. I was whisked away by the children in doctor's costumes to prep for my surgery. After breathing into the oxygen mask and counting back from 10 (I got to 8) my mind drifted away and my body was ready for the dissection.

Lost in Translation

About 10 days after the biopsy I got a call from a doctor about my results. He had an accent that sounded much like the people from Microsoft Tech support. I guessed that maybe the people that have to call and give people bad news had outsourced their duties to India. I couldn't really understand what he said as I wasn't as savvy to cancer-speak as I am today. The gist I got was that I had a big tumor, some rare form of something and it needed to come out. At no time did I hear him say "malignant" or "cancer" or "ma'am, this be veddy veddy bad." For all I know he said those things, but I didn't hear him. When a letter from the lab came a few days later I was shocked to see in black and white text that I indeed had a rare form of pancreatic cancer. Luckily for me I didn't know much about pancreatic cancer, so I really wasn't terribly concerned. I mean, it's not like I had cancer, or anything, I just had a cancerous growth that could be removed, easy peezy lemon squeezy. I scheduled an appointment at the big doctor's office in the big city. When my husband and I got there we were completely overwhelmed at the skyscraper building, the underground parking garage and the maze of elevators and floors. We are not from here, our faces screamed. As I waited in line to check in I noticed the banners, the posters, the pamphlets all screaming about early detection and mortality rates and all kinds of things that weren't on my radar. It was there that I learned that pancreatic cancer has a 4% survival rate. All my addled brain could manage was the line from Dumb and Dumber..."One in a MILLION? So you're telling me there's a chance!" After spelling and then respelling my last name (No, F as in Frank. No, no T, just F. ) I was called back. It was then that I first met the surgeon that would be taking care of me. I liked him immediately. He looked like a cross between the dad on Alf and Vizzini from the Princess Bride. He talked about what my surgery would entail and informed us that he was sorry but it couldn't be done laparoscopically, it would have to be a big incision. I was thinking big like my C-section scar not big like Frankenstein's monster which is more like what it ended up being. I was my usual lackadaisical, nonchalant self and took it all in stride. I had a bunch of stuff coming up at work so I asked if I'd have to stay in the hospital more than 2 days because I had a lot of crap to get done. He looked at me with a mixture of surprise and sadness and informed me that I would be in the hospital more like 2 weeks. That was when it finally got through to me that this was a BIG DEAL in capital letters. I was mostly annoyed and politely told him that 2 weeks would simply not do. I told him that I heal quickly, I'm pretty tough so I'd do 5 days tops and be on my merry way. He patiently explained that this could be an 8-10 hour surgery involving the removal of major organs. I couldn't feel my hands anymore and for some reason everything sounded tinny like listening to the wrong end of a phone. I think I said something akin to "Well....shit." Told you, master orator over here.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

The day came for the biopsy on my pancreas. I had to go to a larger city an hour from where I lived. The hospital, a teaching hospital, is a mammoth campus, totally overwhelming to anyone. It's basically a fortress built into a hillside, a city of its own. The building where I was to have my biopsy looked remarkably similar to the mental institution where One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was filmed. Ironically, the actual building is only a few hours away from here. I did not get good vibes from the prehistoric, crumbling structure. I shared my concerns with the nurse who gave me a threadbare gown to put on that I assume was once a shade of blue. He brightly informed me that my suspicions were correct, this used to be the mental health department up until the late 70's. Thanks Gaylord Focker, that's just what I wanted to hear. I'm pretty sure I saw Randle McMurphy preparing for his lobotomy down the hall. So after a cocktail of happy pills, a tube resembling a Hoover attachment was stuck down my throat and slices were made into my tumor, who I named Ted. Upon waking and leaving the creepy-ass edifice, I felt like I had swallowed a porcupine and sounded like an 80 year old Vegas cocktail waitress (and not in the sexy way). I had a post-op appointment right before Christmas with the surgeon who did my appendectomy. She asked me about the biopsy and if I had the results yet. I said I didn't and she said that she was sorry that I'd have to worry about it over the holidays. I was kind of surprised because it never dawned on me that I might have something to worry about. I had already survived a benign cyst on my thyroid (or so I thought) and weird cysts on my wrist and scalp. This was just another bump, maybe an overnight hospital stay, whatever. I had a baby learning to crawl, a full time job and a life to deal with. I've found that whenever you say that you don't have time for a disaster, the universe tends to send one your way just to be a jackass.

In the beginning....

Well, there are so many beginnings, but I'll start with the first cancer diagnosis. I was 26, married to my high school sweetheart and mother to a beautiful 8-month-old boy. I'd been having some abdominal pain which I thought to be bad Chinese food from the night before. Poor Chinese food, aren't we all so quick to judge? I was mad because getting food poisoning from my favorite Chinese food place would really suck. This isn't a large town, there aren't that many quality Chinese restaurants in my vicinity. Plenty of bad ones...Anyway, my husband finally dragged me to the hospital the morning of my second day of bad pains. Turns out I had raging appendicitis and would require surgery that day. It took a few hours for the appendicitis diagnoisis however. The sadists in the ER thought it would be a hoot to submit me to a full pelvic exam first. I told them it was my fucking appendix, but I didn't go to medical school so I was sushed. Between the abdominal pain, the indignity and subsequent uncomfort of the pelvic exam and the the migraine that it all had caused, I was not in good spirits. So, when the ER doctor came in to talk to me about the CT scan results, I was pretty pissy. He told me that my appendix needed to come out (thanks Dr. Obvious, is the sky also blue?) and he also said that they had found a very sizable tumor on my pancreas. "Awesome," were my exact words. I always was a master orator. He said that they would do the appendix first and then I'd have to go to a larger hospital for more tests. I was so wrapped up in the appendix and the surgery that I really didn't have the energy to care about whatever the hell he was talking about. I had just 8 months previous had an unexpected C-section following 27 hours of labor. (Again, I told them that the baby was not coming out and I needed a C-Section stat, they didn't listen to me for about 20 hours, bastards). I was not really enjoying the thought of yet another abdominal surgery. Little did I know that the appendix, really a pathetic organ, was the least of my problems.

The maiden post

The first time is always the hardest. Best to just get it out of the way and move on. Today is May 4, 2010. I am 16 weeks pregnant and was just diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Don't freak out, this is just another bump in the rocky road of my life. I've already done the cancer thing once, this is all old hat now. Of course, I wasn't pregnant last time so this adds a fun new twist. The other cherry on top? I'm not even 30 yet. Intrigued? Me too. I figure writing to no one in particular might be good (and cheap) therapy for an overwrought and unquiet mind such as mine. Stay tuned...