My Hair is GONE!!

On Saturday, my hair was falling out everywhere so it was time to take it all off! My friend, Vicki, who had the honors, had some fun with it and gave me a mohawk first and then mowed right down the center of that. She had some giggles. I was too afraid to look while it was being done, but had my DH take photos as she was working. I must say, it is good to have it gone. There was hair everywhere and now the house is mostly clean again!

I'm bummed because it appears I might have some kind of virus. No fever, so that is good, but I'm feeling achy and that's no fun! I'm hoping it doesn't delay my next chemo scheduled for this Thursday.


Now, back to the drama of waking up in ICU on August 19th.


I opened my eyes and knew exactly where I was. I saw my nurse walk out of my room and I could feel the tube resting on the back of my tongue. It was quite uncomfortable, but all I could think was to just keep breathing. The nurse came right back in and told me to cough and out she pulled it! Thank Goodness!!!

Apparently, Pete had just been sent home for some much needed sleep. They didn't want him around when they took the tube out. Kate came in at some point and advised me that I had taken 10 units of blood over the course of the night, about half before surgery and half during. The bleed was a very small (just larger than a hair) artery on the side of my bladder that had gotten nicked. They had been able to get ahead of the bleeding and get me stabilized for a period because it was so small. When she opened me up again, she first had to drain off and clean up about 2 quarts of "fluid" (does that translate blood, I wonder?) before they could find the culprit.  Also I found out that the tumor was the size of "an NFL football!"  It had completely wrapped around my right ovary and also my ureter, but she is a wiz-bang and got it all out with little problem.  Lymphoma is a different type of cancer in that doesn't spread and grow into other organs so it was contained. I believe it is essentially lymph cells gone bad and growing at crazy-fast rates, but don't quote me on that.

So anyway, the rest of that day and that night were spent in the peculiarly rest-less ICU. I fell asleep finally around 6:00am and woke up at 7:00am.  One of my problems was that my heart rate had been really fast all night, hovering something over 100.  It's hard to sleep when your heart is beating that fast! Sometime around 9:00 that morning I felt like my heart was beating even faster and I looked over at the monitor and it was 117. I rang for the nurse.....no response. Within seconds it was up to 125, rang the bell....no response. This went on for what felt like a long time, but was probably under 2 minutes and then I just started banging on the bell until the nurse came in. She came RUNNING in and by that time my pulse was up to 150. I felt like I was about to take off! I think she was somewhat annoyed with me. She explained that they were aware my heart rate was high and they thought it might be the Lasiks I was on (this is a diuretic). They felt it was taking the fluid out of my blood instead of out of my tissues. So she immediately put a bag of fluid on my drip and seriously, within a few minutes my heart rate was back down in the 100 range.

My dear sweet husband dragged himself back to the hospital around 9:30 I think. By 11:00am they were talking about taking me to the regular nursing floor. All I could think was, "how am I possibly going to move from this bed??"  Naturally, I had no use of my stomach muscles and what I didn't know was that I was carrying lots of extra weight in the form of fluid in my tissues. When they perched me up on the edge of the bed I still couldn't imagine how I was going to take the one step over to that darned wheelchair! When I took one step it was like I was in someone else's body. My legs were huge. But I did get there and was taken up to a nice private room where I was greeted by a most wonderful nurse named Catherine. I loved this gal!

Catherine quickly gave me some tips on how to move over, into and out of the bed in ways so as not to "drag my girl parts across the bed!" Once I got settled, it was here I began to realize just how swollen every part of my body was! I tried to put something to my mouth and found my arm so swollen I couldn't reach my mouth! It was then, my husband said, "Dude, I gotta tell you, your ass is HUGE!" and then started giggling like a little schoolboy. Now, I need to explain that we have the type of relationship where I'm okay with him talking like that to me. He loves me dearly and there is no doubt about that. When I saw him start giggling, I started giggling, which in itself was interesting being that I had a brand new 12" vertical incision up the middle of my belly. When he saw me start to giggle, he giggled harder and we were lost that way for a few minutes. So, huge arms, butt, legs etc would explain one reason it was so hard for me to move. And they wanted me to start walking immediately! So I did, very slowly up and down the halls.  It took a few days, but by the time I left the hospital 4 days after checking in, I was able to move more easily. Interesting though that when I got home, I was still 10 lbs more than before I checked into the hospital and they took out a giant tumor and all my reproductive system!

Well, I don't know about you, but I've had enough for today! Back in a day or 2!

Be well!
Melanie

It's hard to even write about August 19th!

Today I'm feeling good. Yesterday was a hard day, but good at the same time. My biggest problem was that I didn't get enough sleep causing me to feel achy. Despite that, Pete and I drove up Highway 1 yesterday and had lunch at Ragged Point. Seriously, we live in one of the most beautiful places on earth! It was a nice trip that got me out of the house for a few hours. Plus I had a burger, fries and milkshake which helps with my weight struggle! I've NEVER had the problem of trying to KEEP weight on until now.

So, back to September 19. We're really picking up here just after midnight when the day was young. When the nurse came in to check on me she apologized, but said she was going to have to take me off the pain meds since my blood pressure was so low, she tipped the bed so my head was lower than my feet to ensure that my brain was getting enough oxygen and asked for blood to be brought in. I'm not sure how long it took, but at some point my room had about 10 people in it. Pete stood in the doorway trying not to heave. He was completely freaked out! The head nurse from ICU came in and took over. They were starting new IVs where ever they could locate a vein, which was a challenge since my blood level was down so low. I remember watching people holding units of blood in the air and squeezing them down manually to try to force the blood into my system faster. Plus there were also bags of IV fluid at the same time. In the end, I ended up with 5 IVs. But, I'm jumping ahead!

They finally got me stabilized, with a good blood pressure and pulse rate. Kate, my surgeon had come in and they felt they had successfully gotten some sort of a bleed to clot itself. So, Pete went back to the hotel, Kate went home and all was well.  Or so we thought!!  Some time around 2:00am, my vitals started to deteriorate once again and the whole process started over. More fluids, more blood, Kate came in and asked for a surgical team to come in (for the second time), Pete (who had just fallen asleep) came back in. This time around they completely lost a pulse and a blood pressure. Eventually, they got me stabilized again and the surgical team was allowed to go home. Pete stayed, completely exhausted. Remember, he hardly slept the night before and had been up since about 6:00am. Kate vowed to stay until we were absolutely positive I was out of the woods. She held my hand most of the time. They moved me down to ICU where they could keep a closer eye on me.

While I was in the ICU the head physician there, who was a LOVELY woman for some reason unknown to me began a process of trying to put an IV into my jugular vein on the right side of my neck. She was having such problems with this. They were using an ultrasound machine to try to find the vein. Later, she told me that I had "unusual anatomy," that it wasn't where it is on most people. Again, Kate is holding my hand and talking to me during this whole episode. They had injected Lidocain into my neck and it felt like she was digging in my neck. This was a 12 gauge needle too, not some tiny little thing. It was BIG! She eventually gave up and they decided to do it while I was back in the OR. Oh, I forgot to tell you my vitals were slipping again! So, the surgical team was called in for a third time and they wheeled me into the OR. By now, it was about 5:30am.  I remember laying there looking at Kate dressed in her dark green sweatshirt that said "Ireland" across it. She looked at me and said "this is not life-threatening, Melanie." I just stared at her. She said, "You are giving me a look that says you are not sure you believe me. (stearnly) I promise you, Melanie, this is not life-threatening." And then I woke up in the ICU.

As they wheeled me out of the ICU, someone told me that they might have to keep me on the ventilator and when I woke up I might be intubated. How nice was that for them to warn me??? They kept me in a chemical coma until about 2:30 in the afternoon, Pete by my side. I believe they stopped the meds and then as I showed signs of waking up, they disconnected the hose from the tube to make sure I was able to breathe on my own. I woke up with the tube still in my chest. What an uncomfortable feeling! I just laid there and breathed until the nurse came and pulled that thing out. If I remember correctly, it was about 12-14 inches long. Yuck. Plus my throat took a good 2+ weeks to recover. I stayed in ICU that night....what a noisy, crazy, unrestful place to stay! I slept all of about 1 hour with all the alarms and people talking and being crazy! One man kept saying, "Lois, get in here right now!" I finally asked who Lois was. Apparently some relation to him, but she was not anywhere in the ICU!

Tomorrow I'll tell you about my first morning as a conscious person in the ICU.

Today and August 18

Well, today has been a pretty good day! Got up at a respectable hour, 7:30. Did some of what my husband calls "girl cleaning." Vacuumed all of upstairs including under a couple of beds that really needed it! Also did a small amount of machine quilting.

The hair continues to fall out in small quantities, but my scalp is starting to hurt just a bit, which I was told is an indicator it's about to go. It will be a sad day when I have to shave my head, but I know it's only temporary! It will likely be back by sometime early next year. Then I get to see what my natural color really is! That's kind of fun!

Okay, back to the day of surgery. What a long day that was. I was all cleaned out and couldn't eat, but had to do a CT scan and be at the hospital for it at 7:30. That meant I had to get up at 6:00am to drink the barium. Yummo! On an empty stomach no less! It was less than appealing, but I got through it! Once that was all done, we had a long wait until the scheduled surgery time of 6:15pm. We mostly sat around the room and napped, watched TV, played games and generally fretted. It's hard to get control of one's emotions and fears at a time like that. We prayed a lot too. And I know we were being prayed for. We headed over to the hospital by way of Longs (to pick up prescriptions) a bit early. Got to Short Stay and got checked in. Ilene, the nurse assigned to me was a TALKER. I had asked her to get me on the IV early so they could give me a little something to "eat." I was a bit shaky. She talked at least 45 minutes about how she needed to get my IV in before she actually did it. But she had a good heart and I think was trying to distract me. Then, by her own admittance, she forgot to give me the Vercet until only about  10 minutes before they took me into surgery. She could have given it to me right away, but again, I got through and it just wasn't meant to be...

I believe they rolled me into surgery pretty much right on time.  I was so happy to be getting that thing out of me! The next thing I remember was Kate saying something in my ear to the affect "Melanie, it's your lucky day, you just have Lymphoma!" She was so upbeat about it with Pete, he didn't even think it was cancer! So, I remember being awake then and then not again until I woke up in my room. My bed was in a mostly upright position and I remember waking up, looking at Pete and seeing stars. I told him I was dizzy and watched him get up immediately and go tell the nurse. I personally wouldn't have given it another thought. I assumed it was just part of the process of coming off a general anesthesia.  But it wasn't.

Later, I was told by another nurse that this was all happening around the nurses shift change at 11:00pm. They take this time to bring the relieving shift up to date on each of their patients. She told me that my call was "put into the queue." This nurse, her name was Lisa, I believe, had finished updating her relief and was walking down the hall and saw my light on and decided to check in on me. As soon as she took one look at me she knew I was in trouble and went out and got my nurse. She said she felt certain had it waited until the shift change was over, I would have been gone! Certainly, the Lord was watching over me!

Tomorrow I will share what September 19 was like!! And I may or may not have my hair by then!!

The Hair Starts to Go!

Um, I'm starting to lose my hair. Yuck. It's just yucky. So far, it hasn't been large clumps, but rather several hairs if I run my hand through my hair, but I know it's a sign of things to come. Listen, in the scheme of things there are so many things worse than losing one's hair, aren't there? And really, this is not going to be a lifelong thing- several months at most. So, I can live with it. Plus, my husband says it's just another look he can live me in. Isn't he the sweetest??? I do love him!

Today I slept until 8:30 and once I shook off the sleep, felt pretty good most of the day. Pete is on vacation this week and because we can't go anywhere, he has plans to get a few things done around the house. He tackled repainting our deck and staircase. I started to get tired of playing Tetris and meandered outside to chat and it looked like fun (see what being housebound will do to you??) so I changed my clothes and went out and helped! It was fun in a weird way. It just felt good to be doing something useful and to be spending time with my husband. We finished all the railing, which I think is the hardest part. Tomorrow, Pete will sand the flat surface of the deck and I'll tape of parts of the stairway and we'll finish 'er up! Oh, I also walked twice today; 30 minutes this morning and 20 minutes this evening. It's an attempt at increasing my strength so I'll be in better shape when I go back to work.

Now that I have you up-to-date, let's go back in time to the Monday before my surgery. We were packed and ready to go and left the house around 9:00am. Rana met us here and had a fantastic "hospital survival kit" for Pete complete with food, reading materials and games. She's the best! Got to the surgeon's office a bit early, which was good. We had been warned to be patient in the waiting room as there were several people that had been worked in at the last minute, just as we had. But because we got there so early, we were the first or second people to go in. We met with Kate and she was so reassuring. She has such a wonderful positive energy about her and she said there was a chance that I might not have cancer. I was so hopeful! She did advise she was going to have to do a vertical incision and was very apologetic about it. I thought that was sweet.

Next, we had to go to the hospital to have some lab work done. There, another gal (her name was Gail) that we had seen in Kate's waiting room came in and we started talking. Turns out she grew up in and still lives in Fresno (where I grew up), She grew up on the corner of Fancher Creek Rd and Lane Ave. My grandfather lived on Lane, maybe about half a block down the street from her. She said she knew him. What kind of coincidence is that??? Now she and her partner, Kelly, live about a block and a half from my mom's old house, where I grew up. We had a really nice chat. I also found out that she and her partner have an ob/gyn practice in Fresno. They reassured me that with regard to tumors, "bigger is better". Gail had some sort of growth in her abdomen as well. I worry about her now, since Kate told me I have the best prognosis of anyone she operated on that day.  There was just something about that whole encounter that felt like God was telling me that everything was going to be okay. I can't put my finger on it, but sometimes isn't that the way the Holy Spirit works?

After checking in at the hotel, we went and had a rather awful meal at IHOP. I was not able to eat any grain, only proteins basically (per doctor's orders), so IHOP seemed appropriate. That night at about 8:00 I began the "clean out" regimen. This is always fun. The last time I had to do this was when I had my colonoscopy and I think I got dehydrated in the process. So this time I chose an option that included putting laxative in a huge container of Gatorade, thinking that would help. It probably did help. However, in the middle of the night when the liquid stream turned the fruit punch color of the Gatorade, it freaked me out! I thought I was bleeding internally! Thankfully, my husband had his wits about him!

Tomorrow, I'll tell you about the day of surgery that really turned into 2 days.

Until then...

Why this Blog???

A couple of friends came over a few days ago unexpectedly to visit (thanks Linda and John!) and during the course of the conversation, Linda suggested that I journal some of my experiences since I've been diagnosed with cancer. It seemed like a fantastic idea, but I KNOW I won't keep a journal. I remembered someone, somewhere said you can have your blog made into a book and that seemed to be an answer to my dilemma. So here it goes!

Doesn't it just seem like there is so much cancer around??? I find it hard to believe that I have cancer! At any rate, here's how things got to this point....

It all started on Thursday, 8/14/09 when I had an appointment with my gynecologist to find out what was going on in my abdomen. I have a history of ovarian cysts and the normal thing to do when you get one of these things is to wait a couple of months and they usually clear up on their own. I felt one on each side and they were really weighing on my bladder, but again, I knew they would clear on their own with a wait. So I waited and waited, but noticed that even my uterus was hard and so that prompted the visit to my wonderful gynecologist, Stefanie Mikulics in Templeton, CA. As soon as she pressed on my abdomen, she knew something wasn't right, but being the cool cookie she is, she remained very calm and continued with her exam. Before I left her office, she had her nurse make an appointment for me at my normal radiology center in SLO. They weren't able to see me until Monday, but I could wait until Monday.

On Friday morning at 9:30am I got a call from Dr. Mikulics on her day off saying she felt uncomfortable waiting until Monday and she found another place that would get me in for an ultrasound in 45 minutes....Yikes! THAT freaked me out! But hey, how many doctors do you know who would make calls on your behalf to get you in somewhere on their DAY OFF?? Thanks Stefanie! You're the BEST!

So I got there and they did the ultrasound and then decided they wanted to do an MRI, which they did later that day. I went back to work and got a call from Stefanie that the MRI revealed a large solid mass on my right ovary. She also had taken the liberty of calling the best gynecological/oncological surgeon she knows, Kate O'Hanlan in the Bay Area and had be scheduled for surgery on the next Tuesday! Ugh! I was very scared.

I was instructed to pack my bags and be up there on Monday for a consultation with Kate. Pete was devastated I think. I feel so blessed to have him by my side for this whole crazy experience, but boy do I owe him....big time! What a love he is! So protective and loving!

We started praying for the best possible outcome and began to get ready for the trip.

More tomorrow....