See part one here.

See part two here.

So, my part in the colon cancer surgery was easy.  Next thing I knew, I was waking up in my room.  I remember that I was so tired it was hard to keep my eyes open.  I remember opening them and seeing my parents.  I tried to smile and say something, but it took so much effort!  Then, I opened them again and my husband and mother-in-law were there.  Again, keeping my eyes open was just too much work.  I tried to say “I love you” when they left, but I’m not sure I did.  Then the night nurse came in and asked if I had been up and walking yet.  I managed to say no.  She said that Dr. AB wanted me up and walking.  I remember thinking there was no way I can walk – I can’t even keep my eyes open!  Next thing I knew, I was waking up and it was morning.  So much for walking the same day as my surgery!

Now, I was ready to get up and walk.  I knew from past experience (I had my gall bladder out laproscopically several years ago) that getting up after having your stomach cut open was tough!  The nurse’s top priority was to get me up and walking – at least to the door of my room – and then into a chair!  I remember that it took a lot for me to sit up.  The actual standing up part was easy.  Walking to the door of my room totally exhausted me!  I couldn’t believe it.  The day before I had walked into the hospital with no problem and now walking just a few feet was hard.  Each day I was able to walk a little farther and eventually I was able to walk the halls with no problem.

The other part was waiting for my intestines to wake up.  Our bodies are designed to stop the intestines from working anytime after a surgery disturbs them.  This meant that I had to have a tube up my nose and down my throat – what a pain – literally!  Nothing could get past my stomach – not even saliva.  I remember being thrilled when it could finally be removed about three days later.

When I was finally discharged (I believe I was in for 7 days), I still couldn’t lift anything over 5lbs.  That in itself was hard!  My youngest was still in diapers and wanted to be carried by Mama.  I couldn’t go grocery shopping by myself, because while individual groceries don’t weigh over five pounds, the bags of groceries do plus the cart was too heavy to push.  Ever go grocery shopping with your mom and not help her?  She unloads the cart, puts the bags back in, loads everything into the car while you just watch?  It was a definite learning experience.

I was very fortunate!  After visiting three oncologists, the consensus was that I didn’t have to have radiation or chemotherapy.  There was much celebrating!  For three years I had bloodwork every three months, and I’ve had a colonoscopy each year.  This past December I had my five year colonoscopy and it was clear.  I’m officially considered cured.

I had some genetic testing done, and it came back negative.  There’s some family history of colon cancer, but no direct links.  I’ve read a lot of recent studies about ways to prevent colon cancer and that it’s one of the most preventable cancers.  As always, better safe than sorry – get checked!

See Part One here.

I called the gastroenterologist’s office and made my appointment for 3:30 the next day.  They assured me that the results would be in by then.  The next day, Thursday, was very snowy and the doctor’s office had a lot of cancellations.  They called me to see if I could come in at 11:00.  I asked whether or not they would have my test results.  They assured me they did (I’m surprised at how quickly some test results come back and others seem to take forever!).  I called hubby to make sure he could go with me.  I picked him up at work and we drove around to the doctor’s office.  I remember being taken into her office and waiting for her, wondering what she was going to say although I was pretty sure I knew.  When she came in, she started off by saying that she had my results and then she said I had cancer.  I remember thinking that it was almost like she didn’t mean to say it so soon – like it came out before she intended.  I wasn’t surprised, but  I didn’t want it to be true.  I had three little kids and I wanted to see them grow up!  She asked if we had any questions.  My only one was, “Now what?”

Dr. MB was all business (which at that moment was what I needed – someone to tell me what to do) and quickly got me scheduled for a CT Scan on Friday (it took all of 10 minutes to have done) and got me an appointment with a surgeon on Monday, February 1.

The surgeon, Dr. AB, was very nice. When he walked in, he looked at me and said “You’re 35 and have colon cancer?!” He was totally surprised (or at least he appeared to be) much like us. He recommended surgery (the sooner the better) to remove the cancerous part of my colon and then reconnect the remaining halves (colon resection). It was scheduled for Feb 16. Although it was only two weeks away, it seemed like forever.  Especially since I knew there was a cancerous tumor growing in me.  I could just imagine it getting bigger and bigger everyday.  I’m sure it didn’t grow that fast, but I just wanted the surgery date to be here!  I’ve never been so eager to be in the hospital.  After the surgery they would biopsy the piece they took out and look for any signs of the cancer moving to other areas (nodes). The results of the biopsy would determine if I would need chemo and/or radiation. He also wanted to take out my ovaries (and my uterus since it doesn’t behave without the ovaries) as a preventative measure so he called my gyno, Dr. S.   He called me to talk about it and to have me come into the office to sign paperwork. I also had a mammogram as another preventative measure (that was normal…whew!).

The day before the surgery was the worst!  I had to do the prep again!  This time however, I had the “good stuff” – a free sample from the doctor’s office (I’m so glad they took pity on me!).  It involved two little pills and drinking maybe 16 ounces of liquid.  Totally doable!  The clear liquid diet is never fun and spending a good portion of the evening/night in the bathroom isn’t fun either.  Because my OB/GYN had regular office hours on the 16th, they requested first surgery.  That meant I had to be at the hospital bright & early.  Fine by me – I wanted it over with!

I don’t remember what time I had to be at the hospital, but it was early – before my daughter had to be up to get ready for kindergarten (my parents and mother-in-law were staying with us for several weeks to help out).  After getting checked in and IVs in place, the nurse gave me the most wonderful invention – a warm blanket!  Seriously, I was absolutely freezing!!  Then, they came in with another even more wonderful invention -a machine and blanket contraption.  They hooked up the machine to the blanket contraption and it blew warm air into the layers of the blanket.  Ahhh….so wonderful!  At some point before I went into surgery, I found out that my daughter didn’t want to go to school.  We had figured that this would be a possibility and the school knew what was going on, so it wasn’t a big deal to us.

Finally it was time.  I don’t recall being overly nervous, just eager to have it done with.  I knew I had the easy part for now – I would be out and have no idea how much time was passing.

Come back tomorrow for the final part of my colon cancer story.

March is colorectal cancer awareness month so I thought it was a good time to share my story.

Being a cancer survivor was never something I thought I’d be.  Never.  Not even in my nightmares.  Yet, here I am.  It’s been just over five years since I found out I had colon cancer.  An old man’s disease, right?  Wrong!  I’m female and I was 35 at the time.  My kids were 5, 3, and 16 months.

*I will apologize ahead of time if this post contains TMI, but it goes with the story.*

 

I’d been having diarrhea several times a day for quite a while.  It had become normal.  I’m not sure how that happened, but I’m guessing that with three kids, I just didn’t think about it.  I’d eat breakfast and then head for the bathroom.  A couple hours later, I would be there again.  Usually by lunch I was OK.  Then, one day, it was normal.  That got my attention and I started wondering how long this had been going on.  I think I figured maybe six weeks.  I called my doctor before I could put it off.  At my appointment, she wasn’t too concerned – she was thinking maybe celiac disease.  She ordered some blood tests and told me to come back the next week.  I got the blood work done right away. At my follow-up appointment, I specifically remember her saying “no dread diseases.”  What a relief!  She recommended a probiotic and then said that maybe I could try eliminating different foods to see if that helped (my husband thought it was my beloved french vanilla creamer….nope…whew!).  Nothing did.  It didn’t get any better and it didn’t get any worse….

Until the night there was blood.  Enough to color the toilet water!  That freaked me out!  Of course, it was late at night and by morning I realized it could’ve been a hemorrhoid.  That made sense to me.  A couple days later it happened again.  I called my doctor right away and told her I wanted that referral to a gastroenterologist (she had offered it at my last appointment if I wanted it).  They said sure; they would call the referral in and I should hear something within a week.  I didn’t.  I gave them a couple extra days and then called my doc again.  They called the gastroenterologist and I got a call that afternoon.  Their next new patient appointment wasn’t until January!!  This was towards the end of November.  Obviously it couldn’t be that bad if I could wait another six weeks!

I remember the holidays – wanting to enjoy them, but at the same time wanting to know if there was something wrong with me.  I went back and forth between not being worried (after all the doctor didn’t seem to be) and knowing what I’d found when I googled “bloody diarrhea.”  Dr. Google is never your friend!

My appointment was totally uneventful – something of a letdown!  The doctor mentioned a couple different possibilities – hemorrhoids, Chron’s.  Cancer was never mentioned.  She told me to schedule a colonoscopy with the girls at the front desk.  I think I had to wait ten days.  After waiting weeks for the first appointment, ten more days seemed like forever!  In the meantime, I googled Chron’s – let me just say, Dr. Google is still not my friend!

Finally, the day before came and there was the awful prep!!  I had no idea that something could be that awful.  I’m not good at drinking large quantities of liquids anyway (except maybe coffee), and having to down a gallon of stuff was tough (not the taste, just the amount in a relatively short amount of time).  The constant running to the toilet was rough too!  The test itself was easy!  They put me in a twilight sleep and I don’t remember a thing.  When I woke up, the doctor told me there was an irregular spot and she biopsied the heck out of it.  I was to call her office and schedule an appointment for the following day to get the results.

More tomorrow.