After several hours of trying (unsuccessfully) to sleep in my forever-shifting bed, I was finally wheeled to a hospital room. The ER doctor wanted me admitted for two reasons. First, he wanted a biopsy of the tumor ASAP and wanted me ready and waiting for that so they could wheel me in for the procedure as soon as there was an opening. Second, the CT scan showed I had a blood clot in my splenic vein (splenic vein thrombosis) and he wanted me on a heparin drip to try to keep the clot under control.
John returned armed with granola bars, books, changes of clothing, a toothbrush, and (thank heavens) a razor and deodorant. My brother, Patrick, came by with Eliza and Amelia to cheer me up, which was a blessing and a curse. No one gets me laughing like Patrick does, but I laughed so hard it started to seriously hurt. It was wonderful and exactly what I needed. John and Patrick gave me a blessing, and that calmed me down some and also helped me find silver linings in the situation. The line I remember most is that this experience would help me to better understand my importance in the lives of my children. I had been in a panic. The blessing gave me some much needed perspective.
About this time the story takes an abrupt turn from something out of an episode of "ER" to something out of an episode of "Scrubs." The attending doctor walked in, followed by My Team -- a gaggle of medical students, interns and residents who were along for the ride. They all stood around my bed and looked down on me with expressions varying from concern to curiosity to fascination. It's another image that will be stuck in my head to my dying day (which I hope is many years from now): a crowd of shiny, eager beavers in white coats of varying lengths, staring down at little sick me. It really did feel like a scene in a movie ... a comedy, in fact.
My audience and I learned from the attending physician that we wouldn't really know how treatment would go until we got biopsy results, but it was pretty certain that the cyst would have to come out whether it was cancerous or not. There were a few ooohs and aaaahs when it came out that my aunt had pancreatic cancer. The newest research is saying that there's likely a genetic factor there, and I could tell the med students were all over that one. (PSA: If you're closely related to me, you should think about having your pancreas checked.)
There was good news, too. She said that my age and the location of the cyst meant that even if the biopsy results were for cancer, I had a great chance at beating it. Believe me, I grabbed onto that news and held fast.
After a few hours in that first room, I got moved to a different floor for observation. As I was being wheeled away with IV line in tow, the nurse who'd been helping me all day leaned over and whispered to me that she'd pray for me that evening. I get teary remembering that. It really touched me.
This next room had two beds, and life became much more interesting. My first roommate was an older woman who clearly thought she'd been kidnapped. She kept making phone calls and saying things in an ominous voice like "I don't know what they're going to do to me" or "They've taken my IV." It was unnerving. I must have looked worried, because a nurse came in and assured me in a whisper that the woman was being transferred to the mental ward and that things would quiet down soon. On her way out the door, the lady leaned over to me and asked me to tell her daughters she loved them, which I said I would certainly do.
My next roommate was a darling older woman who had fluid built up around her lungs. They were giving her something that made her "pee like a racehorse," as her daughter put it, but she was too unsteady to get to the bathroom by herself. The daughter and one or two nurses would help her use a portable toilet by the bed. (If you're wondering about privacy, there was a curtain that kept me from having to see all this. Alas, no sound barriers.) She was terribly nice and Southern and didn't want to bother anyone, so she kept trying to get out of bed and to the bathroom by herself -- a disaster waiting to happen. She also kept putting a kink in her IV line because she would forget it was there. By this time I was feeling pretty good, because they'd been treating my pain, so I became a sort of assistant -- a tattletale, actually -- and would call a nurse whenever my roomie was getting into trouble.
I didn't really mind the relative chaos in my room, because the nurses and technicians were so incredibly good and friendly -- as was my roommate and her daughter. Besides, it kept my mind off my own uncertainty.
Even if I hadn't had a roommate, there would have been no time to get lonely. A nurse or technician would check my blood pressure and the heparin drip periodically, and members of My Team would show up to poke and prod and practice a reassuring bedside manner. I learned from the nurses that the length of the white coat tells you whether someone is a med student, intern, resident or full medical doctor. The coat gets longer as you rise in rank. Cool, eh? The nurses also told me that since I was an "interesting case," every student in the building would want to get their hands on me. Too true. One of My Team members was poking around my abdomen when his eyes lit up and he said with way too much excitement: "Hey! I felt it!" It being the tumor.
It might sound like all this bugged me, but it really didn't. It was oddly exciting to be someone's first contact with a pancreatic cyst. They've got to get experience somewhere, and it might as well be with me. Besides that, they were nice, and it was fun to watch them get all excited about my case while desperately trying to keep a mask of calm concern.
I also got visits from the surgeon, Dr. James Piper (good man), who walked the halls with his Very Own Team. They too were tremendously excited to hear that pancreatic cancer might run in my family. Woot! Cancerous or no, my cyst had to go because of the distress it was causing my pancreas and spleen. He walked me through the probable procedure, admitted he couldn't stop me from scaring myself silly by searching the Internet for "mucinous cystic neoplasm," and warned me there was a teensy chance I could end up with diabetes after all of this. Super unlikely, though. (Remember that little tidbit for later.)
Somewhere in all this I did have the biopsy procedure, an upper endoscopic gastrointestinal ultrasound with the added bonus of a little needle that would draw fluid from the cyst. I'd never been put under general anesthesia before, so I was pretty nervous. Sarah came and sat with me before and after the test, though, and I also passed the time eavesdropping on my neighbors. It was a family with two kids who had a severe allergy to dairy (I think it was). They'd gone out for a treat, chosen the menu item labeled as safe for them, and then both gone into shock because the restaurant HAD SWITCHED THE LABELS. I still can't believe this. Anyway, the parents had to use Epipens on both kids, and they had to go through the ultrasounds to check for damage to their digestive systems. It was awful!
My first sensation after waking up from the procedure was an immediate desire to be put out again. Need I say I hadn't been getting much sleep? Have you ever tried sleeping with two IV lines sticking out of your arm? Or a blood pressure cuff tightening up on you at regular intervals? Sadly, I'm sure some of you have. And then there was the issue of using the bathroom while dragging half the hospital room with me. Gah!
After three days of this I was feeling pretty well, and we knew I wouldn't be able to get into the operating room for another few days, so the only thing keeping me in the hospital was the heparin drip. They solved this by teaching me how to give myself injections of lovenox, and sent me home.
I think the hardest thing to live with during this time was uncertainty. Based on the outcome of the biopsy and surgery, I could either go pretty much back to normal or I could face radiation, chemotherapy and who knows what else. The odds were good that I'd be just fine, but that little sliver of a chance that I wouldn't be fine really weighed on me. I was especially worried about my kids. I hadn't wanted to mention anything about what I was going through on Facebook, but my mom encouraged me to do it so I could get that extra support from people who care about me. I'm so glad I did. Every time I logged on there were words of encouragement and support from people around the world, and it was a huge support to know that people were thinking of me and praying for me.
That's it for now.
John returned armed with granola bars, books, changes of clothing, a toothbrush, and (thank heavens) a razor and deodorant. My brother, Patrick, came by with Eliza and Amelia to cheer me up, which was a blessing and a curse. No one gets me laughing like Patrick does, but I laughed so hard it started to seriously hurt. It was wonderful and exactly what I needed. John and Patrick gave me a blessing, and that calmed me down some and also helped me find silver linings in the situation. The line I remember most is that this experience would help me to better understand my importance in the lives of my children. I had been in a panic. The blessing gave me some much needed perspective.
About this time the story takes an abrupt turn from something out of an episode of "ER" to something out of an episode of "Scrubs." The attending doctor walked in, followed by My Team -- a gaggle of medical students, interns and residents who were along for the ride. They all stood around my bed and looked down on me with expressions varying from concern to curiosity to fascination. It's another image that will be stuck in my head to my dying day (which I hope is many years from now): a crowd of shiny, eager beavers in white coats of varying lengths, staring down at little sick me. It really did feel like a scene in a movie ... a comedy, in fact.
My audience and I learned from the attending physician that we wouldn't really know how treatment would go until we got biopsy results, but it was pretty certain that the cyst would have to come out whether it was cancerous or not. There were a few ooohs and aaaahs when it came out that my aunt had pancreatic cancer. The newest research is saying that there's likely a genetic factor there, and I could tell the med students were all over that one. (PSA: If you're closely related to me, you should think about having your pancreas checked.)
There was good news, too. She said that my age and the location of the cyst meant that even if the biopsy results were for cancer, I had a great chance at beating it. Believe me, I grabbed onto that news and held fast.
After a few hours in that first room, I got moved to a different floor for observation. As I was being wheeled away with IV line in tow, the nurse who'd been helping me all day leaned over and whispered to me that she'd pray for me that evening. I get teary remembering that. It really touched me.
This next room had two beds, and life became much more interesting. My first roommate was an older woman who clearly thought she'd been kidnapped. She kept making phone calls and saying things in an ominous voice like "I don't know what they're going to do to me" or "They've taken my IV." It was unnerving. I must have looked worried, because a nurse came in and assured me in a whisper that the woman was being transferred to the mental ward and that things would quiet down soon. On her way out the door, the lady leaned over to me and asked me to tell her daughters she loved them, which I said I would certainly do.
My next roommate was a darling older woman who had fluid built up around her lungs. They were giving her something that made her "pee like a racehorse," as her daughter put it, but she was too unsteady to get to the bathroom by herself. The daughter and one or two nurses would help her use a portable toilet by the bed. (If you're wondering about privacy, there was a curtain that kept me from having to see all this. Alas, no sound barriers.) She was terribly nice and Southern and didn't want to bother anyone, so she kept trying to get out of bed and to the bathroom by herself -- a disaster waiting to happen. She also kept putting a kink in her IV line because she would forget it was there. By this time I was feeling pretty good, because they'd been treating my pain, so I became a sort of assistant -- a tattletale, actually -- and would call a nurse whenever my roomie was getting into trouble.
I didn't really mind the relative chaos in my room, because the nurses and technicians were so incredibly good and friendly -- as was my roommate and her daughter. Besides, it kept my mind off my own uncertainty.
Even if I hadn't had a roommate, there would have been no time to get lonely. A nurse or technician would check my blood pressure and the heparin drip periodically, and members of My Team would show up to poke and prod and practice a reassuring bedside manner. I learned from the nurses that the length of the white coat tells you whether someone is a med student, intern, resident or full medical doctor. The coat gets longer as you rise in rank. Cool, eh? The nurses also told me that since I was an "interesting case," every student in the building would want to get their hands on me. Too true. One of My Team members was poking around my abdomen when his eyes lit up and he said with way too much excitement: "Hey! I felt it!" It being the tumor.
It might sound like all this bugged me, but it really didn't. It was oddly exciting to be someone's first contact with a pancreatic cyst. They've got to get experience somewhere, and it might as well be with me. Besides that, they were nice, and it was fun to watch them get all excited about my case while desperately trying to keep a mask of calm concern.
I also got visits from the surgeon, Dr. James Piper (good man), who walked the halls with his Very Own Team. They too were tremendously excited to hear that pancreatic cancer might run in my family. Woot! Cancerous or no, my cyst had to go because of the distress it was causing my pancreas and spleen. He walked me through the probable procedure, admitted he couldn't stop me from scaring myself silly by searching the Internet for "mucinous cystic neoplasm," and warned me there was a teensy chance I could end up with diabetes after all of this. Super unlikely, though. (Remember that little tidbit for later.)
Somewhere in all this I did have the biopsy procedure, an upper endoscopic gastrointestinal ultrasound with the added bonus of a little needle that would draw fluid from the cyst. I'd never been put under general anesthesia before, so I was pretty nervous. Sarah came and sat with me before and after the test, though, and I also passed the time eavesdropping on my neighbors. It was a family with two kids who had a severe allergy to dairy (I think it was). They'd gone out for a treat, chosen the menu item labeled as safe for them, and then both gone into shock because the restaurant HAD SWITCHED THE LABELS. I still can't believe this. Anyway, the parents had to use Epipens on both kids, and they had to go through the ultrasounds to check for damage to their digestive systems. It was awful!
My first sensation after waking up from the procedure was an immediate desire to be put out again. Need I say I hadn't been getting much sleep? Have you ever tried sleeping with two IV lines sticking out of your arm? Or a blood pressure cuff tightening up on you at regular intervals? Sadly, I'm sure some of you have. And then there was the issue of using the bathroom while dragging half the hospital room with me. Gah!
After three days of this I was feeling pretty well, and we knew I wouldn't be able to get into the operating room for another few days, so the only thing keeping me in the hospital was the heparin drip. They solved this by teaching me how to give myself injections of lovenox, and sent me home.
I think the hardest thing to live with during this time was uncertainty. Based on the outcome of the biopsy and surgery, I could either go pretty much back to normal or I could face radiation, chemotherapy and who knows what else. The odds were good that I'd be just fine, but that little sliver of a chance that I wouldn't be fine really weighed on me. I was especially worried about my kids. I hadn't wanted to mention anything about what I was going through on Facebook, but my mom encouraged me to do it so I could get that extra support from people who care about me. I'm so glad I did. Every time I logged on there were words of encouragement and support from people around the world, and it was a huge support to know that people were thinking of me and praying for me.
That's it for now.
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