Filling in the Blank Days Part One

I’m back, blogging from the hospital. I won’t lie and say the intervening days have not been tough, but I’m better now and optimistic to go forward. 

I suppose I might as well just go chronologically, but first, let me stress something - if you are sure something is wrong with you even though you are able to function normally, don’t ignore it. Get checked out! If I had had a CT scan when my surgeon told me to I would have entered the hospital with a much smaller tumor, a good appetite, and 15 extra pounds. 

So here’s the first part of my story -

Terry checked me in bright and early to the hospital March 18. I was feeling weak and suffering pretty severe stomach pain. My first trip was to surgery where they installed a Bard Dual Power Port system that fits under the collar bone to access a major blood vessel and avoid i.v.’s. Various tests followed. I started Rituxin on Wednesday and chemo soon after. Because of my situation where the chemo was the cure I was feeling better. I thought I could feel the tumor actually shrinking.

Things were looking good until I had this mother of all stomach aches on Sunday night. It eventually went away but returned with vigor the next morning. My oncologist digested all this news and had the Monday chemo treatment accelerated. I was unhooked finally in mid afternoon and sent for a CT scan, When I got back, I was given the no food and drink order and began to get this feeling of doom.

Dr Krijanovski had mentioned to us a small possibility that my tumor would shrink so fast it would collapse and perforate the bowel. This thought was on my mind. I turned to Terry and said, “Know what. Dr Upadhyay (surgeon) will be the next guy through the door. Well, actually Dr. K beat him by a couple of minutes. In a very cool gesture, Dr. U was wearing a guitar themed tie. Sure enough, my bowel had been perforated, I was really depressed as they rolled me to the operating room.