Surgery was Friday, Jan. 7. The IV was a one-stick wonder (yes!) and I don't remember anything between being rolled into the operating room and waking up in my hospital bed. Mark, Amanda, Nathan and a dear friend, Shari, all assured me that the surgeon had nothing but good to report after the surgery. "Got it all!" What a relief! Pathology report would be in on Monday.
I awoke Saturday feeling like a heavy-weight title bout had taken place in my gut. Every movement hurt and being tethered to the bed by a cathader, gastro-nasal tube, IV and assorted other wires was no help. NG tubes — for the fortunate who've never had one — run though your nose and down to your stomach, sucking out everything so your battle-weary bowels can rest. Good concept, but really annoying. You can't eat, obviously, but drinking anything or even sipping ice chips is verboten. Of course, once something has been forbidden, it becomes the thing you want most. I could live without eating, but I was soooooo thirsty. The hospital's answer to that was a 1-inch star-shaped pink sponge on a lollipop stick that I could dip in ice water and use to moisten my mouth. That's what I was supposed to do with it. What I did was suck every drop of water out of the sponge and savor it as it trickled down my parched throat. It wasn't long before I was scowled upon by a nurse when I was caught with a half-empty ice water cup and my mouth puckered up around my sponge: "You're not supposed to be drinking that!" It may have been a small act of defiance, but I held my ground: "This tube is sucking everything out of my stomach, so what difference does it make if I take in a bit of water?" There must have been a bit of logic to that because she left me with my water and my sponge-sucker.
By Monday morning I was virtually untethered and I awoke to Heather, the surgeon's physician's assistant, hovering over my bed for a gut check. "Is the pathology report in?" I asked. She checked, and said not yet. Then she told me that only Dr. Shaver could tell me the results. "He who removes it, delivers the path report."
From then on, every hour on the hour (it seemed) I inquired after the whereabouts of the path report and Dr. Shaver. After the report turned up, I asked every nurse or assistant who popped in where Dr. Shaver was. "In surgery, due here at lunchtime." No show. "Surgery at 3, after that." No show. "Still in surgery." No show. "Surgery is running really long." No show. "Gone for the day." WHAT????
The night nurse took pity on me and offered to call Dr. Shaver's service to inquire. The on-call doctor asked her to read him the path report, which she did. He said he would call Dr. Shaver. No promises he would call back. The nurse asked if she could share the path report with me. "No. The patient will have questions and you won't be able to answer them." As soon as the nurse told me that, I knew this was not going to be an "all clear" path report. If it had been, my only question would have been "When can I go home."
Poor Amanda had waited patiently all day with me. (Nate had flown back to Texas to start classes on Tuesday.) I kept my assumptions to myself and sent her home so we could both get a good night's sleep. I don't know about Amanda, but my sleep was elusive at best and sweat-drenched at worst. Awaiting bad news is worse than knowing it.
The whole process began anew the next morning. Another PA from Dr. Shaver's office did the morning gut-check and assured me Dr. Shaver would be in and that I could go home that day. I busied myself showering and putting on civilian clothes. Amanda arrived and the hours trickled by. Just as I stepped into my bathroom, Dr. Shaver showed up. It was 1:30 p.m. and the news wasn't good. Instead of a Stage 0 or Stage 1 surgical cure cancer, I had State 3. Two of the 15 lymph nodes they removed were cancerous. Chemo was in my future.
Amanda and I shed a few tears over the path report, listened as Dr. Shaver explained what he thought would be the next steps: Heal from the surgery, meet my oncologist, get a PET/CT scan that could pinpoint any areas of concern, and undergo four to six months of "preventative" chemo.
Instead of the end of my colon cancer, it was only halftime. Damn!
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