24 Hours

I suppose I should update. It’s been an eventful 24 hours. Yesterday was my appointment with the UT Oncology Center.

.

Dr. Kehoe is fantastic. I felt very comfortable with her, and she set me at ease right away… as much as anyone can set you at ease before shoving a speculum up your hoo-hah at least.

.

My mom and grandmother were both with me, and she pulled the curtain for some privacy during the actual exam which didn’t go very well. Almost as soon as she started poking around, I started bleeding. The bleeding quickly turned to hemorrhaging and she decided #1: We were dealing with more than just the endometrial cancer and #2: she wanted to send me over to the OR that night for another D&C. Originally I wanted to go home first and pack a bag which she agreed with… but then decided she needed to send me directly to the OR to do the DC right then and there.

.

Cue a lot of frantic phone calls and texts, postponing some panic and fear. They wheeled me to the car, drove, me to the Hospital (just down the street from the Cancer Center), wheeled me up to admitting and away we went.   Had a fun tussle with one of the prep nurses who wanted me to try and give a urine sample despite my insistance that all I would be able to give her was a cup of blood. Ended up giving her a cup of blood and a giant clot so I guess I showed her.

.

This time they did at least put me under, complete with breathing tube (they were nice enough to remove it while I was still not totally awake so my only souvenir of that is a seriously scratchy throat). And evidently while scraping away they cleared out lots of abnormal tissue and several tumors (one that I hear was fairly substantial). They did not do a full… to the walls DC. She said later that she could have kept pulling tissue for an hour and probably not hit bottom. In fact (she has a decent sense of humor) she said she had to commend me on the amount of abnormal tissue I’ve been carrying around, it was really rather impressive.

.

They’re keeping me overnight (hence the 4am posting… they just did vitals, weight, and took blood), and doing imaging, scans, and more testing in the am. I probably won’t have path labs back until Monday or Tuesday but that will help her determine what our real course of action is. I suspect there may be some actual medicinal treatment involved given what she’s seen already but they will be scheduling the complete hysterectomy for as soon as they possibly can (hopefully within a week I think she said.)

.

I don’t really know how to feel about it all yet. On the one hand… I’m relieved. Because for the first time in this whole year+ someone finally recognized that there is a serious and complex issue going on. And maybe it’s just that my body finally gave off the right signal to someone, I don’t know. I have to give credit to my current gyno for setting up the first DC and sending me to the oncologist at Presby… and props to him for sending me here… this is definitely the right place.

.

Dr. Kehoe was very kind post op too. When I asked how quickly we could set the hysto (and started to cry out of just… sheer emotional exhaustion) she patted my hand and said they wouldn’t make me wait long. They want to tackle this right away— they just need more information from the lab results first.

.

I feel like I’m in the right place now. With the right people. And that’s comforting.

.

I’m off of work. I’ve been pretty much told to stay low, they’ll monitor my pain (another clue evidently that this was more than the endo cancer… evidently pain is atypical with endometrial cancer— who knew? Not I). I’ll be filling out my FEMA paperwork next week.

.

Am I happy? No, that’s not really the right word. I’m hoping I’ll be home later tonight, and can make my therapy appointment tomorrow afternoon. maybe then I can start to process everything.

.

Honestly? I’m scared. I’m tired. I’m relieved. I’m angry.

.

I asked when I saw her post-op if getting on birth control when I was… 14, 15, at all could have been preventative of this. She said it’s really too hard to tell. A lot of it depends on just how abnormal the tissue is, how determined it is. It might have. But there’s no way to say for sure. It’s enough for me though. Enough to know that at the very least… maybe I or someone would have recognized sooner that something had gone wrong. Even if it couldn’t have been prevented.

.

I’m so tired. Of all of it. I’ve always been pretty healthy in the grand scheme of things. And with my abuse history— having my uterus be the thing that “goes bad” is pretty … horrifying to me. I won’t deny that part of what is so upsetting to me is just the sheer… having people touch me somewhere that 2 years ago would have sent me into a full blown panic attack. I have to give my therapist a lot of credit and thanks for getting me to a point where I could even GO to a gynecologist in the first place… much less to be able to endure everything I’ve been dealing with for the last 3 months.

.

Still, I’ll be glad when it’s all said and done, glad when it’s over. The bleeding, she said, won’t stop really until the hysterectomy is done. It will get better in between, but it won’t stop. I’m ready for that to be done. Ready to be able to get my life back.

.

I’m missing 2 shows and a wedding this weekend. And I’ve been missing so much more in the last year+ because of all of this… who knows how long really it’s had an effect on me? How do you quantify that? At least now someone is dedicated to finding the solution. To making me better. Cancer won’t beat me. I won’t let it. I have too much to do when this is over.