These posts are carried over from my original MyLifeLine page where I updated friends and family on my battle. I've now made them public and brought them to this blog because all cancer survivors have a story to tell. May mine encourage someone in their journey.
Smack dab between my 37th birthday and my husband's 37th birthday (which is 8 days after mine), I had an upset stomach. This wasn't an uncommon occurrence for me, so I didn't think much of it. I had a Bible study to plan for that night, so Bronson cooked one of my specialties- shrimp and grits. I picked at it, leading him to believe he had failed at chef-dom. I showed up to my zoom meeting worrying that I'd burp my way through it. Afterwards, Bronson and I walked with our daughters to the playground. I must have burped 100 times as I was sitting on that bench. We were convinced I had gotten food poisoning somehow, despite no one else having the same symptoms. We laughed about it, but I was miserable.
Later that night, I was too uncomfortable to read to our girls or go to bed. I'm a night owl, anyway, so I stayed up. Around midnight, I convinced myself I was hungry and went to scrounge in the kitchen. Though no food was appealing, I scooped a small amount of icing and ate it.
Within minutes, I was violently ill. My stomach pain became unbearable and the vomiting was almost as bad. I tried to gut it out, assuming it was just a stomach bug. I went to bed, but was unable to
sleep, vaulting out of bed to throw up every few hours and writhing in agony in between. Finally, at 4:00 a.m., I woke Bronson up and asked him to take me to the ER. He assumed it was appendicitis. He'd had it when he was younger and I had a friend who just got an appendectomy, too. It just seemed plausible. He woke our daughters, got them into the car, and drove me all the way to Shneck hospital in Seymour. It was an agonizing car ride- probably partly because this hypochondriac convinced herself that we would get into a car accident and my appendix would burst before I even got to the hospital. We got there in one piece, no thanks to Bronson's speediness, and by that point, I was feeling a tiny bit better. Because of COVID-19, they only allowed one person in the hospital with you and I hadn't been able to reach my mom, so I waved goodbye to to my husband and kids before I hobbled in alone. I was afraid of surgery, so when I saw my mom had returned my call, I texted and asked her to come. She made it there in record time. (I make no excuses for these speed demons. NVPD, please forgive her.) Even the ER doctors and nurses seemed to think it was appendicitis. It seemed like the CT scan was just a formality. We were all bracing ourselves for an appendectomy. When the doctor returned, she told me that it seemed there was a "mass behind my ovary." She was calm and kind. I looked at her and asked, "Could it be cancer?"
"That is in the realm of possibility," she said. They needed more imagery, though, so they ordered an ultrasound and a trans-vaginal ultrasound.
At that point, the doctors switched from night shift to day shift and a male doctor came on duty. When the ultrasound results came back, the doctor came in to speak with me. He threw his hands into the air as he told me he was referring me for a hysterectomy. I remember just staring at him with a blank look, shocked to my core and wondering why he was so upset when it was me who might have cancer.
It wasn't until the nurse returned that I began to cry.
"Don't give up yet," she told me, and talked with me until I was calm. Before we left, the nurse agreed to pray for me when she remembered me, and that gave me a sense that this would be okay.
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