If you haven’t read the previous installments, start here
A little while later I finally opened my eyes and noticed that the sun was shining. No one was in my room. I looked at the clock directly across from my bed on the wall that said 7:45. A white board on the wall below it said that it was Saturday, April 20 and that I was in the ICU. My mind reeled and questions flew through my mind. Where did Friday go? Where was Jeremy? Where was my baby? Who was feeding my baby? What was my baby eating? What happened that warranted me being in the ICU? Why do I have an untied restraint on my arm? My mouth and throat were so dry and raw that I couldn’t speak above a whisper and my arms were so weak I could hardly move them. I had no idea where the nurse call button was. I just laid there with these questions floating around my mind over and over. The anxiety was growing and my emotions began rising from fear to anger that there was no one there to help me or tell me what was going on.
Finally, at 8:05, Jeremy strolls in. He casually says “hi, Love.” And sits on the couch. In my limited vocal capacity I loudly whisper, “tell me what happened.” He tries to make a joke and it infuriates me even more. Then he tells me. “They took out your uterus, ovaries, and appendix. You have cancer.” Cancer. I couldn’t believe it. I was eating so healthy, healthier than anyone I knew! Or so I thought. And I had been exercising. How could it be cancer? I probe him for more details. “Where’s the baby?” Jeremy explains that the baby is not allowed into the ICU so they kept him in the nursery and Jeremy was given his own room on the postpartum unit. They have been feeding him formula. My heart sank. I had prided myself on breastfeeding my four other children from 6 months to a year. I knew how beneficial it was for them. And I had missed that important bonding time shortly after birth. I guess I missed that whole first 24 hours after the birth!
Jeremy then calls Dr. Wingo to tell her that I’m awake. She had kindly given Jeremy her personal cell phone number so that he could call with questions or concerns. Doctors don’t just hand out their personal phone numbers. But we had a special relationship of trust with her. She knew that we wouldn’t call about any or every little thing. And we knew that she would give us the truth and that she had our best interest in mind.
Jeremy proceeded to tell me that I had a rough night. He had come to see me after they finally had me situated in the ICU. He said he was talking to me and I started to respond by moving my head from side to side and trying to pull at my breathing tube. Dr. Wingo had explained to him that because I had lost so much blood in surgery and had 8 units of blood infused, she wanted me to have a breathing tube in overnight to help keep my lungs from filling with fluid. My night nurse later explained that I had been given the maximum amount of sedative allowed and that I was still fighting the breathing tube so they had to restrain my arms. My mind was having a difficult time processing all of this overload of information. I pushed it to the side to focus on the more immediate physical concerns: my parched throat and the pain that I knew was coming.
My nurse came in at some point to do his initial assessment. I asked for some ice chips because my throat was burning with dryness. He told me that I wasn’t allowed to have that yet. I pleaded for at least a moist oral swab to wet my mouth. He consented to that. At this point I was glad for my nursing background and I knew that moist swabs were available because he likely would not have offered me one. I started to become aware of the blood pressure cuff on my arm, the two IV’s on my arms, the nasogastric tube coming out of my nose, the urinary catheter taped to my thigh, a JP drain hanging out of my abdomen, and the arterial line strapped to my left wrist. I could feel that my abdomen was bound up tight. I was starting to notice the dull ache in my abdomen that was gradually becoming stronger.
Dr. Wingo came in with a serious look on her face. She asked me what she could get for me.
“Ice chips.” I said.
“Done” she said. “What else? What do you want for pain?”
“I don’t want to have to bother the nurse each time I need something.”
“A PCA pump? You got it. What else?”
Dr. Wingo was awesome. She came in to see me even though it was a Saturday and she wasn’t even on call. Jeremy told me later that after the surgery she came out to tell him about the cancer and she started crying and he started crying. She couldn’t believe it either. There was nothing in the MRI or ultrasound to prepare us for how bad it was. As they were talking about the implications she told him that she thought of me as someone that she could be good friends with which made the situation even more emotional.
Dr. Wingo proceeded to tell me about the procedure and how she found tumors all over my abdomen. She had to remove the uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes and the appendix as they were overwhelmed with tumors. She said she took out everything she could see. I held my breath and asked if it spread to my intestines. I just couldn’t bear the thought of having to recover from bowel surgery on top of everything else I was dealing with. I exhaled with relief as she told me that my bowels were unaffected. She mentioned that after she removed all the tumors that she irrigated the area twice to flush out residual cancer cells. It kind of made me feel better knowing that she worked so hard to remove everything; but knowing that it was everywhere also gave me the uneasy feeling that there could be more that wasn’t visible or that had spread somewhere else. I asked the next big question: if she got clean margins. She paused and with a serious look said, “no.” I knew what that meant. The likelihood of it coming back is significantly higher since she couldn’t confirm that she removed the tumors in their entirety. She also said that they weren’t sure what type of cancer it was. But I didn’t want to think about it yet. First things first: I just wanted some ice chips.
Read the next installment here.