Last Week was Hell

I'm sharing this in case there's something in here that's of some help to someone. I've just had the crappiest week. Warning, I'm crabby and upset and probably not going to type in as nice of a way as I susually do, but more like how I really talk.

Last Saturday I got up and was so sick. Stomach cramps, noises like the bowels of hell, gas, pain, nausea. I'd just started back on the Xeloda because I do two weeks on and then one off so I thought that's what it was at first. And, of course, I'd just been told that my mets have doubled in size and I have a new one. Turns out I had another blockage. It took me a couple of days to figure it out, duh. In the meantime I was trying to tough it out and not go to the local emerg and sit there all day so I can get fluids. Plus a poke, I HATE getting IV pokes. So I was lying in bed for several days, barely able to move, and finally decided to suck it up and go to the hospital. 

Well, the doctor got all panicky and instead of just giving me the fluids and pain killers and antinausea and heartburn stuff like they usually do he decided I should go to the city and have another ct scan in case I needed surgery. So they take me by ambulance to do that and they decide that it is a blockage but they're not going to do surgery. I'm taken back to our town hospital and kept overnight with an IV. Good, because they said my liver was going to fail if I'd waited any longer as dehydrated as I was. Note! Do not be an idiot like me and wit too long to go and get fluids when you're really dehyrdrated!

The next morning they decided that I'd go back to the city hospital and be seen by their surgical team because they wanted to know why I was getting blockages. Back I go by ambulance. After a few hours the surgeon comes in and tells me that he's very concerned about my ct csan and that he thinks I have another huge mass by the original site and that it's attached itself to coils of bowel and that's what's causing my recurring blockages. A huge mass???? What the hell?? I was shocked but managed to ask why it hadn't been seen by all the people who are on my care team and all the ct scans I've had. He had no answer.

He asked if I bleed rectally. I told him I have all along but my surgeon says it's normal because the colon is 'angry' about disuse. He made a face like 'well, there you go'. I sked what was going to happen and he said 'well, there's nothing we can do but try to make you comfortable'. I said "so, what, I'm just going to die, sorry about my luck? That's it?" He said they can try to keep me comfortable. Holy crap! Less than a week before I'm told the good news is the cancer is only in the one lung and now I have a 'huge mass'??!! I've been feeling great. Better than I have since my diagnosis. I was stunned and horrified. I didn't even cry. It was completely surreal.

So I stayed in the hospital that night and the third surgeon came to see me. He's on the onc team and works with my surgeon. We discussed the whole thing and he said he'd take a look at the newest ct scan and get back to me the next morning- yesterday morning. So I spent a night in the hospital awake for most of it wondering what had happened and how this had gone so bad so fast and what I was going to do about everything. The woman in the next bed had had a tummy tuck and was whimpering and whining to the nurses and left the big light on so I couldn't sleep and she was lying there with sunglasses on. What the hell. I wanted to scream at her. Horrible , I know, but suck it up princess, you have NO idea. Every time the nurses spoke to her she'd answer like a child. UGH!

Anyway, the doctor came back yesterday morning and told me that he'd gone over the ct scan very carefully plus all the previous ones and he saw no reason to believe there was a mass. He said I've been watched very carefully and nobody has missed anything. He thinks what looks like a mass is something they see sometimes from having had radiation. It shows up oddly in the ct scan. It also likely has left areas of bowel that are thinner opening than others and that I'll probably continue to have obstructions occasionally and eventually may have to have surgery for it at some point. I burst into tears of relief. He looked taken aback until I told him I'm just so relieved and thanked him profusely. Then he said- I think this is significant- that it's easy for them to forget that there's a real person at the other end waiting for an answer and being scared.

So, this was my week. Right now I'm feeling much bettre but it will be a few days before I get my strength back. I missed a horse clinic yesterday and I was supposed to meet up with my friend today who is visiting from Scotland. I HATE, HATE, HATE not being able to make simple plans because I might be too sick to do it. Stupid cancer. F**k off and go rot in hell where you belong. We want our goddam lives back. Sick of the suffering, sick of the emotional turmoil, sick of the pain, sick of the treatments, sick of the guessing. Enough!!!