The Saturday after I came to Del Mar Maria took me to UTC for lunch, shopping, and a movie. We ate at a fresh salad place and it was lots of very small cut fresh salad. The next morning I had extreme diarrhea. It was enough to make me call a Gastroenterologist at Scripps.
When I met with her and told her my diarrhea history, my discovery of gluten as a culprit and giving it up, the giving up of dairy to get rid of the extreme phlegm, and the digestive problems after doing Disaster Duty for five years and what I was doing about that. She said,, "We could all hope to be as healthy at 85 as you look but the weight loss is a concern. We need to see if there is any reason for it and the diarrhea. It may just be that your body is getting back to what it should be after years of feeding it the wrong foods." The diarrhea this last time could have been from ecoli or something from the salad. Maria had had a loose stool also, mine was more extreme.
I had told her about the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and she was familiar with it and commended me for sticking with something that was working for me. Tuesday I went in for the Colonoscopy and Endoscopy. Camber went with me and the Doctor told her about the angry looking tumor and that a CT Scan was ordered, a rush was put on the Pathology reports and an Appointment with the Colorectal Surgeon was ordered. When I awoke after a good nap after coming home I did the research on the internet looking up all the terms that were used in describing everything.
"1 cm ulcerated friable pedunculated rectal masses just proximal to anal verge." It looked like CANCER! Camber felt the Doctor was telling her it looked like cancer. I began reading more and shared the results with family. Camber had called my family and Wednesday evening Tanner, Marissa, Gary, and Linda came over. They gave me a beautiful blessing with James as voice.
The more I read the more I realized I might have a colostomy and be wearing a bag. I was frightened, depressed, and bewildered. I felt healthier than I had in years. With sticking to the SCD I was energetic and had dropped a few dress sizes. The last pair of jeans I bought was size 6. I had no stomach aches, no diarrhea, no leg aches, no knee aches. Why this when I was feeling so well!!!
What I thought was a hemorrhoid was the ugly beast. I learned that hemorrhoids and cancer have the same symptoms and can look the same. The difference is that hemorrhoids come and go but cancer stays and grows. I had called the Dr about four weeks before my surgery and said I thought my hemorrhoid was getting bigger and should we get rid of that before the colonoscopy. The message came back to use Preparation H on it, etc. I did. It did not get smaller! And now I find out it was not a hemorrhoid at all but this mass!!! I also learned that 90% of colon cancer patients thought they had hemorrhoids and that colonoscopies should start when people are in there 50s and not so much later. The way to prevent was eating lots of fiber, lots of Vitamin D and not being so sedentary, at least 30 minutes of exercise a day.
Wednesday I had a sleepless night. I started out listening to my music which always brings back the memory of happy moments and times in my life. I was so grateful for so many. But then the thoughts of all the losses in my life and the sadness sets in and the question of WHY---And all the challenges I have had to go through alone...after Richard's death and then John's death, having to sell the RB home, too and now probably the Lake Almanor, the economic condition of my life, Why, Why, and now this. I was so grateful the Lord was always with me and helped me get through it all and many blessings but still so hard, so alone, so alone, so little to show after a lifetime of doing my best, of working so hard, of taking on every new challenge and making it work but so alone, I really pled with the Lord that I just could not go through another big thing, I had lived my life, I did not need to keep on and have more pain, why not just take me home, let me give up, I did not want to go through this, I cried, I cried a lot. I seldom cry, I have always held back from that but I cried and I pleaded. Still in the morning I woke and knew I would go through it and it looked like with the position of the mass it would be the worst. I cried with Camber some more and shared my feelings when I went down to walk with the dogs. I remembered that Melissa had said I was so strong and the Lord wouldn't make me do anything I couldn't do and I could do it!!! I had had so many encouraging things said to me by friends and family and that part was so helpful to me.
After I dried my hair I saw that I had had a call from Scripps. I listened to the phone message and the Dr said the report had come back that it was a Benign, prolapsed polyp...What?!!!! I was as shocked to get the message as I was to get the first report of the mass!!!! I ran downstairs to James' office and he was on the CALL...I said, " it is BEGIGN" and he muted the phone and had me repeat it and then excitedly went back to his call and said he had just had some really great news...
Anyway in the rest of the call she said had talked to the surgeon and I should still keep my appointment and probably have it removed to rule out whether something else was going on, to keep my appointment tomorrow and go from there but all in all the primary results looked good and she would go over the rest with me later. ( She had removed two polyps but did not cut this mass off because it could have affected my bowel movements and so she had referred me to the Correctal Cancer Surgeon for that.)
Later her assistant called and called it an ulcer and not a polyp and explained the difference a little. But she told me that there was nothing in my system causing the weight loss or the diarrhea so to continue my eating plan as it was working. Everything else looked clear and I should see the surgeon and go from there. So the Gastroenterologist was writing me off as not having anything wrong with my digestive system. The pictures really look clear, there was little redness in the stomach and I forgot to ask about that but they had taken biopsies all the way up and down and all were clear!!!!
It was not until later when Carole sent me a text and said she thought it was a shame that the Dr had told me cancer when it was not definite yet. And I thought, did she ever mention the CANCER word??? The thing she told me at the bedside was to keep doing my way of eating is all I remember. I was groggy. She talked to Camber, I did all my deducing of cancer from the report I read and questioning the internet and getting a world of information. Camber said she definitely said, it looked like a very angry tumor and she thought she had used the cancer word. I got the feeling the Dr was as shocked as I was that it was benign from the way she sounded on the phone...Why would the report say it may be several days before I get the results but then in an update say the pathology reports were being rushed, the scan had been ordered, the appointment with the colorectal surgeon was being made and that assistant say they were called for an emergency appointment if it was not thought to be cancer. It appeared it was assumed to be cancer but the word was not in the report, of course.
Nevertheless the whole process really made me reflect on my situation and my health and my life and made me very grateful for all the blessings I have had, all the help from the Lord in everything I did, and the knowledge that I was so blessed to have family who were concerned and helpful to me, friends who cared and shared my pain and prayed for me and the knowledge that I can do what I have to do and so grateful I really am healthy...at least as far as my digestive system is concerned!!! I intend to live every moment as well as I can and as healthy as I can and be very, very grateful that I escaped the big C!!!!!! Or am I assuming too much again????
Maria invited me to go to a Book Review with Robert Dallek at Warwicks in La Jolla. I told her I had a gift card to Urban Kitchen and we could eat first. I had no idea where Urban Kitchen was, I first thought it was in the Del Mar Heights Mall and then in the mall near Gelsons on Via de la Valle but Maria took a closer look at the card and said it was where we used to go to Chevys across the street and it was called Cucina Enoteca (you had to look at the small print on the card to find this name!)!!
