Saturday, February 6, 2016

February 4, 2016 - WORLD CANCER DAY

How did YOU celebrate? That's probably not the right word. Honor it? No. Recognize it? Maybe. Remember it? Surely now for the rest of my life.

I love festivities. I'm that person who puts their Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving. And right after it comes down, my Valentine's Day tree goes up.

But this February 4, 2016, the festivities went a little too far.

I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on WORLD CANCER DAY! Had this been a Christmas lights decorating contest between the Griswald's and us, we would have won.

I'd been having a lot of pain last summer and fall. When I finally went to the hospital on Friday the 13th (see how I am about the special days?), 11/13/15, I recall saying something to Robin about at least it being my gall bladder and not my ... "Oh and the MRI showed a mass on your pancreas too. We're gonna need a CT scan."

No problem. Like sometimes a baby's ultrasound shows a weewee when really it's a hoohoo? I knew there was a mistake. A shadow or something.

No mistake. It was there.

They took care of the gall bladder and said we'd have to keep an eye on that mass. Come back in six weeks for a repeat CT scan.

I was still in constant pain and exhausted all the time. I ignored it. I was thinking menopause. I figured when they took out the gall bladder, they stabbed my uterus or something.

No biggie. Let the dust settle from the gall bladder and surely the pancreas stuff will have gone away. Had it been, they would have been all over it immediately, right? Six weeks seemed leisurely. Cancer is not a leisurely thing. It's a scary thing. That fact that they were waiting six weeks was a good thing. It was clearly a matter of them just covering their heinies thing.

But on January 5th, we learned it had doubled in size. My dad had died rather unexpectedly on January 3, so the timing was perfect. I'd had about 40 hours to get over his death.

Still not to worry. I was not jaundice and I certainly did not have inexplicable weight loss. I was certain it was just pancreatitis. They wanted to send me out of town for a biopsy. Wake Forest. A cancer place. A cancer place that specializes in pancreatic cancer. Well, they were just going to rule cancer out. Then I'd continue receiving treatment locally for pancreatitis or whatever it was.

Then on WORLD CANCER DAY, the doctor called. The nice looking, clean cut doctor, whose socks matched his shirt because he probably grew up with Granimals doctor. He called to tell me that I had pancreatic cancer and I was to go back to Wake Forest on February 8th to meet with the surgical oncologist who specializes in pancreatic cancer. We would then formulate the treatment plan.

That's where we are right now. I don't know if it's going to be chemo then surgery, or surgery then chemo. (It feels strange writing these words.)

I spend a little time on the FACEBOOK, shocking to you, I know. (Robin hates when I put the word "the" in front of words, like, "Wanna go to the WalMart?" So the this and the that it is!) I've seen my share of memes, the little postcard thingys. If they don't pertain to me, I just see the gist and move on without a lot of thought.

Within a month and a day, the memes about your dad being in heaven and being your guardian angel and the ones about sharing this rose if you know someone who's been touched by cancer have an entirely new meaning to me.

There isn't anything I can do about my dad being gone, but I can ask him to watch over me and make this less awful than it has to be. And he will.