Received a call from a friend of mine concerning her husband, he had recently been diagnosed with colon cancer.  Shortly after the diagnosis his surgeon scheduled him for surgery and he proceeded with the surgery, scared, mad and all the available emotions raw and screaming.  

She referred to me because I had cancer, wrote a book and had gone through the steps. Her husband has been terribly upset since surgery, angry and cursing every chance he got.  We all know it is a process but to hear it, see it and feel it is pure agony.  For him, the patient and for the wife the caregiver.  She loves him but she was wearing thing. 

He even told her she burned his chicken noodle soup, now how can you burn soup?  In her loving way she checked the noodles, they were fine, her mind was going numb.

Her husband was so angry that he was taking it out on everybody. 

Then she called me yesterday and says I don’t know how we are going to choose?  Choose what I ask…  Tell me what is going on.  Well the surgeon said we will be given the choice between three chemotherapy drugs and we need to decide which one to use to save his life!  We don’t know how to make this decision! 

First off a patient never makes that kind of decision, they don’t know which is best to use.  So I told her that there has been a huge misunderstanding, I believe the good doctor was telling them that three chemotherapy drugs would be used and their oncologist would go over the plan with them. They did not have to decide which drug to use! She felt like a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders and she knew her husband would be greatly relieved as well. 

Her husband had realized the day before that he had been cussing at his wife, ignoring her and was starting to feel guilty.  He admitted to her that he was scared and they had an honest talk.  Now knowing they do not have to choose the chemotherapy drug will certainly help as well.  

Here is my point, when you are talking to your doctor be certain to get a clear understanding of what he is saying.  You might think you know, take the time to clarify so you do not go home and wonder and become upset.  I hope this helps you too…

9/26/09  Marty and Ginny At Work

About a year ago I was told by a neighbor who had read my book that a fellow employee had also been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, however this fellow thought it was a death sentence.  He went home after he had been told he had cancer and thought he was just going to die.  No if ands or buts, his life was over.  Through, finished or just scared out of his mind...   Poor guy. It’s not an easy thing being told you have cancer, none of us know how we are going to react. 

This fellow’s boss came to my neighbor having heard something about a book he had read about Hodgkin’s and asked to get a copy of the book.  He took the book directly to the man’s house and asked him to please read it, it might help him.  Thankfully he did read it and I am glad to say it did help him.  He figured if I faced up to having this same disease that he had been diagnosed with, he could face it head on and go get treatment. 

I have been told that he had gone back to work and is fine.  Now if that isn’t the best thing this author can hear I don’t know what is! WOW.  I hope to hear more stories like that. 

Time to do a little updating with what has been going on in my life since I wrote the book.  Actually quite a lot but thankfully nothing to do with cancer.  I have stayed far far away from that and my doctor has generously told me I am cured. 

A doctor can tell you that and do you do your damnedest to believe him or her but you still stay on the alert for symptoms of cancer.  Something hurts for a while and you can not help think that cancer has snuck back in the picture and I have had to be checked over from time to time to be on the safe side.  We all do.  It is only natural.  

Ever since I was a kid I was never a good runner, my body just did not work that way and as I got older I found that if I bent over to clean the floor or pick something up I was not  able to get back up.  This would occasionally happen in my 50's and more in my early 60's and I just figured it was part of getting older so I didn't make much of it.  I just did things differently. 

When I had gone in to see my doctor for a routine check up I asked her to check my hips and when she pushed on the joints I was mad as a wet hen and let her know it and told her to take her hands off of me.  She said let's get your hips X-rayed, which I did.  To my surprise later that day she called me and tells me both of my hips needed to be replaced.  I was pretty young, but I went in to see the orthopedist and he looks at the X-rays and agrees they needed to be done and asks me which one I wanted to do first.  I opted for the left one and scheduled the surgery.  That went well except the day after surgery the physical therapist decided it was time for me to walk and then try some stairs!  So she takes me to the stairway and tells me to go down a couple of steps.  Now that scared the heck out of me but we got it done and I was on my way home the next day.  

I tried to avoid having the second hip replaced thinking it might not be necessary, but I was only using that as a delay tactic.  Every time I would lean over just a bit that hip joint would do a double click. I knew it was just a matter of time before the hip would fracture right in two, so two years after the first hip I had the right hip replaced and I am now somewhat bionic.  Interesting, I can walk in a federal building and not set off the alarm, I can walk through some airport security systems and not set off their alarms and other airports I do set them off.  I recently flew to Texas and at security I did set off the buzzer and I looked at the guard with a puzzled look on my face and he asks if I have anything in my pockets, all the normal questions.  I am shaking my head totally dumbstruck.  Then he asks do you have any appliances?   Oh yeah, how about two artificial hips?  

Makes a person wonder why all the security systems are not in sync with one another. What gives with that? 

After the first hip was replaced I went back to work for the trucking company I had worked for years prior, but this time in a no stress easy job.  I felt that the stress had been partially to blame for the cancer issue, at least it did not help it.  I did not want to be working in another stressful situation again.  Period!  I was still working there when I had to have the second hip replaced.  I was off work for a couple weeks and was able to return to work with a cane.  Hip replacement is easier on a person then knee replacement.

So depending on how the surgery went you can resume normal function rather quickly. 

Then in June of 2008 I was experiencing some dizzy spells and reported them to my doctor, something people get every now and then.  Nothing serious, so we thought.  On the 17^th of June I thought I was getting a migraine headache late in the afternoon, Reed was already home from work.  Reed got a couple aspirin and a coke for me, my usual for a migraine and I told him I felt the headache moving around the side of my head. That was unusual.   He took me in to lie down on the bed in a darkened room.  I don't remember any of that.  

Reed had an early doctor�s appointment the next morning so he was able to stay up late and about 10 PM he heard a thud and found me unconscious on the bathroom floor.  I was taken by ambulance back to Kaiser South Hospital and they did a CAT scan of my brain and found that I had a rather large bleed on the outside of my brain that was compressing my brain.  I needed immediate surgery.  Poor Reed was beside himself with worry; I was transferred to the main Kaiser Hospital located on Morse Avenue in Sacramento where the neurosurgeon would do the surgery.  Reed drove up to wait for my surgery to be done.  

I was peacefully out of it while poor Reed was up a tree with worry.  If the shoe had been on the other foot I certainly would have been worried about him.  Caregivers have a rough time, there is no doubt about it.  

I was in the hospital about a week when I fell and had another brain bleed, we do not know if it was due to the fall or not.  But it certainly looked suspicious.  I went to answer the phone and tripped over the cord.  At least my hips held.  None of us were aware that I had a second bleed but I was losing my motor skills on my right side over the weekend and by Monday I was rushed in for another CAT scan and that one was even bigger then the first.  Nasty business, I was fortunate that there were no lasting effects from either bleed. 

These bleeds are not like having strokes that are inside the brain, these happened outside the brain putting pressure on the brain but no permanent damage.  However while it puts pressure on the brain a person will exhibit stroke like symptoms because of that part of the brain being pushed.   I could not talk or feed myself because the left side was being severely pushed in. 

When I came to after the second surgery one of my doctors was standing there and I looked at him and said, "Buy my book!"  No joke, first thing out of my mouth.  My husband broke out in tears because I had not been able to speak until then. I haven't stopped talking since.  

I was discharged from the hospital a few days later and (here we go again) about a week later I noticed a pain in my chest while I was sleeping, so I turned over and went back to sleep.  My goodness was I lucky that didn't kill me.  I had a clot moving through me, that settled in my lung and I had to be rushed back to the good ole hospital again.  Ambulance rides are much softer when a person is in a coma.  This time I was awake.  I had a pulmonary embolism and it hurt like the dickens. Another CAT scan verified it and one more ambulance ride up to the Kaiser Hospital on Morse Avenue for medication and rest.  The problem was that I had not been able to get up and walk around enough as I recovered from my surgeries.  You really need to get up and move around or blood will pool in your legs and can break lose and flow into the heart or lungs.  Very serious business!  That all happened in the summer of 2008 and here we are in the summer of 2009 I am doing fine.