The Sensory Dispensary

Eight months ago today, on October 18, during a routine colonoscopy my doctor found a tumor in my sigmoid colon. One week later biopsy results came back confirming that it was malignant. I have cancer.

We soon met with a surgeon who scheduled a robotic, laparoscopic surgery to remove the tumor about a month later.

About two weeks after that, my body decided it wasn’t going to wait for the scheduled surgery when an acute bout of diverticulitis caused a perforation in my colon. A few hours in the emergency room and it was determined that I needed emergency surgery. They would remove the tumor as well as the portion of my colon that was perforated. The surgery was successful and nine days later I was back home.

In the following weeks we had many visits from the home health nurses who showed us how to tend to the surgical wound as well as how to manage the changing of the colostomy appliances. Gina was an excellent pupil and before too long, the visits ended and we were on our own.

In the interim, we started seeing an oncologist who had ordered a slew of tests and he determined that even though it appeared that the tumor had been fully removed, he believed it to be best if I had a full regimen of chemo therapy to ensure that the cancer wouldn’t reoccur.

I had some minor surgery to have a chemo port installed and proceeded to start my chemo cycles, 12 sessions, one every two weeks over the course of six months. Things proceeded somewhat normally for the first seven of the twelve cycles before I threw a big old monkey wrench into the mix.

On May 21 Gina had run out to the store while I stayed in bed resting up. I heard my phone ring downstairs so I got up and went down to answer it. Somewhere on step three or four I think I slipped and rolled down the rest of the stairs. I noticed I was bleeding from my ear but couldn’t get up to reach my phone to call anyone. Around twenty minutes later Gina got home and immediately called for an ambulance.

The fine local paramedics took good care of me and got me to the nearest emergency room. A couple of CT scans and exams and it was determined that the hospital had no neurologist so I should be transferred to Rush Medical downtown who had a special department specifically for this type of injury.

They loaded me into another ambulance who brought me on the nearly hour long drive in to the big city.

It turned out that I had fractured two bones in my skull and had some internal bleeding. They monitored me and determined that surgery wasn’t necessary but I still had three days of ICU treatment to be sure that things were healing and not getting worse.

And that’s my friends is where we stand right now, today, eight months after that first mention of cancer. It’s been about a month and I am still recovering from the fall. I have a scheduled appointment this week for yet another scan and meeting with the neurologist. Hopefully things have progressed to where I can resume my chemo treatments soon. I have already missed two cycles which now puts me toward the end of August when I will complete them.

My story won’t end there though, I still will have post chemo recovery before I will go in for more surgery to do the colon reattachment, followed by that post surgery recovery. It’s a long story with much yet still to tell, but I think you’re all caught up with what has happened so far.

I think if there is a takeaway from all of this, it’s how much respect and admiration I have for everyone who has been a part of this healing journey. The medical staff in the emergency room, the paramedics, the nurses at both South Suburban and Rush Medical who took care of me during my overnights, and the wonderful nurses who administer my chemo at the infusion clinic. My oncologist and everyone in his office have treated me wonderfully. Everyone has not only treated me respectfully but have displayed nothing but compassion and professionalism during each and every encounter. That makes this process so much easier to endure and for this, and to them, I am grateful.