Two Years Ago Today (September 15, 2010)

Two years ago today, I thought I was close to getting out of the hospital. I thought my strange and painful medical episode was almost at an end and that doctor-free days were ahead and coming soon. I thought wrong. I was really getting a handle on these vomit sessions and my big belly was now only semi-big. I was feeling far less pain, flying up and down the hospital hallways, and even taking showers when I could coax my nurses into unhooking my IV. The results of my blood work looked good and my stool sample came back with white blood cells detected -- a sign of food poisoning or irritable bowel syndrome. Yup, I thought I was going home. But Dr. Ramos was far from convinced. "Before I let you go, I want to do one more x-ray," he told me as I tried to grimace at him. Ramos was my buddy at this point and I couldn't even pretend-grimace at him for long. Even though he wasn't a fellow patient and even though he only spent about an hour total with me on any given day, I felt that he was the only person who really and truly knew what I was going through. When he walked in the room, my eyes lit up. Ramos was nobody to me days earlier and he'd become a huge part of my world days later. We had a strong bond, and I trusted him completely. If he wanted another x-ray, I wanted another x-ray. Instead of heading to the x-ray room, it came to me. A couple of techs slid a firm board under my back, positioned the x-ray machine just over my belly, and pushed the buttons they needed to push. The results of the x-ray foreclosed my foray back into the real world. It revealed "free fluid" in my gut that might indicate an intestinal blockage or a bowel perforation. This was serious business, and another CT scan was ordered immediately. My first scan, taken just days ago, showed nothing, but it was becoming clearer and clearer that that scan hadn't told the whole story. Ramos was in surgery that night but I was assured by the nurses that someone would come soon to take me to my scan. I was getting a little antsy now, knowing that answers were likely just one more test away. Nobody came that night. I had never been a patient person. Not even close. But these were the times of trials by fire, and I was learning. Tune in tomorrow for more. I'll be writing "Two Years Ago Today" until my cancer anniversary, a day that I was not expected to live to see, September 19th, 2012.