I have no idea when the last time I wrote. It’s been a tough week. I guess it’s been longer than a week, even, since I wrote. Tough couple weeks. Why is that? Let’s see. My left arm doesn’t work. That makes it hard to type. But I think it is more than that. I spent the better part of the week at OHSU between appointments, procedures, and emergencies. I should have told you about all of those. But I didn’t. Why? I really need your prayers. Why didn’t I ask for them?
Pride.
Yah, that’s what it is. My Pride is getting in the way. I know that Pride is a sin. And I am mad at myself for it. It doesn’t make much sense, I know. God has taken care of us every step of this path. This Adventure for Christ that I am on here. . . It’s always “fun” to see how God pulls off each rescue. I only wish He wouldn’t wait until the very last moment to give you what you need. We are in need. Money is so tight it’s starting to choke us.
I feel like I am sitting in God’s waiting room with a fist full of applications and a number that is so long I can’t read it.
Well, while I wait I may as well fill you in on what’s been going on.
Stepping back to last week… I spent the weekend (the one before last) in pain through my neck and down my left shoulder and arm which was once again just hanging uselessly. The only relief I could get was with cuttings from Lidocaine Patches that is the only thing it seems my state insurance plan won’t pay for. With the help of Leenie and Dennis, we were able to buy a couple patches and make it through the weekend. Monday morning we left a message on the nurses line at the radiation center. An hour or so later one of them called to say that the doctors wanted to see what was going on and ordered an MRI for that evening 8pm. “Well… ah… I need to be sedated. I was told to use the words ‘general anesthesia’” “That is going to take a little more time. Call you back.”
Next call was interesting. “Please go to this website and look at this machine. Tell me if you could do this…” http://www.epicimaging.com/site/new/upright-mri.asp Someone has now created an MRI machine that you can stand or sit in. You are not shoved down a tube. It’s open in front of you with a flat screen TV hanging on the wall across. “Could you do this?” “From looking at that picture… I think I could do that.” Within the hour I was scheduled for this walk-in-MRI. And the appointment I was given was within an hour of that. And clear across Portland.
I didn’t have time to freak out.
But it was going to be easy. No Claustrophobia issues with this right?
Well. It wasn’t as simple as all that. I sat in the chair. He put on different collars (I refused the full face cage of course) and fiddled with this and that. Handed me a bulb on a string and said “IF you need me, squeeze this and I will come.”
Then he pushed THE BUTTON and backwards I went. Into the belly of the beast.
“Hey… whoa, whoa, whoa…”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m going in there. How far in there?”
“Back in there just a little ways more.”
“Ok then. Ok.”
And I went ahead back into the machine. But there was still nothing in front of me. No tube. I was just squished between the sides. I could do this. I can. God help me do this. It’s a million times better than the tube, right?
And then the clacking started. Rats. The sound was still part of the equation. Clacking and Clicking and Bonking. Geez. I was watching my stories on the TV though, while the MRI was going on. That was cool to think about. Once the noise got too loud to hear the TV I started to get squirmy. I had the Oxygen on, but I was having some difficulty catching my breath. I thought maybe it would be a good time to take my Technical friend up on his offer of assistance once the bulb was squeezed.
“What’s wrong?”
“I need a break.”
“A break? Really?” Still, he didn’t come right away. By the time he did come in he had a sad kinda sick look on his face. Turns out pushing the bulb meant something different to me than to him. To me: Break. To him: Start OVER. Oopps.
“I can take some more Atavan and we can go again. How long was I in there?”
“Oh, twenty minutes.”
Oopps. I was going to spin some story blaming it on the tech when I got to radiation. But the rat… he called them up and told them it was my fault before I could tell them it was his fault.
There were two other people waiting and ready for their walk-in-no-claustrophobia-issue-MRI. I had used up my chance for the day. I had to go back on Tuesday morning. Morning meaning 7:30 am. Dan wasn’t pleased. Neither was I. But I showed up first thing. NOT bright-eyed NOR bushy tailed. I showed up drugged to the max and ready for a nap in my cozy open-faced sandwich. The tech had a plan. There was the head cage- he insisted because I moved yesterday– there was no tilting. I sat straight up and down. That was good. I got ear plugs and no glasses this time. No TV. I slid back into the machine and passed out. It was over before I knew it. On the way home, we dropped off a CD of the scan at the radiation center.
By the time we got to radiation, Dr F and Dr M had already combed through the pictures and were excited about something.
“We think this may not be cancer that is stopping the arm from working.”
We may be looking at a compressed disc. Just after Robert was born in 2000, I had pain in my left arm when I nursed on that side. It turns out that three babies in two and a half years might not be a great idea. I had blown a gasket. Lol The disc at C6/7 in my neck was squished (How many times am I going to say squished in this post?) and need to be removed. The surgeon removed the disc and replaced it with a donor bone. That was covered with a plate attached with a couple screws into my spine. He said that the next disc up, C5- they all have these numbers- was also weak, but not enough to fix at that time.
Well, this may be the time. Dr F and DR M thought from the scan they were looking at, it may be the time. Compressed Disc. But they had to be sure. There was still the possibility that there was cancerous growth on that knuckle causing the pain and lack of functionality.
“Even if it is a compressed disc, I don’t want you to think that you have been getting radiation on your neck for nothing. Had the disc not compressed, you wouldn’t have lost the use there and we wouldn’t have done the first MRI that lead us to the dangerous tumor at the base of your spine. We probably wouldn’t have found it. This is a blessing in disguise.”
I had to share a smile with Dan. It wasn’t just a coincidence that there was two issues with my neck. One drawing attention to the other. I would have wished that God had found another way to point to the bad tumor that wouldn’t have been so debilitating and painful. But if there hadn’t been the one, the other might well have killed me. Go figure.
I was able to talk to Dr F about faith and what God has been doing all along in my life. And you know what? He was listening.
“Look what he did when he opened my Lung.”
“That is truly amazing. You don’t know.”
“Dr. F, what I like about you is that you think outside the box. You make things work for me instead of having me work for it.”
“There is no other way to do it. You have to make it work.”
“You Killed my lung.”
“Well, yes. I told Dr. R that it would never open up again. But there was nothing else to do.”
“It opened up.”
“Truly amazing.”
“God is good.”
He went to work looking through my back scans for a decent picture of the plate already in my neck. The two of them decided they had to go somewhere else to find it. “If they call you for your treatment, go on back.”
They came for me. Twenty minutes later, treatment over, I was taken back to the exam room because there was two surgeons waiting for me. Hahahahhaha
Dr F had gone to the ER to get the surgeons to come up to run a battery of tests — push this, pull now, don’t let me do that… They had already looked at the Sit-in MRI scan and determined that the problem was probably compressed disc but they wanted a clearer shot. A regular MRI has a higher resolution, but because I already have metal right there from the first fusion, they wanted a different kind of scan done. A CT Myelogram. Basically, using an X-ray machine, a Spinal Tap is made and dye is injected into the fluid. The dye is manipulated to the site by tipping the head down. Then the site is scanned with a CT. It was Tuesday and they wanted this scan done on Thursday or Monday because those are the days they are in clinic and can see me. The problem is two fold. One, was it just structural. Two, if it was a compressed disc, was it bad enough to have to stop my treatment to fix it now. Evidently, the fact that the arm does not work is worrisome. The longer the limb doesn’t work the more permanent damage we are doing to it. But I have two more radiation treatments and then I go back to Chemo.
I need to get more chemo and now. See on Wednesday…
Wednesday I woke up with that lump that has been just there on the groin line was bigger and kinda sore. I didn’t think much about it though. About 10:00a, Dan was helping me get dressed and he said, “What is that? Did you hurt yourself?”
There was a dark thin line down the front of my leg. It was a blood line. Hmmm. We left another message on the machine at the radiation center. There wasn’t a quick call back though. As the day grew, so did the bruise under my skin. There was internal bleeding for sure. We really needed to have it seen. We needed to go on in to the ER. The only problem is that it was Robbie’s 8th Birthday and we knew the way things go at the ER. I felt really bad. I was going to ruin his birthday. But you know, that kid is fantastic. Dad took him to the store first to spend the B-day money he got from Gramma and he was a happy fella with a new PS2 game he had not thought to have ever owned. (It was on clearance for $7!) “It’s ok mom, really…” We called in some reinforcements to watch over him and his sisters and went on to the hospital.
I was examined by a whole gaggle of disciplines from ultra-sound docs to a team of surgeons (The ones I am seeing for the arm…) A couple ER docs were insisting on a new MRI but I put up a fight. The surgeons were called in to determine if it was necessary or not and they found my legs working well enough to wait on the procedure they were ordering. The Myelogram CT — scheduled now for Friday. As the day progressed, so did the bruise though. I was told that the body would reabsorb the blood. As long as there was not a pulse to the lesion that was bleeding, it wasn’t “life threatening.” It was almost time for my radiation treatment so they let me go. Dan rolled me in my chair from the ER in the main hospital to the radiation center in the next building. Dr M was there to see me. She reassured us that there was nothing to do for the bleed that the body wouldn’t take care of on it’s own. “It seems your Sarcomas like to bleed.” Great. “The bruise is gonna get uglier before it stops.” Great. I went then for my treatment. I finished the neck and now I have just the abdomen until Tuesday.
We made it home with plenty of time for celebrating an eight year old Birthday.
Thursday, let’s see… Thursday I had the home oxygen people to the house to bring me a small portable tank…
And the bleeder was still bleeding. Not pulsing, the bruise just growing…
Friday. Friday is the CT Myelogram. Here is what I was told would happen… I need to lay on my belly –I don’t know the last time I laid on my belly. Not sure I can. . . The doctor locates a good place to enter my spinal fluid via an X-ray machine. I had one of these done eight years ago. There was no X-ray then. The student hit a nerve and I went flopping around like a fish out of water… Once the dye is inserted, I get tipped on my head to get the dye down to my neck… Eight years ago they left me upside down like that in the hallway for what seemed forever as I hollered to be released! Then I get a CT scan done. Last time the tech wasn’t very sympathetic to my plight. After that I will have to lay flat on my back for four hours. I don’t do “flat.” It’s hard to breathe when I am flat on my back.
Now, I could let all that happened eight years ago and all that the surgeons are telling me now to make me freak out over this procedure. OR I can lay it in God’s hands and let the people I am dealing with know my situation and ask for the best of care.
First thing, explaining the tumors in my back, I asked for a comfortable bed. Got it. That came with TLC from the nurse getting me ready.
Next I let the two doctors and the tech that were going to do the procedure know my situation and asked for the utmost patience. I would do my best to lay still and they would do their best not to hurt me. They were true to their word. They waited for me to figure out how to pull in my own part. The hardest part for me was dealing with the bum left arm. No matter what I did with it, it hurt. I resolved myself to whimpering softly as they worked as fast as possible. The tilting was done quickly. Using the X-ray machine made quick work out of it. Then I rolled over on my back and they took me to the CT. Once that was done I was taken back to the place I started and I was raised about 30 degrees. They didn’t even want me flat! They gave both Dan and I a sandwich and fruit which Dan dutifully fed me. And soon it was time to go. No four hours on my back. We made our way then to radiation treatment with about an hour to waste. It was a trying day. By the time we got home I was happy to be there. And the bleeder was still bleeding. Not pulsing, just seeping downleg.
Saturday, I spent in my chair mostly sleeping it all off. Still Bleeding. The bruise falling downleg.
Today, Sunday, we went to church.
Then it was dinner time . . . I was dishing up the dinner and it started. I couldn’t stop it. My legs started to slide in a scissors and with the arm that didn’t work, I couldn’t stop it. I hit the floor with such a thud and a scream that I was sure that I wasn’t getting up without a paramedic’s gurney.
“Don’t touch me! Something’s broken. I think it’s my back…”
They all came running. I was scared. They were scared.
Then I wasn’t.
“Ok, everyone start praying for me. Lay hands on me together, now and pray. God help me! Lord fix what is broken right now before I move.”
Dan and the kids all did as I said. They prayed for my healing right then and there. The pain I felt on impact was no longer there. The terror we all felt on impact was no longer there. Slowly I rotated my body one direction and then the other. I tested my legs and then the arms. Dan helped me move the dysfunctional limb around to the front and I slowly pushed up on both elbows. Then rolled over and on my bottom and sat for a while to breathe. From there I wrapped myself around Dan and inch by inch he stood up with me.
“Thank you, God.” It took a while, but I made it to my feet. God did it. He lifted me. He fixed me. Dan walked me to the living room and my bed. I was shaken, but not stirred. But the tears welled up and cascaded down. “Oh thank you God, for keeping me safe.”
A broken bone now would be devastating to my recovery. It would stop my treatment for a long time. Too long. I was spared a broken bone by the Grace of God. I hit that floor so hard …
I spent the rest of the night here in my chair writing this tale out to you. I don’t know how I was able to get it all out… Maybe it was the thump to the floor that jogged it loose.
I feel like a truck run over me, but nothing is broken. I’m OK. The ugly bruise down my leg extends from groin to knee. Still no pulsing. Just the long ugly bruise. It’s starting to ease up, I think.
Tomorrow I have an appointment with the surgeons to get the results of the Myelogram. I’ll let you know what they say. No really. I will.
I promise. Lol I will.
Maybe Dan will…
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