Vinasu
Me and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week
Sep 24, 2016
This week has been a doozy.
First, I've lost nothing in two weeks. I know it's just a stall, but it still sucks. Second, I'm now introducing regular foods, coming off of soft foods, and there are definitely mixed results. One-quarter of a hamburger patty? That bad boy came right back up, but not without my stomach telling me exactly what it thought, first. Lemongrass tofu? Well, it used to be my favorite. Now, it's delicious going down and not so good on the return trip. Fortunately, vomitting isn't as unpleasant since I have close to no stomach acid. One the other hand, I have no problems with eggs in any form or with 100-calorie almond packs. It's pretty random what works and what doesn't.
Sunday morning, 4am, my sister called my mom and said she needed help. Mom found her passed out in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor. She was rushed to the hospital where her blood count was three. They did an ultrasound and said it looked like cancer, and by noon were doing an emergency hysterectomy. Four hours in, the surgeon comes out and says that she's never seen so much blood in her career. They gave my sister 38 units of blood and blood products. Surgeon said she's never seen anything like it before, but she thinks it's a rare and aggressive form of cancer. Basically, the surgeon thought my sister was terminally ill. Also, in the rush to get the hemorrhaging uterus out, she cut the bladder and ureter, so a urologist was having to put it all back together. The tumor weighed twelve pounds.
After eight hours of surgery, Sister was in ICU on life support. They did not think she would survive the operation, much less the night. They told us she would be on life support at least a couplle of days. Anyway, an hour after arriving home, the hospital called and said she had woken up and was trying to pull out her breathing tube, so they took her off. The next morning, she was conscious and lucid and they transferred her to recovery. On Thursday, she was released.
Thursday morning the path results came in. The pathologist had told the surgeon that he was certain it was cancer--it looked like cancer, but when he tested it, it came up benign. He sent it out to another lab to be sure, and they discovered that it is a very rare type of tumor, but it is benign, and the surgeon got it all. The oncologist said that she was comfortable with no further followup.
This week, I went from being certain I was going to lose my sister, to being relieved she's fine (though we now need to figure out how she's going to live since she can't work for six weeks!). So now I'm looking for work a bit desperately. I did have a phone interview yesterday. Down side--the job is a bit beneath my skill set. Up side--it has full benefits, so we wouldn't have to keep paying $1000 a month for insurance. We'll see if they call back.
The stress caused me to overeat for the first time since surgery. I ate 1000 calories on Wednesday, including a small piece of tortilla--not a huge slip, but not auspicious nonetheless. I'm so disappointed with myself.
I'm going to focus on the good things: I finished some contract work yesterday, so I should be getting a hefty paycheck for that. My sixth-grade daughter competed in her first cross-country meet. She came in with the middle of the pack. I'm really proud of her. My husband had a breakthrough in his research, and we are, as a family, healthy, happy, and alive.
