Introducing Chris Wick

For those reading this that do not know me, Chris is my husband.  He stood by me through what I refer to as the Little Health Adventure of 2015.  He is the reason for a lot of my laughter over the last several months and was quick with a hug or a tissue during the tears.

I can say with utmost certainty that I have no idea where I would be without him.  I truly believe that right after my diagnosis, he sat by and watched me sleep...whether it was as I napped on the couch in our family room or at night in bed.  I am not sure he slept at all.  I slept, that I know for sure.  At the beginning, that's really all I did.  

For a little background information, Chris and I met 10 years ago through the magic of the internet.  We had both been married before and it did not work out well.  From the day we met, it was just easy.  We just kind of fit but honestly, outside of losing my mother in law last summer, we hadn't endured anything too difficult; until January.  

Chris also lost his best friend the week of my diagnosis.  I don't feel like I have been truly supportive of him in his loss but a day hasn't gone by when I haven't prayed that he find peace.  

I remember vividly in the ER Chris explaining to the doctors that in 6 months he had lost his Mother and his best friend and he was NOT going to lose his wife too.  If his will had been all I needed to be cured, I would have been cured in one day.  While I never felt like I was going to die, I did have my doubts about ever being well again.  Chris was sure that I would be.  and some days, his assurances are what kept me going.

It is my hope that if Chris ever suffers from an illness, that I can be half as supportive as we was to me...

Love you honey!

Get a Second Opinion

I have heard and read many places that when you get a big diagnosis you should get a second opinion.  I didn't do that.  I look at it this way, I had no fewer than 4 different doctors come into the room I was in down in the emergency dept of Resurrection Hospital tell me I had cancer before they had scanned me for the second time in a week.  Heck, one made Doogie Houser look old.  I was counting each one as a separate opinion.

My GP had given me her suspicions along with paperwork when I left her office on 1.16.15 and promised to put me in touch with an oncologist "that I would love".  Well, Doc, I've gone through 47 years of my life without an oncologist...I am not sure I really need one...can't I just get a shot or some stitches and call it a day?

Don't get me wrong, everyone was super nice to me while in the emergency room and while I had the CT with contrast and up on the cancer ward but I didn't belong there, I wasn't sick.  Actually I was.  I was very sick but we'll get to that later.

I spent the night of 1.16.15 in the hospital.  I am honestly not sure how people get well in the hospital.  I was placed in inflatable leg wraps to guard against blood clots...blot clots?!?!?  Why is this an issue?  When I got to the hospital, I didn't have cancer, high blood pressure and blood clots!!!  OK, I had cancer, but I most certainly DID NOT have high blood pressure and  blood clots.  OK, the cancer diagnosis probably brought on the high blood pressure.  See, you spend time in the hospital and your good health goes right out the window.

Have you ever experienced something scary and your mind races...I felt like my brain was qualifying for the Daytona 500...throttle wide open.  Funny, I could barely create a coherent thought, everything was just flying around in my brain aimlessly.

I was hooked to a BP monitor that took my BP every 15 minutes.  My leg wraps inflated and deflated every 5 minutes.  Nurses came in periodically...telling me to rest.  REST?!?!?  It was like a three ring circus in my room!!  I had sent my husband home to get some clothes, electronic devices, comforts from home and FOOD.  After several hours on Zofran, I felt like trying some food again.  While he was gone, several nurses and nurse's assistants came in...introducing themselves, trying to make me comfortable, and monitoring my every move.  I am not used to having so much scrutiny...more than one nurse asked if I was able to walk to the restroom.  Hello!!! I had driven myself to the ER!!!  When I think back to that night, I shake my head now and I can laugh about it.  Truthfully, I have never been so scared.

Saturday morning dawned...after I had gotten about 3 hours of sleep.  I asked my nurse if I could put on regular clothes...hospital gowns are not my favorite.  She reluctantly OK'd my request.  I ordered breakfast...still felt like food.  After breakfast, I asked if I could get up and roam around...my nurse again reluctantly agreed.  I started walking laps on the floor.  After the first lap, I realized I was the youngest person on the ward (by 20 years) and I was the healthiest person on the ward as well.  Maybe, everyone was reading the scans wrong and I really didn't belong there.  I was on my third or fourth lap when I saw my nurse looking around the ward...turns out she was looking for me.  I needed to go for a biopsy...back into the hospital gown, onto a gurney and off on a ride through the hospital.

Several people had been called into the hospital on this Saturday to do my biopsy; one to take the tissue and one to do a preliminary read.  I will never be able to say enough about the people I have dealt with at Resurrection Hospital in Chicago.  Every step of the process was explained to me as we went along.  No one pulled punches, if it was going to hurt, I was warned.  I think the one doctor sensed how scared I was and really took time explaining what he was doing.  It helped a ton.  The worst part of the biopsy process was laying on the hard table with the back pain I had.  Thankfully, about the time it became unbearable, we were done.

Back on the gurney and back up to my room.

By this time, Mom, my sister and my hubby had arrived.  My nurse was practically gleeful at the fact that I needed to spend a couple of hours in bed to make sure the puncture wound in my back from the biopsy stopped bleeding.  I had ordered a grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch and ate it while we visited.

Shortly after finishing lunch my attending physician came in to check on me and asked if I had seen Dr. Karides yet.  I hadn't and she left to track him down.  A few minutes later, he walked into my room and said ,"I hear you have cancer.".  I responded with , "And apparently high blood pressure as well".  Dr. Karides was the ONLY doctor who acknowledged the fact that perhaps the diagnosis had brought on the high BP!!!  Yes, he and I were going to get along just fine.  He handed me his card which had an appointment date and time on it.  He said he would see me on Tues and we would get going on my treatment.  By then he would have my biopsy and would be preparing my course of treatment.  I asked him if I was going to die and he told me eventually but not any time soon.  I asked if I could go home.  He saw no reason why I needed to stay in the hospital...he knew I wasn't getting any rest there so he got my attending back, and I got release papers and some meds...I got my very own supply of Zofran along with some ridiculously strong pain killers which I have never taken...I complain a lot here about the back pain and while at times it was unbearable, it always responded to regular OTC meds your garden variety Advil or Tylenol.  Oh yeah and high blood pressure meds. *sigh*

 As you read my story, you will discover, if you haven't already, I am a type A control freak.  When your BP is ALWAYS 118/76 you take offense at being told you have high blood pressure and having to take meds for it.  I can tell you that I have gotten over it and continue to take the meds.  I learned very early in this journey that I am the novice here.  This was new to me only.  The doctors, nurses, and techs...hell even the receptionists knew more about what was going on with me and what my future was going to hold than I did.  The last thing that Dr. Karides said to me in my hospital room was that attitude was more than half my battle.  I was going to beat this so I was going to follow instructions to the letter..,I was going to fight with everything I had...failure was not an option.

You Have Cancer

Not the words you want to hear sitting in the emergency room suffering from random nausea and what you think is a bum gall bladder.

Welcome to my story.  It started sometime last fall...and came to a head in January 2015.  I have been trying to figure out how to share my experience.  It's been a wild ride; filled with laughter and tears...thankfully mostly laughter.

I am a 47 year old wife, stepmom to 3 humans and furball mom to a beagle.  I love sports, cooking, baking, and working out.  I took my good health for granted until very recently.  I am not exactly sure when everything started; to this day I am not even sure what the first symptom was.

Last summer I threw out my back...no great story to tell.  I was closing an umbrella and a disc near the small of my back was suddenly out of whack.  Some rest, a good chiropractor and some exercises healed it up nicely for a couple of months.  November brought on more back pain and a UTI.  I had a CT scan when we thought the UTI had also produced some kidney stones but nothing showed up.  My CT was 11/20.  Keep that date in mind as my story continues.  Life went on.  I work in retail so the November/December timeframe is crazy busy and I just kept going; each day feeling a bit more fatigued but I chalked it up to the hours I was working and everything else I was doing to get ready for Christmas.

On December 9th, my sister's mother in law passed away and it was at her funeral that my back pain really started to flare.  Back to the chiropractor I went...I could no longer tolerate the electrical stimulation, it made me nauseous.  I was getting relief from the adjustments though so I went twice a week and exercised to relieve the pain in between.

The week of Christmas, I had to call in sick to work on the Monday because the back pain had kept me up all night.  I went to the chiro for an adjustment and felt relief.  I was planning to join my husband and his brothers for dinner that night but late in the afternoon I started feeling terribly nauseous.  Shortly thereafter I started vomiting and then dry heaving.  This went on for several hours and the back pain returned.  I stayed home from work the next day as well.  I had planned to be off the rest of the week as well.  My nausea and queasiness subsided and while I still had the back pain I felt OK for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

On December 27th, I went back to the chiro...I was having a house full of people for dinner and felt like an adjustment would do the trick.  Temporary relief once again.  By New Years Eve I could hardly move and the nausea had returned.  I was constantly alternating ice and heat while popping Advil like candy.  Sleep was fleeting; when I tried to move, the pain would wake me and keep me up for hours.  The nausea was back as well.  I had good days and bad.  I was always a bit nauseous; sometimes what I ate would make it worse, sometimes not.  I was beyond tired all the time.  I couldn't pinpoint what was wrong...I ran no fever, no chills, no body aches except for the back pain.  Sitting here writing this now, I should have gone to the doctor sooner.  Maybe I didn't want to admit what I feared...something was really wrong.  I made an appt. to see my GP and kept going.

On January 10th, I visited my GP's associate.  She took blood and examined me.  She said the blood test would probably answer our questions and prescribed meds for gastritis and she had me schedule another CT scan for 1/14.  I had gastritis back in college and while I didn't feel the same, at this point I was willing to try anything.  My birthday was January 12th and it was all I could do to go to work and get home to my couch to lay down and sleep.

The day after my birthday, we were dealt another blow.  My husband's best friend passed away suddenly.

I was now getting sick a little more regularly and the fatigue was unreal.  I went for the CT and waited on the results.  By Thursday, I was too sick to go into work, so I worked from home.  I was getting weaker so I made an appt. to see my GP on Friday morning.  At the Dr. I was down a few more pounds and she was looking at my CT scan and talking about "masses".  Suddenly I was sitting in the exam room watching my Dr. talk to ME in the exam room.  It really and truly was an out of body experience.  She was telling me I needed to go to the emergency room and she was ordering another CT with contrast.  She didn't think I should wait until Monday.  My husband was at his best friend's funeral and I left him this rambling message about masses, emergency room, tests...the whole time I was leaving the message, I could hear the blood rushing in my ears.

I drove myself to the emergency room.   In my life prior to 1.16.15, I had been in the ER for myself once.  ONCE!  I am healthy and strong.  I eat well, I work out.  I got to the ER they triaged me immediately.  Then they sent me to the waiting room with a bunch of people with the flu.  After about 5 minutes, word that my Dr had ordered a bunch of tests for me got to the ER...suddenly I was some sort of VIP in the ER.  Trust me when I tell you, you do NOT want to be a VIP in the ER.  Very quickly I found myself in a paper gown, on a gurney, hooked up to a blood pressure monitor and some IV fluids.  Dr after Dr came in and said, "Wow, your blood pressure is high!" and "We think you might have Cancer."

Wait, what???

Every 15 minutes that blood pressure monitor took my BP.  Every time it was higher than the time before.  I could feel it in my right temple.  I was shocked, scared, in pain and oh so tired.  I talked to one of the Drs and mentioned the nausea...immediately they ran some Zofran into my IV.  Within minutes the nausea was gone.   I felt like a different person right up until they gave me the drink for the CT  contrast...blech!!!

By the time my husband arrived, I had a diagnosis...Cancer...and high blood pressure.  I was the only one in the room who thought perhaps the high blood pressure may have been caused by the diagnosis of cancer, no one in scrubs or a lab coat wanted to debate that with me.  Oh, I was also going to spend the night in the hospital...another first...yay me!!