8/24/2016
(continued from 8/10/2016)
So here I am scheduled for surgery on June 21st 2016. I went back to work until that day came. We had to be there by 6:30am and the drive was over an hour. We got there on time and I got all registered with admissions and put into the pre-op room.
My first surgery ever and I’m scared to death but surprisingly calm at the same time, weird how that works huh!? I was wheeled into the operating room and they put a mask on my face and I was out in seconds. When I woke up it was around 5 or 6:00pm. I started asking questions and my parents informed me I already asked these in the recovery room but I did not and still do not remember any of my recovery room conversations, I only remember being in my room after surgery doped up so I would not feel pain. So I asked my questions now that I was fully awake.. “So what happened, was it endometriosis or what?” my mom replied “It’s cancer.” My heart sank, I just knew I lost any chance I had to have children and proceeded to ask what they took out. My mom replied “Everything.”
The doctors came in to check on me shortly thereafter. I was informed it had already started to spread and they could only remove the mass of the tumors/cancer. They said I basically have little seeds of cancer all inside my abdomen. It’s everywhere they could see, including little seeds on my bladder. I was told my next step is to heal and then we will start Chemotherapy. So here I lay with 5 laparoscopic incisions in my belly and a large vertical incision from the bottom on my belly button to the top of my pubic hair-line and glued shut so it looked gruesome. I was not allowed to walk or move until the next day and then they removed my catheter and I had to start getting up to prevent clots and to help get my insides moving and back into place. They informed me that because of this exploratory surgery all of my insides were pushed around and it would take some time for them to settle back into place and that’s why I must move/walk as much as possible. It was hell to get up and lay back down because I had no stomach muscles to use, the pain was excruciating no matter how I moved, even with morphine and the other pain meds I had! As the days went on it became easier to move and I found ways to get in and out of the hospital bed without assistance and with the least amount of pain possible. My parents came everyday to see me and I even had a nice surprise visit with one of my cousins which was refreshing given the circumstances!!
So Friday comes and I’m discharged, yay! My recovery time was set for 6 weeks, 6 weeks of not lifting more than 5lbs and a whole bunch of other stuff I could not do. This is not easy for someone who was completely independent to then needing help for the simplest of things but it had to be done so I sucked it up. My mom was my saving grace, she has stayed with me for all this and was my caregiver during all the times I needed help with stuff.
I decided to take my first shower after a day or so of being home. Left my bandage on my incision during my shower, once I was done with that chore I laid on my bed because I was in pain. I had to change my bandage so I took that off very carefully and that was my first good look at my big incision. I panicked when I saw it, all I could think of was Frankenstein!! I cried and went into an anxiety attack because it was all hitting me at once that this is very very real but felt like just a bad bad dream that I couldn’t wake up from. It took me a few weeks of seeing my incisions before I was able to look at them and be more proud of them than I was upset with them.
During my recovery I had lots of time to think and for someone who is an over-thinker that is not necessarily a good thing. I was still in my first week of recovery but something in my head told me there has to be something out there besides Chemotherapy to cure/kill cancer, I don’t know what but I just knew. I reached out to friends and family on social networking asking anyone who knew anything about holistic/natural remedies to let me know that I was considering that route instead of Chemotherapy and they all said I should consider Chemotherapy.
I started watching documentaries, researching the web and YouTube over the next 8 weeks and I had no idea the things I would find would change my life forever!
I’ll share the links for some of the sites/references I used and have found in another post so stay tuned.
Please follow me as I continue to post new blogs about my journey to fight this disease. I also have a Facebook at www.facebook.com/GirlFightWin and an Instagram if you’d like to follow me there as well under ‘girlfightwin’.
Thank you for visiting my blog!
♥ Melissa