So, this happened…

I’m just writing to reference my journey at this at this point. Nothing has fully hit me yet but I figure this will be as good a place as any to keep this documented.

About a week and a half ago I began to feel some stomach distress. Nothing too unusual for me. I sometimes get gastritis or bouts of diverticulitis so I didn’t think too much of it other than it lasted longer than normal and I was a getting sick of feeling uncomfortable all the time.

Finally on Thursday, it began to feel better.

On Friday, I got up for work like normal, put in my hour and a half workout and got ready to take a shower. When I was about step in, I looked in the mirror and noticed that my upper torso and chest had like a yellowish tinge to it. I remember saying out loud “That’s not good…” but I was running late so I convinced myself that it was the lighting and went about my routine.

When I was putting on my make up I noticed the outsides of my eyeballs were also tinged yellow and then I knew it wasn’t good but again, I was running late and honestly didn’t want to think about it so I went into work.

Long story short, while my stomach continued to feel better, my jaundice was getting worse. I spent most of the day googling what might bring about jaundice and it wasn’t promising.

I got home and discussed it with my the hubs and we decided if it was still an issue in the morning we would go to urgent care.

It was still an issue in the morning.

Long story longer, doc in the box sent us to the ER and the ER gave me some blood work and a contrast MRI or something similar. Liver levels were through the roof and my pancreas showed a mass on it.

At this point Rob had gone home to take care of the dogs so I was alone when they gave me the news. The nurse was very nice but shot it straight. She said that there is a chance it could be a cyst, but cysts usually present differently on the scans. It is most likely a tumor. There is a chance it was benign, but most pancreatic tumors are not. She said the C word. Cancer.

She was sweet but she let me know the severity of the situation and that they were going to admit me for further testing.

She left me alone and I cried for a bit before texting Rob and giving him an abbreviated version of what I’d been told.

The admitting dr showed up a little bit later and told me that they would be admitting me and the eventual goal was to meet with a GI Dr, possibly not until the next day.

When Rob got there, the ER doc came back and told him everything she had told me.

Not too long after that, they moved me to a room that actually had a pretty nice view of a rock fountain. We were joking with the staff that we would pay extra for that in Vegas.

The rest of the night was just sort of a blur of settling in, tests and plans.

They took me down for another contrast scan, this time of my lungs to see if there was any possible cancer spread there (I was told this morning that it was negative, but there are some unrelated nodules to keep an eye on for later) and then the GI doc showed up to give me his idea of how he wanted to proceed.

He said he was going to do a biopsy on the mass on Monday afternoon and he would try and do it endoscopicly. If that worked out he would try to put a stent into a blocked bile duct (this was when I found out I had a blocked bile duct). I’m guessing that might help with the jaundice.

I was told that there is a 10 percent chance that doing the stent might cause a bout of pancreatitis because of how close the two are.

After that it was just settling in and tying not to think too much. I have thus far successfully not googled pancreatic cancer.

Rob went home around seven and they finally brought me food. Oh did I mention that I hadn’t had anything to eat all day at this point? I had anticipated a blood test so I didn’t want to eat that morning but then they weren’t sure if they were going to do the biopsy or not so they waited and waited.

I tore into that dinner tray. I’m still not sure if it was actually good or I was just that hungry, but it tasted delicious to me!

Another interesting thing of note is that they pulled me off my HRT because of the risk of blood clot so that’s going to be interesting. Hope they have a lot of Xanax…

Anyhoosit, the rest of the night was waking up every couple of hours for vitals and blood draws.

The night nurse was a doll and told me that her mom just went through the same thing and was doing fine. She didn’t say if her tumor was cancerous or not but she did tell me that the spot where my mass is located is ideal if it is operable because the head of the pancreas is way better than the tail for removing tumors which was encouraging.

This morning I woke up and Rob showed up around eight or so. He brought me a bagel which was nice because they never brought my breakfast tray. He also brought me some crochet and my coloring books for stuff to do.

The admitting doc came in and went over the chest scan and plans for tomorrow. Said I would meet with an Oncologist and a surgeon then to go over potential options if it is cancerous and or operable. There as talk of specialists and such.

Tomorrow sounds like it’s going to be a lot.

Today is just a chill day apparently. Rob went down to the cafe and got me a coffee and a milkshake to split and then we went for a walk because this is the most inactive I’ve been since I had Covid in 2023.

So the reality hasn’t hit me yet. I get a little teary every time they mention the C word but other than that I’ve been in a pretty good state of mind. It I’m sure that’s going to change when I know more for certain and also when the hormones exit my body completely.

It’s so funny that the first two people that it crossed my mind to reach out to as I sat there in the ER after they told me are both dead. Mom and Kimmy. That itself hit pretty hard.

Rob and my sister in law have been amazing already. They were the only two that knew right away.

I texted Shannon yesterday once I knew I wouldn’t be into work on Monday. Then I finally told Koly and Taylor after I knew the show had ended last night. They were all very supportive and told me not to worry about work. My goal is to be back to work at the end of the week as my estimated discharge date is the 13th.

And then there is what I’m deeming the real tragedy of the situation…

Taylor, Jordynne and I have tickets to see Yungblud in Vegas on the 19th and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to go. I told Koly and Taylor that if I’m dying, I really want to be able to see him before that happens and these are darn good seats!!

That’s only partially a joke.

The staff here has been really great. I’ve loved all my nurses so far. They all seem so shocked that I’m laughing and joking around and am up and around.

And that’s the stupidest thing. All of a sudden I’m supposed to be sick. Thursday I ran five miles on the treadmill and today I’m stuck in a hospital bed with likely Cancer. Like, I don’t get it.

Anyway, this is just me documenting stuff while I have plenty of time to do it. I’ll try and keep it updated as things progress. It’s more for myself than anything else so that I can reference back when I need to remember something.

So now you know what I know. Please excuse any typos as this was all done on my IPad.