---

Last February I began to feel sick. Nothing specific, just a general "something ain't quite right" feeling. On the 14th, after MOTH left for work, I had a terrible sharp pain in my side, and I knew I was in trouble. I called him as soon as I knew he'd be in his office to tell him I was calling in sick and going to make an appointment with the Dr. He was very upset that he was all the way in the city with me being sick, but he also let slip that he'd ordered flowers to be sent to work, so he had to get off of the phone right away to cancel the order. That was a horrid day.

I went in with my own diagnosis: bladder infection. Dr. seemed to think that it was a reasonable presumption and did a few tests. He came back and said that my urine was "bad," which I took as a good sign, that I was correct. Then he did something that I knew meant bad news. He patted my knee, sat down and said "We have to talk."

My eyes welled up and I said in a very small voice, "No, we don't. Just take out the pad and write a prescription to fix this and we don't have to talk."

He talked anyway. Something was inside, growing, and it wasn't a good thing. He was going out of town, so he wanted another physician in his office to take a look and render an opinion. She did. She told me to get the to the hospital next door right away and prepare for some tests and surgery. She suspected "at least" an ovarian cyst, but there seemed to be something else wrong. Finchie had also stayed home sick, and I knew I couldn't just check into the hospital, I had to get home and hug him and put things in order. And I had to call MOTH. And my mom.

Mom met me at home, and I hugged my Finchie and by then the other kids were home from school and I hugged them and smiled and said I thought I'd see them later during visiting hours. Mom drove me over, and I met the physician in the Emergency Room. She called in an OB/GYN. It wasn't long before he was up to his armpits inside of me. And he didn't have any better news. In fact, it went from worse to worser.

In a single sentence he said I had a tumor, and it was in a "dicey" area, and they were going to have to remove it, but they wanted to have an endocrinologist consult on it, and they had to consider that it might be cancer, and oh yeah...they would be removing part of my vagina. And then *POOF* He was out of the room.

I looked at mom. "Did he say....did he say that he was going to take out part of my VAGINA?!?!" She nodded. I tried to joke, "Which part?"

SOMEONE WANNA GET THAT MAN'S NAME AND ASK HIM TO STEP BACK IN HERE AND EXPLAIN A FEW THINGS LIKE HOW MUCH OF MY VAGINA HE PLANS ON TAKING?!?!?

Anyway...MOTH arrives to find me in tears, helps me, a needle phobic, through a CT-Scan, an iodine injection thingie, an MRI and several blood draws. He dried my tears when they discharged me and sent me to Lutheran General Cancer Center. He tried not to look as horrified as I felt when I told them that I would be prepped for a colostomy and bladder removal when they took the tumor. He did a good job. But I knew that he was scared. And I knew that he cried when I wasn't looking. He was there to ask for prayers for me, and he was there when I went in for surgery. He held me and tried not to assault the THREE anesthesiologists who all tried unsuccessfully to get a needle into my dehydrated phobic tensed veins. And he was there during the surgery with my kids, and my parents and our Pastor and our friends. And he was there when I came out of surgery, he was who I ask for and he was there, right there to answer me when I asked how many bags I had attached to me.

He bent down and kissed my forehead and I felt his tear fall onto my face. "None, princess, no bags." And then I fell into a Demerol induced sleep/coma.

He was there everyday before work and after work, trying to make sure he would have days off when I got released so he could take care of me. He was there to help me into bed and out of bed. He waited on me hand and foot, he assisted me up and down the stairs.

And 8 weeks later, I returned to work. And at about 9:30 I got a delivery. A dozen beautiful red roses with a card that said:

Happy Valentines Day.

---

Won't you PLEASE leave your feedback here?
0 readers left their mark on this one!

TagBoard

Name URL or Email Messages(smilies) Read the previous entry - Read the next entry Who's Who in Ibe's Diary (last UPDATED September 21, 2008) If you would like to be notifed each time this page is updated, stick your email addy in the form and click on "join." Your email address: