As some of you may know, 2017 hasn’t been the best year for
the Mason/Smith household. As per my blog earlier, you’ve learned of the good
and majority bad that this year has put on us. This little blurb will explain
how wonderful this year has been over the past month and a half.
After a good report on my liver/lymph nodes toward the end
of February, I trip to the emergency room showed I had a potential brain bleed
where I had my surgery in January. For this, I was taken off my routine of
daily blood thinners to slow down any possible bleeding from said cut. The
beginning of March, I start to think I am coming down with a cold which turns
out to be pneumonia. After three trips to my family doctor, which included
about seven hours of waiting for him, a bottle of antibiotics/puffers and two
cancelled events for my birthday, I was declared by him that my sickness was
gone. Little did I know that the next day would be the kicker.
March 23, I asked Cavell to come home early as I thought
that I did too much that day and I beat myself out. By the time she got home, I
could barely breathe, ended up in an ambulance (my first time in one, cross
that off the bucket list) and shipped to respiratory emergency. There the head
doctor on call said that I had a blood clot right at the top of my lungs which
was causing me the distress and difficulty in breathing. Meanwhile this whole time I had a mask on giving
me oxygen. So besides the potential brain bleed that I had, the clot had to be
taken care of. Easy peasy, right? Wrong. The resident doctor came in to discuss
the situation for us and he was young with a calming voice but tact, which was
his downfall. He said to me that the there was one of two things that could
happen, though Cavell and I already made the decision. One, that we could take
care of the blood clot and not worry about the brain bleed which would mean I could pass away or two, that we could take care of the bleed and leave the clot
which would result in me possibly passing away. Cavell and I were shocked that he was
allowed to speak with patients seeing how bad he was at talking to them, the
last thing I was thinking about was “passing away.” He then continued on asking
me when my diagnosis was, I was like 2011, he then asked how long the doctor
gave me. Again, we were floored. A friend of mine who taught that course would
roll over in his bed if he had heard of the insensitive remarks of the
resident. Cavell told me after he left that if he came back into the room, she
would vehemently ask to speak with someone else.
From there was a trip to ICU, where I had to wear a full,
eye/mouth shield to get my oxygen up for a day and be on the gas for at least
another few days. This was with me overcoming my fear of bedpans very quickly
to say the least. I was in this place for four days until my levels of oxygen
was high enough that I could go to a ward room which I could work on my amounts of O2.
Meanwhile my sister and her boyfriend came down, again, which was her second trip home from BC this year. The hoot that was before me were my roommates, who I was 20 years younger than all, gave me
enough ammunition for another blog or two. Oh, and I had to cancel a trip with my buddies which was planned way in advance as I couldn't fly of course. Poor Cavell spent a long time on the phone with West Jet cancelling my trip before it happened, even though I had insurance put one. The patience on that one!
All that being said, I was told by my regular and radiation oncologists, that one of my lymph nodes in my chest has potentially moved into my lung and caused my difficulty breathing and that there was two spots in my head that were the same size of the original spot back on June had showed up on my MRI. This meant that I had to get a stronger dose of radiation for my chest AND my head at the same time so a fitting for another mask and re-marking of my chest was inevitable. Luckily the marks of my chest were fine but I needed another mask.
On April 6th, I was allowed to go home. Cavell, my sister and me where glad the hospital stay was over. I start radiation this afternoon which hopefully will take care of the largeness of the cancer in my head as well as the lymph node in my chest. Having both the same session will be new to me but hey, who else could take it all.
Special thanks to those who kept it quiet on social media the past few weeks, thanks to the visits, food and presents that accompanied that long stay at the HSC. I am the picture of "Men's Health" by the way, if that picture was crooked. :)
