Friday, December 29/17
I think to say yesterday was a filled with a variety of emotions for me would be putting it mildly.
Wednesday night was one of the most anxious nights of my life and sleep hardly came to me at all, and when it did it was in short 10-15 minute sequences. I've noticed that Moki has become very clingy the last few days, almost as if she sensed my unease and was trying her best to show me some love and bring a sense of calmness to me.
Thursday morning I awoke to one of the coldest days in recorded history for Ottawa with a high of minus 21 and low of minus 27. The kicker was the windchill which made it feel like -37!!! Kind of not the way I wanted the day to start off.
The instructions I had were to be at the Queensway Carleton Hospital for 8:00 am to get some blood work done, the fourth round in the last month, and then be upstairs at the Endo-Cysto Clinic for 9:00 am and the planned procedure. All of that sounds pretty simple and easy to do right?
Well I arrived on time and went down to diagnostics to check in for the blood work and am asked if I have a requisition for them. Nope, tell them everything was arranged by the specialists office and I've not even met the doctor yet. This is met with some confusion and frowns and they call his office only to learn that all the requisitions are up in the Endo-Cysto Clinic so we have to wait for them to be run down. Once they arrive it's noted that only one vial is needed, this again resulting in some some strange faces that lead them to tell me it's odd to only draw one vial and not the usual 2-3 for testing. The blood letting complete I head upstairs to the clinic.
Upon arriving I'm given a batch of paperwork to complete, shown where to change into a gown, lockers for my clothes, and the waiting room with the notice that a nurse will come get me shortly.
I get changed and head into the waiting room to find 3 other people waiting before me. I smiled and said hello before checking my emails on my iPhone, which I was told I could actually bring with me. As I'm checking them out I listen to the conversation around me and learn that my doctors name is coming up quite a bit, all in a good way that makes me feel a little less apprehensive.
Things are slow as it sounds like he was called into the OR for a consult and thus causing a bit of a backlog with his own schedule. Take your time doc is all I can think to myself.
Soon the door opens and this young nurse calls my name and leads me down the hallway to a day surgery room for the procedure. As we are walking into the room she confirms my identity and what I'm here for today. First is easy and the second I have to admit I'm not entirely sure and explain the sequence of events as I know them. Another frown as she is looking at my chart, now I'm getting a little frazzled with all the frowns and lack of knowledge as to my reason for being there. She has me lay down on the examining table and tells me to try and relax as they sort things out. So I've got to say that is probably the last thing to tell someone when you've pretty much just admitted you have no fucking clue why they are there in the first place. Now I try and be as fair as possible and know it's not her fault and apologize if I seem upset, how Canadian of me, this elicits a smile and she tells me no problem.
As I'm laying there another nurse comes in and they are chatting very quietly as they go over my chart in fine detail, way more quieter than I think is normal so of course my skin begins to crawl and I can feel my heart pounding in my chest, thinking to myself I wonder what my blood pressure is at right that moment, probably off the charts.
They finish chatting and the older nurse, as in her mid 30's probably, begins to set up an IV stand with some saline solutions and the younger nurse, think along the lines of late 20's comes over to tell me to pull my surgical pants down past my knees and the gown up past my waist as she is going to apply some iodine to my nether regions and it might feel cold and kind of greasy.
I burst out laughing and both look at me like I'm losing it so I smile and say this wasn't how I envisioned being touched after a two year hiatus. The younger one looks at the older one and than down at me and says "really, it's been two years?" I smiled at her and said it's not the end of the world just not how I saw this streak ending.
As I'm saying that I hear a male voice from out of my view ask what streak and the nurses tell the doctor about my streak. He smiles at me and laughingly says not only is it ending with his nurse but also with himself as he makes sure I have all the right equipment. Talk about an ice breaker lol
He grabs my chart and comes to sit on a chair next to the table and says "So refresh me why you are here as there is a little bit of confusion this morning and I want to understand things better"
So I tell him about my high blood pressure and how because of my age my doctor gets blood work and urine drawn every 6 months to monitor my A1C1 and cholesterol, how the work down back in April showed some trace amounts of blood in my urine and than again back in October, so she decided to have an ultra sound down just to make sure things were ok. I explained the ultrasound came back showing a black spot on my bladder that resulted in my referral to see him. That his office called me back in mid December to set up a meeting with him to review the ultrasound and now it seems like somehow I'm being prepped for a procedure.
As I was saying all of this he was reading my charts and looking at the ultrasound. When I finished he put everything down and told me that because of my age and ethnicity that I was more likely to have potential problems and thus the reason my doctor was being more aggressive than usual in her approach to the results.
So he outlined what was going to happen and told me he was going to make sure we got answers.
Now what he did was pretty much place a micro thin diagnostic camera up my urethra, very medical term for penis, and into my bladder so he could fill it with saline and see what this spot was that showed up on my ultrasound. Now I've never given birth and probably never will but I'd venture to say that this as close to the feeling that I'm going to get. Uncomfortable doesn't even begin to describe the feeling I had during the exam.
They spun a monitor around so I was able to see exactly what he was seeing and before long this little lump of what looked like crystals came into view. At this point I was still holding out hope for polyps but knew at that moment my hopes were in vain. The next words he told me confirmed my worst fears...."You have a tumor"
He slowly withdrew the probe and told me once I got cleaned up and changed he'd meet with me to discuss the findings and our next steps. But wait it gets even better as at the last moment he decided to check my prostrate and now I could feel even more violated.........
The nurse walked me back to the change room, handing me a prescription for an antibiotic related to the procedure, and explained I might feel a little discomfort over the next 24-48 hours urinating. Well she was fucking right with that last statement as it feels like I'm trying to pass a string of barbed wire.
I met the doctor in the conference room where he drew me a diagram of my kidneys, tubes, and bladder, explaining the inter-connectivity of everything. He said that normally they'd have scraped the tumor off my bladder wall and had it sent to pathology to determine if it is benign or malignant but because of my age he wanted to get a CT scan done of my kidneys and bladder and that doing anything to my bladder right now might distort the readings so he was going to wait till the CT scan was completed.
He said that there is no way to know the status of the tumor without doing the pathology but that because it was caught so early he was confident we could treat it and I'll make a full recovery, though he did temper that by saying nothing was 100% certain.
He told me that no matter what the CT scan reveals that I will be having surgery to remove the tumor and then be on medicine to help combat any recurrences. The surgery should be a day procedure but it could entail an overnight stay depending on how things turn out. The last part is a bit of a blur as all I could do is think about my kids and Baby Jack - I'm nowhere near ready to give up on seeing them grow up and told the doctor that whatever it takes to make sure I'm around I'm 100% behind.
I explained about my daughter getting married and asked if the surgery could wait until after we return from Mexico and he said that barring anything drastic showing up on the CT scan he would make sure it wasn't scheduled until after the 21st and told me to enjoy me to enjoy the moments as they come.
I drove home and poured myself a very stiff drink and just sat there and let the tears come.
My poor dog had no clue what was going on so she curled up in my lap and laid her head on my stomach and looked up at me with her puppy dog eyes, which of course touched off more tears from me.
After a little while I called my ex and broke the news to her as it does impact her through the kids. She was really quiet and I thought for a moment she had hung up before I heard her sigh and exclaim "Fuck Cancer! we're beating this"
We talked for a bit and she told me not to hesitate to ask for help as I'm not in this alone.
I told her that I'm still not going to tell the kids till after we get back from Mexico and still might put it off until after I have the surgery and know the results of the pathology. She said it's my call but I should expect some anger from them when they do find out that I held off telling them but she completely agrees with my decision as both of them would be far too worried about me than to think about the wedding or university.
The good thing is that I know my daughter will have a strong shoulder to lean on when the news does come out and my son will do his best to make me laugh and entertain me with tonnes of soccer trivia.
Last night was pretty fucking awful as my mood swung back and forth from thinking the worst to hoping for the best, mixed in with anger and tears, way more than I thought possible. I didn't give into the anger and am glad to say there are no holes in any of the walls or doors.
I woke up this morning feeling really nothing inside, mostly just burned at both ends, but have been making myself clean up the Xmas decorations and take down the tree, not because of yesterday as it was always my plan to clean up today but now it's serving to help keep me busy.
So while I had sort of put things on hold pending yesterday it seems like I've got to continue with that approach as changing jobs would be stupid given my awesome insurance coverage and dating would be unfair as my mind is so not going to be into meeting anyone let alone open to talking about life.
My name is Marcus and all I've got to say is I have a new motto and it's "FUCK CANCER!!!!
I debated if a musical suggestion was in order today and my new motto sort of led me to this one "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey
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