Confessional Diaries - Volume 1 - Issue 1 posted 11/11/2008 11:15:33 AM | 7 kudos what's this?     report abuse tagged: cancer, life, change

funisnumber1

I have a confession.

I'm a cancer survivor.

In 1997, at 14 weeks pregnant, one second my life was one way, and the next, it wasn't. A Jiffy is described as 1/100 of a second. It was barely a Jiffy that changed everything. I stepped out of my car and felt something like heat spreading all over my legs. I looked down at my body just as my knees started to buckle. Holy Freakin' Cow that's a lot of blood, my shoes are squishing. My shoes are squishing? I sat back down in the driver's seat, pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911. Then I called my sister. My sister arrived first, wrapped me in a blanket she pulled out of her car, stuffed me in the back seat of mine, and tore out for Tuality Community Hospital in Hillsboro. I could hear a siren pass us somewhere down Cornell Road. I thought SUCKA my sis is bad@ss. She beat you. HA take that.

Sidebar: I noticed something odd and wonder if anyone who has been in those particular booties can relate. The chromanance and luminance seemed to be seeping out of my vision as blood was seeping out of my body. The world around me was turning pale, then black and white. The ringing in my ears sounded like an old time badly tuned piano, and I was in an old black and white "talkie". Is that common with bleeding to death? Inquiring minds and all.

In the emergency room, the staffers worked on me with hushed voices. Hmmm, nothing at all like ER and TV. All I could see were eyes above face masks. Foreheads knit with concentration. Not worry particularly, I'd say it was concentration. Attaching electrodes, threading an IV, stripping my clothes on one side of me while attaching things to the other side, then rolling me and doing it all over again. I was fading in and out when the cold ultrasound was going over my abdomen. I looked up and saw a furrowed brow injecting something into my IV, then felt like I was being yanked backwards into a long dark hallway. An acrid taste in the back of my throat. I could hear a very rapid heartbeat on the ultrasound monitor right before my abrupt departure. I smiled. I could hear my child. The tech looked up at the doctor flashing a light in my eyes and said "ectopic pregnancy."

Sidebar: I know what you're thinking. I should have had that ultrasound 5 or 6 weeks earlier. 14 week ectopic pregnancy is extremely rare. The zygote was "half-in, half-out". My fallopian tubes were adhered to my uterus and the little beanie baby was lodged in the opening of the uterus. That litte tyke was hanging on with its undeveloped toenails I'd wager. I was working a high powered corporate gig, and flying to Boston every week from Oregon. I figured I'd get to the ultrasound during the second trimester, when I was sure I was out of the woods. We had lost two previous babies. I had missed an appointment and reschedule one for the following week. Who knows if I would have let work interfere with it again. Can't say.

I woke up to a much slower beeping rythym; my own heartbeat? OH GOD the pain is unbearable. I try to move my hands down to where the pain is and the oxygen sensor comes off my index finger. Alarms go off and two masked women appear out of nowhere and reattach me to the machines. OK, so I can't move. I'm so cold, teeth chattering. I'm on a long table and a woman with the first unfurrowed brow I've noticed comes over and places folded hot blankets on my body. She has kind and twinkly eyes. She must be smiling under that mask. I notice eyes a lot more now than I used to. Another masked face looks in my eyes, lifting each eyelid. "Where am I?" "You're in the recovery room at Tuality Hospital. Do you remember why you are here?" Oh God. Its bad isn't it I'm thinking. Then I'm thinking, I'm sleepy. I go back to sleep.

In and out of sleep. More sounds of equipment, hurried hushed voices. Beeping and clicking and gears and mechanical sounds of pumps. I turn my head to the left, there's a woman next to me still on a respirator. My throat is burning. I wonder if they shoved something that large down my throat too. A doctor walks up to my right side. I try to turn my head to the right and my abdomen starts shrieking at me. "Hello, I'm Dr. Tam. I was your anesthesiologist. How do you feel?". I can barely tell him that I want to throw up. I can barely imagine throwing up. I try to talk and the pain in my abdomen is unbearable. Tears start to trickle out of my eyes as I say "well doc, you're kinda cute. why don't you feel me for yourself". It comes out "pfilleggi hummina wippie". Then I gag and dry heave in his direction. NICE. He pulls a huge syringe out of his pocket and injects something into my IV line. "That should help a lot with the nausea. I tried to give you something when you were out but we had a time with your blood pressure."

What does any of this have to do with my confessional? More later in issue 2 ........

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