Medical Nightmare

In March of 2003 my husband Bill started complaining of a stomach ache. Several doctors' visits yielded nothing. He was losing weight very quickly, was not going to the bathroom properly and the pain was increasing. 

At the same time I was going to the doctor to see why I had not gotten pregnant after many years of trying. An ultrasound was ordered for me and I could tell by the way the Technician was acting, something was wrong. They sent me home with out telling me what was up.

That night, which was a Friday Bill's pain was terrible so I took him to the ER where they did an x-ray. The doctor said he was impacted with stool, gave him some "go juice" and sent us home. My husband didn't go that evening or the next.

Monday morning I had a follow up with my doctor about my ultrasound. Once I got back to the hospital a nurse strolled in the room and said it looked like I had cancer. My mother, who was with me, must have gone into shock because to this day she does not remember anything the nurse said. A doctor, older than dirt came to talk to me after I insisted on seeing him. I tried to stay calm as he explained that I had a softball sized tumor wrapped around my right ovary. It had infiltrated my fallopian tube and was wedged behind my uterus. I asked him if I was going to die and he just stared at me.

By the time I got home Bill was waiting for me to drive him back to the hospital. A doctor had called after reviewing his x-ray. He was not full of shit as I had expected, but instead had a tumor in his colon. I told him what had happened to me an hour before as we drove back to the hospital. We held hands the whole way.

My husband was rushed upstairs for a CT scan and as I waited I could hear everything that was going on behind closed doors. They had filled my husband up with a garden hose and he had to hold it while they took the pictures. Now considering his colon was blocked that was very difficult and he was verbally letting the tech know it.

After this very uncomfortable procedure we waited some more. Next we were sent up even higher and Bill had a colonoscopy. A nurse came to get me as soon as the procedure was over. Bill was not quite out of anesthesia yet when the doctor came in. He told me Bill had colon cancer and it was bad. The tumor was the size of a large egg and he wanted to cut Bill open in less than a week.  Bill was now waking up and as I held is hand and tried to tell him what was happening I got dizzy and almost collapsed. The nurse who was standing with us grabbed me and sat me down. I told her about the news I had received that morning and she just gasped.

A few minutes later the doctor came back and pulled me into his office alone. He told me that Bill would most likely not survive this and that I should get our lives in order. I just sat there and cried.

2 days later I had an appointment at Froedert hospital in Wisconsin with a specialist in gynecological cancer.  This doctor was tough, and pulled no punches. Yes my tumor looked bad, yes it may be cancer, but she wouldn't know until she was inside me. Yes I may have to have a total hysterectomy. She wanted to operate as soon as possible. When I told her about my husband would be having surgery any day she didn't gasp or say she was sorry, she just said we would work out a date. Just like that I was back in my car driving 2 hours back home.

On April 3, 2003 my husband was operated on at Great Lakes Hospital by one of the world's best cardiologists. He also does colons on the side. After 5 hours a nurse came to tell me Bill was doing fine and they got the whole tumor and 3 feet of colon. On Bill's 5th and last day in the hospital the doctor came to see us. Bill's tumor was a rare tumor called a Submucosal Lipoma with ischemic changes. It was not cancer. He told us in 20 years of being a doctor he had never seen this type of tumor and was just as shocked as we were.

We were happy of course, but I started to wonder if the doctor did the right thing by removing 3 feet of colon with out knowing for sure if it was cancer. Later research showed me that he did the right thing and cancer or not it was wise to remove a large portion of colon.

11 days after my husband's surgery I had mine. My surgeon had to gut me like a fish to get to the tumor and my ovary. I remember coming out of the anesthesia, I couldn't open my eyes, but I felt someone squeezing my hand and they were whispering in my ear…"We didn't take your uterus, it's not cancer." My surgeon later told me she had the scalpel over my uterus when the nurse checking the fluids from my gut for cancer cells said "It's not cancer!" The surgeon made her check it 3 more times and then checked it herself. After 5 checks it was still not cancer. A day later my tumor was diagnosed as a benign cystadenoma. Just like my husband I had a rare tumor that didn't turn into cancer.

3 days later I came home and my husband and I recuperated together.  I will never forget those few weeks back in 2003. I think about how close we could have come to death. I think about my daughter loosing both her parents at the same time. I am not religious, but occasionally I wonder if something higher than us was at work 3 years ago.