Nathaniel ~ Gift of God

The New "Normal"

I started this blog on November 9, 2013, while my husband Nat was recovering from major colorectal cancer surgery. The tumor was discovered after a colonoscopy on October 10th. They went in to remove the entire colon and tumour, and to create a permanent iliostomy on the 25th. The surgery was slated to be about 8-9 hours. At 9-1/2 hours, I received a call from OR staff, where Nat was. The surgery would be another 3 hours. I was growing increasingly concerned.

I learned later that the tumor had grown through the colon wall and had begun to attach to major blood vessels and the ureter (the tube between the left kidney and bladder). They scraped the cancerous areas outside of the colon as best as they could, but we didn't know how extensive the cancer was, until after we got the pathology results on November 18th.

This past few months or so before a trip to Florida, I noticed that my husband was pale and he was feeling very sick. He had battled chronic Colitis for 30 yrs. I expressed my concerns to him many times and encouraged him to get in to see his doctor. It seemed to get worse after our trip to Florida. I finally called and made an appt for him on Sept. 25th. On Sept. 21st, I woke up to find him in terrible pain, sweating profusely. I called the advice nurse, and spoke to a physician over the phone. We had to get him to the hospital as soon as possible.

He was realeased from the hospital ER that night and was encouraged to see a Urologist. He also developed a blood clot after the trip to ER. A colonoscopy was scheduled on Thursday, Oct. 10th, where the doctor found a blockage in his intestine. There were high suspicians that it might be a tumor, so Nat was admitted to the hospital for five nights where they did a battery of tests. On October 14th, the biopsies came back from the colonoscopy and we learned that it was cancer. He went home the following day and surgery was scheduled for Oct. 25th. After the surgery, he stayed in the hospital another six nights.

This is his/our journey through the process of getting his diagnosis and recovery.

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Biopsy Results From Surgery.

Well the day we were to see Dr. Samuel Oommen for the surgery biopsy results was a difficult one. First they took out the metal staples in his stomach, although a week later we discovered that the lady left two staples behind. Then the Surgeon came in to examine Nat and his handiwork... a six inch incision, holes from drainage tubes, and the stoma (more on that later), and another incision that was healing. Dr. Oommen is a very nice man, a tall East Indian gentleman who loves what he does and really cares about his patients. He has a great sense of humor, listens well, and always allows us to ask as many questions as needed. At this visit, we learned that he is a Syrian Christian, from the Southern part of India.

After he examined Nat carefully, he almost forgot to tell us the results of the surgery pathology report! He had basically told me most of it the night of the surgery, but the pathology report confirmed that the areas in question were cancerous.

In a nutshell, the cancer is Stage 3C, which is the very last step before Stage 4. The picture above shows the different stages of cancer inside of the intestinal wall. You can see where the tumor has grown trough the wall in stage III. Stage IV is where the tumor has spread to remote areas or organs in the body; away from the original site of the tumour. Nat's tumor has spread to other structures outside of the colon, to the ureter, abdominal wall, and blood vessels, so he is in the last part of stage III. They removed 52 lymph nodes, and thankfully only 6 were malignant (cancer). What alarmed me though, was that the chemo and radiation would not only go on for 6 weeks, but an additional 6 months of chemotherapy on top of that. As far as we know, these 6 months will consist of rounds of chemo pills and infusions! Because of this, he will need a port put into his neck, which is a long-term IV line into one of the major veins that go into the heart. This would be used for chemo infusions and blood tests. The doc also gave him a 60% chance for recovery... better than 50%!! Needless to say, the next few days I was walking around in a daze, sometimes tearing up, and just doing what I had to do. Somehow it helped to keep moving. By Wednesday, I was feeling better. Thursday, I hit a rough spot again. But when Friday came along, I worked diligently, seeing my hospice patients and families, and then came home at about 7:45pm. Yay... the weekend is here!

I am learning to take this as it comes. There's really nothing else you can do.