Part 6 ~ Incision Time!: Peace

Part 6 ~ Incision Time!: Peace

July 2016

Surgery Day! My in-laws came down – Mary to take care of Bean, and Kert to be with Kris in the waiting room. My Pastor was going to be there with them as well. 

Dr. M. came to see me and go thru the usual questions such as “What are we doing to for you today?” I told him that they were going in to do a laparoscopic surgery for Borderline/Stage 1 Ovarian Cancer, preserving my fertility if they could and getting rid of the benign little doohickey in my colon. He said, “Well, we can’t go in laparoscopically because of the doohickey in your colon. We have to open you up so we can get to it. Unless you want us to do that at a later time?” I said “No! Do whatever you have to do!”

I was not thrilled that I would have a big scar. I was fine with laparoscopic incisions. A big scar and “opening me up” made it sound like a bigger surgery to me. I was glad to have 2 skilled surgeons working on me.  This next part is written by my husband, Kris, as I was a little bit occupied!

“Going into this surgery we thought the worst-case scenario would be the loss of 1 ovary. My dad had come to the hospital for support. We thought the surgery would be about an hour and started to wonder why it was taking longer than expected. At about 1 ½ hours, Dr. M. came out and pulled me into a room. He referred to what he saw as “Jelly Belly”. He was thinking it originated from the appendix because the appendix and ovary were joined together, he did say that the amount wasn’t too great and wanted to know if he should proceed. My response was 2 questions: “This is something that will need to be done eventually, right?” and “Is there any risk doing it now versus later?” My hope was that this surgery would get everything and hopefully that would be the end of it. I understood that he’d do a full hysterectomy and that we’d never have any more children. That was fine because saving my wife was more important.

It was a long wait. While they were doing the surgery, our Pastor arrived. We explained the situation and he stayed with us while we waited for news. We all bowed and prayed for the best possible outcome. When Drs. M. and S. came out, they gave me the news that the cancer had spread pretty far and Dr. S. warned me that it might not be curable and only manageable. The biopsy results would tell us more, but both were fairly certain it was appendix cancer and secondary peritoneal cancer. I had already been crying, but I broke down pretty bad as anyone hearing that news would. Most of what followed was a blur. I vaguely remember seeing Tiff before heading home.

I do remember that the first thing I did after getting home was Googling everything I could on appendix and peritoneal cancer. Finding the NIH (National Institutes of Health) database was a blessing. I found case studies and treatment options. I called Dr. S. and asked him about a treatment in a case study on a Swedish woman in her 20s with similar (if not worse) staging as my wife who was “cured” of her cancer (no recurrence with over 3 years follow-up). He encouraged me to keep digging and that not giving up and fighting on was the right attitude. I’m sure he has seen many people who just give up hope as soon as they hear “cancer”. I’ve since heard many stories of people and family members who did lose faith.

What I witnessed the next day from Tiff also gave me hope. While she would shed many tears in the months to follow, I don’t think I I’ve ever seen anyone so strong after receiving such bad news. On that 1^st day she was absolutely stoic and I don’t think I saw her shed a single tear that day. It could have just been from the anesthesia the day before, shock, or having already bawled her tear ducts dry. I just knew that as long as there was hope, I was going to be strong for her. I’m not saying I never broke down in front of her, but I had decided that I’d give everything I had to help her beat this disease.”

In that surgery, I lost the following: appendix, omentum, outer lining of my urinary bladder, 30 cm of ileum (small intestine), 10 cm of cecum and ascending colon (large intestine), ileocecal valve (connects the large and small intestines) and a full hysterectomy (which threw me right into menopause!). Luckily, with all the bowel surgery, I did not have to have an ostomy!

My mother-in-law, Mary, has her own story to tell of how dire my situation seemed: “Within the first few days after surgery, Kris, Bean, and I came up to visit and I told Kris to go ahead with her and I looked at the fish (in the tank) to give them some alone time together. After about 10 minutes the nurse came out of the room and I walked up the hall. She was wiping tears as she said to the other nurses at the station that it was so hard to see that young man and little girl in there knowing that he was going to lose his wife and the girl her mother. She wasn’t trying to be indiscreet, I think from what she’d observed of Tiff’s medical condition and diagnosis that her experience led her to believe that would be the outcome. I thank the Lord very often that He intervened!”

I had been praying in those months of facing infertility – please let us have a baby. Then those prayers changed to – please let me be healthy. Well, we knew for sure that there would be no more babies as there was no more womb, but that I was hopefully on the road to being as healthy as I could be.

Dr. M. came to us in the first week after surgery to let us know that more needed to be done to fully evict this cancer from my body. There were traces left that couldn’t be gotten with all they had done. He told us about a procedure called HIPEC and told us of a doctor who was good at it. I was so curious about HIPEC that I went to Dr. Google and a video started playing. It was an animation of what is done during HIPEC and I was horrified!

As for me being stoic, all I can say is that I had the “Peace That Passes All Understanding”. I have had peace before, but not like this.  I felt calm. I understood what my doctors had told me. Was I sad that I had a rare cancer and that I would no longer be able to have children? Yes. Was I unsure what my future held or if I even had a future? Yes.

This is the kind of peace that only comes from God. I would love for everyone to experience this. Not that I want you to go thru something so horrible that you need that kind of peace, but just so you know how it feels and that it is real! Yes, there was stuff to come that I was not going to like one bit. There would be a long recovery and pain. But in that moment, God allowed a peace like no other to cover me and it stayed for a long while! Call on the name of Jesus when you find yourself in troubling times. Allow His peace to comfort you. He knows your pain and your deepest hurts. You are His child. Cry out to Him and let Him comfort you!

Philippians 4:7 ESV  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.