E.U.A.> Examination Under Anesthesia.

Thursday August 8th, Surgery day.

N.P.O. > Since 12:30 am the previous night. (NPO= Nothing By Mouth- No food, No water)

I woke at 8:30am. My mum had removed the water bottle and glass of water from my bed the night before, so when I reached for them, my hands swung and missed. Just air. Great. I was parched, and I knew what was coming. My back was aching like no other. It was as if a million daggers had been thrust into it. I guess jumping and dancing all night did wonders for my poor spine. I told my mum and she said I should take a perc, so I did. I threw on a sports bra with no metal, Hot pink. Perfect. I also grabbed pink panties. Having worked at Victoria's Secret, my bra and panties always match, always. I threw on sweats and my new Maroon 5 tee and we were out the door.

We went to pick up my dad and as he crawled in the car, I could feel my stomach starting to ache. The first omen of an awful day. There is a reason it says on the perc bottle "DO NOT TAKE ON AN EMPTY STOMACH". My mum profusely apologized for forgetting this fact but I would rather feel nauseous then pain. We got to the hospital with no traffic. We pulled up and had the car valeted, totally felt like I was in LA. We got to the Day Surgery floor and they instructed me to head to a room and my parents to head to the waiting room. I instantly felt a sense of unease.

"Umm no, they're coming with me."

The nurse told me they could come in once I was ready, to which my mum jumped in

"No I'm going with her. This has never been an issue before especially at CHOP, and she has newly diagnosed cancer, so at least one of us is going."

My dad went to the waiting room and my mum came with me. I was glad I at least got my mum but I hated excluding my dad. We went in and I got to change into a sexy purple bear paws hospital gown and green socks (really people? green and purple, does no body think about color coordinating this stuff?) My mom insisted on compression boots. Personally I hate them, but I have a a severe history of blood clots (My lungs, all the major arteries, basically places that could kill you.) The compressions from the boots help your body circulate your blood while you're under anesthesia, and look super rad ::sarcastic face:: while doing so. I was dressed and ready to go, almost.

The nurse came in and went over all her questions. Name and birth date, when was the last time you ate anything, drank anything? etc. etc. What are you getting done today? Which of course I replied

"I'm getting my shit checked out."

haha Still doesn't get old. My new fav:

"Do you have any piercings, that are not seen by the eye?"

To which I replied,

"Well, not anymore.... and yes I took my belly button ring out."

At this point I was kind of glad my dad wasn't there, but nothing surprises him anymore... I don't think. However I was still upset at this point that he wasn't allowed in. So I went out to the nurses station and asked them why. I said:

"There is plenty of room in the room, and he wont get in the way. I understand you need to ask me questions but he's not a four year old. If he's going to be allowed to come in and see me before I go in, why in the hell can't he come in now."

The whole time I was saying this, the head nurse kept interjecting trying to come up with excuses. I wasn't having it. Dr. D's physicians assistant saw what was happening and how upset I was. She came in to my room, and said she would try and take care of it.

It was time to get my I.V. and the nurse was HILARIOUS. She was humming the "MaNuhMaNuh MaNuhMaNuh" song from Seasame street. She got my left arm prepped for the IV. I could tell immediately when she chose the vein it wasn't going to work. After years of IV's and needles and injections, my veins are screwed. I also know which ones work and which ones don't. My mum having done IV's for years told me to never tell the nurse which to chose because if they get nervous they're more likely to miss. So I let it go, and she missed. I told her as soon as I didn't see the blood return, to just take it out and start again. I would rather be re-stuck then have them dig around for the vein. She ventured over to my right arm, which sucks because I'm right handed but at least she got it. She explained that

"the MaNuhMaNuh song was originally from a Swedish porno and Seasame Street took it from them."

hahah Wow, thanks for that.

Finally my dad came in. It was about damn time. The nurses had me sign my consents. Obviously I consented, I was there wasn't I. The anesthesia doc came in and looked like she was 20. She was super cute and super nice. All I cared about was that she had versaid in her pocket. Think laughing gas at the dentist but in liquid IV form. I once woke up in the middle of a Spinal Tap and Bone Marrow Aspiration at Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto when I was 16. I have had a extreme fear of waking up in the middle of procedures since, and therefore get panic attacks before any surgery. Versaid calms me down, and helps alleviate those attacks. The nurses made me take off my sports bra, great puppies unrestrained. I also had to take off my panties and put on these sexy mesh things. So. Hot. -_-

I was pretty much ready to go. Now was just the waiting game. The anesthesia nurse came in with a scowl on her face. The original nurse was still talking to me, but the anesthesia nurse just walked in. She started putting my hair net, hat thingy on. She started adjusting the rails, and said something, to which I don't even remember. I do remember how I felt though, uncomfortable. Something about her scared me. My mom instantly caught the vibe and piped up

"Excuse me, how about introducing yourself and a little sensitivity. She's just been rediagnosed with cancer and is about to go into surgery."

I was so proud of my mom. I love how she stands up for me and I totally agreed with her. The anesthesia nurse piped right back

"I'm sorry is there a problem."

I wanted to yell right back her, YES! There is, but I was thinking, crap this woman will determine the state of my comfort level while under anesthesia. I better not piss her off. I stayed silent while wanting to just envelope my mum in a hug and thank her. We went to the bathroom before the surgery so I could pee, and my mum came in and helped me with my IV. I thanked her and reassured her that she wasn't being a raging B!%@#, but being the best mom ever.

We went back out and in came the versaid. It was time for me to go. This is where it gets hazy for me. I don't even remember being wheeled down the hall into the OR. I do remember the nice nurse from my prep room, leaning over me and telling me to breath. I remember her eyes and how warm they looked in comparison to the cold bright lights of the OR. I remember her holding my hand, tightly. I felt safe, and comfortable as she leaned in close. I could feel the tears streaming down, my face, and the nurse reminding me to breath,

"C'mon Courtney take a big breath in through your nose, just breathe hunny, BIG breaths."

And that was the last thing I remember.

I woke up in the recovery room with a new nurse. She asked me how I was feeling and I managed to stumble out,

"my back, my back hurts and I think I'm going to puke."

She gave me my next favorite cocktail. Dilaudid. I'm allergic to morphine so, they give me another narcotic, dilaudid. Its wonderful. They also gave me zofran for nausea. This went on for a while, I was still foggy and hidden by a curtain. All I wanted was my mom and dad. The nurse brought me gingerale and saltines. The saltines were TERRIBLE. My mouth was so dry, that it was like eating flour. I knew I needed something in my stomach but this was not it. Finally my mum and dad came in. I barely remember but they moved me to another room with one of those lovely green wannabe lazy boy chairs. I put my clothes back on and started to get itchy. I couldn't handle the saltines so they brought me these ritz peanut butter crackers and they were heaven. I think I went through about 15 packages and a boat load of gingerale.

I was hazy from the meds. My back hurt, I was nauseous and to top it all off I just wanted to go home, but something wasn't right. My blood pressure dropped a little bit and I was starting to have an allergic reaction. It wasn't good. They gave me benadryl in pill form and it should have knocked me out. It didn't touch me. They were preparing for admission, to have me stay over night for observation, but I wasn't having it. After about 4 hours of bantering, my mom finally went into supermom nurse mode. They wanted to give me a medication to eliminate the pain meds, so I would go back into pain, but if I was having the allergic reaction to the pain med, would get rid of the reaction. My mum and I both knew, all I needed was IV benadryl and to go home.

My Ob/GYN nurse happened to be in the hospital and she came in to see me. She was the one who diagnosed the cancer from the biopsy and seeing her was like seeing the sun in a never ending rainstorm. I was so happy, although you probably couldn't tell, from my medically induced haze. We chatted and she apologized for me for having to go through this. I just wanted her to know how thankful I was for her, she's been the only consistent doctor I've had through my entire medical history and she has been for a reason. Because I feel safe with her. Feeling safe is rare for me, and when I do, I cling on to that feeling. Its not what people say that you remember, its how they make you feel!

She had to go, and I finally broke down in tears.

"I JUST WANT TO LEAVE!"

They finally caved and I was allowed to go home. I crawled into the back seat of the car, laid my head on my mums lap and my dad drove. I slept. When I got to my house, my sister's friend Jack had made us spaghetti and meatballs. This small gesture was like winning the lottery. A. because I was absolutely starving, but B. because this day had taken its toll on my mum emotionally as well. She didn't have the energy to cook. She just wanted to take care of me. Oh and C. because Jack's cooking is BANGING! I crawled into bed, grabbed sexy dexy and slept. I think I woke up for a water ice break, mint chocolate chip, thank you Natalie, and then passed back out. My allergic reaction had dissipated. Looking back, I'm convinced I was allergic to the hospital settings and just needed to get home and into my bed.

My mum was a rockstar. My dad made me feel comfortable. My doctors are champions and some nurses suck! I wont let those bad eggs take away from the rockstar nurses though, because they really are awesome. I slept and I slept and I slept. I woke up to my mum telling me the best news I could have gotten. My PCR, which is the genetic testing to see if my leukemia is back was negative! That means that I only have to worry about this one kind of cancer and not my leukemia. I will still make it to my five year, leukemia free RE-birthday in October. My dad has left to go back to Canada and I will miss him drastically. I have no concrete results yet from the surgery. So more things to wait on. They're deciding how to deal with my cancerous lymph nodes. To remove or to radiate, that is the question. But all in all, I'm home and in bed with Sexy! All is good!

PET Scan Results Live, Then Off To Maroon 5

What a day... I feel like this is becoming a recurring start to most of my entries but this actually takes the cake.

So, once again I woke up to my mum "WE HAVE TO GO!" Ok right, lets boogie. We picked up my dad, and headed to the hospital. Now I love my mum, but my dad almost had a heart attack with her driving.

"Has she been drinking?" -"Nope, just a normal day with mum behind the wheel :) "

We were off to get the results of my PET scan. We did the scan to determine whether or not the cancer was localized or had spread to my lungs, kidneys, bladder and any other organs that one might not exactly want to have cancer in. Well, I wont leave you in suspense... that much longer. As we waited in the office, I'm extremely impatient, I did some tricep dips (My trainer would be so proud). I didn't like the fact that my arms weren't as sore as they were last week when I was training super hard. My dad snickered

"If I had have showed her that she would have laughed at me and said 'Yeah right' but because Alex MADE her do it, now its her fav."

I was like

"Well Duh, Alex knows her $#!%".

I then went to go into plank position but both parentals interjected immediately! Apparently doing plank in a denim skirt with barely there skivies is just not "appropriate" for an office that had nuns the day before. Fine!


We were then ushered into Dr. D's office and on his screen were the scans. It was so cool, way more in depth than an X-Ray and it was my entire body. There was an actual skeleton on the screen. I mean I always knew I had one inside me somewhere but seeing it, and knowing it was mine: creepy. I have some good looking hip bones, I think, yoga hip openers paid off. I looked at Dr. D and asked,

"Is my spine crooked, is that why I'm having back pain?"

He said,

"No, well, hmmm maybe a little bit but I don't think its anything to be concerned about."

-Well thats reassuring. SO, we sat down.

"SO the good news is, there is no cancer in the lungs, kidneys or liver. Basically it has not spread anywhere extreme. However, we do think it has spread to the lymph nodes. We cannot be certain with out a biopsy, so more surgery is required."

Ok, so it's spread, but it may not be a bad thing. He explained that from glucose and well other stuff, I can't remember, that they could have lit up, and may not actually be cancerous. Ugh, so another unknown. Another thing, I have to wait for to understand. Time to book surgery #1. Surgery tomorrow will be an E.U.A. according to doctor talk, and for us humans it stands for Examination. Under. Anesthesia. Basically they are going in to carefully examine my bowl, rectum, bladder and all those other super attractive body parts. They want to make sure the scan didn't miss anything and are going to biopsy anything they find including my lymph nodes (this isn't tomorrow's surgery but will be a future one, because apparently it is slightly invasive). Dr. D also talked to us about potentially removing, or "retracting" in doctor talk, the tumor and my lymph nodes. So I would get a super cute scar that looks like I had a C-Section on my lower abdomen. Well isn't this a twisted joke, I get to look like I had kids, but don't get to have them. -_-

Dr. D continued about testing to see how well my ovaries are functioning, because it would potentially be a good idea to just remove them, to prevent ovarian cancer. Lady bits misbehaving has been the understatement of the year. So tomorrow's surgery is just number one. Next week will be the surgery for all of the "retractions". To be honest, I left Dr. D's office feeling just as confused as when I walked in. I just didn't understand. I know we need more information, to make informed decisions but I just feel like so many what ifs, keep popping up. The variables are unlimited which make the treatment possibilities endless and I was never good at math so this was just getting way to complicated. I just wanted to know, when we were going to start treatment. Was it going to work? When can I get back to my life?

We went to book our pre-admission testing appointment. As we were sitting there filling out the paper work, it hit me. It was as if a ten pound boulder had just been dropped on to my lower back. I keeled over and winced in excruciating pain. My back had given out before, but nothing like this. I fell off the chair onto all fours just trying to find a position to make it stop. The tears that I refuse to shed started to well up and it wouldn't stop. My mum and dad finished the paperwork, while I finally lifted my self back into my chair. (Thank god for those tricep dips.) I sat there as stoically as I could while all I really wanted to do was crawl in my bed and snuggle Dexter. Of course we had left my percs at home. Dr. D popped his head out and asked if I had my percs, but then added a quick

"Just so you know I'm not that old ::with a wink::"

and played "Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5. I was going to the concert later that night and that was just further confirmation that Dr. D was the doc for me. I loved it. I mean with his super busy day, he squeezes me in, AND has time to look up Maroon 5 on his phone and proceed to play it for me. Top Shelf right there!

So we left and were walking to the pre-admission testing, my dad was carrying my longchamp bag, which matched his shorts perfectly I might add. I kept thinking about my back, someone joked about a brace and legit the scene from Romy and Michele's High School Reunion popped into my head. The one where the popular girls put magnets on her back brace. Great, I'm going to be one hot magneto. Just in case you haven't seen the movie here's the clip.

We went to the pre admission testing so they could prep me for tomorrows surgery. The wait seemed never ending. I laid on a couch and the only thing they on the tv was infomercials. You have GOT to be kidding me. My dad was entranced with the baby giant ladder and the baby giant ladder EXTREME. He was hooked.

"Its the only ladder you'll EVER need!"

It did look pretty cool but still. Then the nutri bullet, I wanted that. Maybe I would actually drink spinach, I mean it liquifies it. After about an hour of infomercials we finally got to go into our appointment. Right before I had gotten a sammy, pretzel bread is SO good. Just saying. Damn- carbs for the day.

Once inside the room, I got weighed, had blood drawn, etc. My dad also weighed himself where he proceeded to talk about the ten pounds he needs to lose. It was adorable. The nurse went over her list of questions. It was annoying but protocol. However this is where is got fun, for me anyway. She went over meds, medical history, random questions: my personal fav

"Do you have any trouble swallowing?"

- hahahah

"Nope, none at all"

::Huge quirky smile:: that everyone could not understand. I mean really? That was just too easy. She then went on to tell me how I need to come dressed tomorrow with no metal. Goodbye belly button ring and grad ring for the day, and to wear comfy clothes. Since my surgery was down below I asked if I could leave a sports bra on, because

"These puppies need to be restrained."

She then went on to say how I couldn't eat after midnight. My dad then asked.

"If her surgery isn't until the afternoon, can she really not eat after midnight?"

The nurse replies with a quick "Nope, nothing." Where I quickly added,

"F#@%, I'm going to be a cranky B!%@#"

and nurse for the win:

"Hmmm then we'll have to have YOU restrained, screw the puppies."

So the lovely anesthesia doc came in to do his work. "What are you having done tomorrow?"

"Well, I'm having my $#!% checked out."

... The doc, clearly shock in his eyes, looked down at his papers, looked up again, and then looked down again and let out an "Uhhh Oh." My dad thinking this is hilarious pipped in,

"No seriously, she's having her $#!% checked out."

My mom feeling bad by this point finally explained what was going on, because luckily she speaks doctor fluently. My dad loved his zinger... hahah

"Get it because you're actually having your $#!% checked out, like literally."

We left, finally and got to head home to get ready for the concert. In the car, we talked about the appointment and how it went. It was a pretty serious convo, but I was kind of over that. So I piped in

"I don't like that we have to discuss my quality of life post surgery, I just want to know I can bang like a rabbit!"

My parents knowing me, and that this was their cue to change the subject finally did.

We started talking about Maroon 5 and the concert.

"Adam and I are going to do yoga everyday when we're married."

To which my dad decided to kill my buzz,

"isn't he with someone?"

Dad, as a hockey player would say:

"Just because there is a goalie, doesn't mean you can't score."

Clearly not understanding that Adam would NEVER leave Behati for me and that this is just some young girls dream....

"Uh wouldn't you be upset if you had someone do that to you?"

I guess I have to spell it out...

"Dad, Uh she's a Victoria's Secret model, I think she'll bounce back just fine!"

I was suddenly ten times more excited for the concert!