Playing Catch-Up

Okay....so can I say that I was totally blown away when I realized that I have not posted a blog for a very, very, very long time? Seriously, I thought it had only been a month, at the very least, and it is almost triple that amount!! Wow...can't imagine how that happened since most of my days have a long, lazy, last forever kind of feel to them. So much has happened....and yet so much remains the same. And please excuse the ramblings...I truly am not very coherent....you'd think I hadn't got any rest or something....LOL. In the past several weeks, Shea has continued to have chemotherapy. We have switched main oncology teams because the communication between us was crazy, crazy ( we will take a lion share of the blame, since trying to communicate an idea to the Liston's without us talking over, under and around you is quite the feat). Anyway, long story short.....out with the one and in with the new. So far so good, but I have learned to not count my chickens before they hatch because with cancer....your chicken eggs just might really be lizard or snake eggs, so it is best to take it a day at a time. I have had several people tell me that they wished I wrote more, but honestly, you can only whine so much before you get sick of hearing it, so I felt that you and I were better off taking a break (a separation of a sorts) and can I say a big Thank You to everyone who was not deterred and kept right on keeping on in my face....you are appreciated more than you will ever know. I was reading an article talking about the latest research that shows that women who have strong support systems live the longest...if that is the case, I will probably live to be over a 100 years old....so thanks! Back to Shea.....In the midst of all the chaos and yahoo, she had another stent placed in her colon. Her CT/PET scan had shown some areas of the colon appeared to be inflamed and swollen. They couldn't figure out if it was an infection or not, so the plan was to do a colonoscopy (which when you spell check offers up kalidescope, which is way better than a colonoscopy any day of the week, but cracks me up because if I were texting, you would wonder why I am talking about children's toys all of a sudden because that dang predictive text screws me over every single time), possibly take some samples and move on. It was mentioned in passing, that is necessary, a stent would be placed. Well.....apparently they felt it was necessary, because Shea exited with new hardware. All of that was fine until last weekend. Shea woke up Saturday morning at 4 in severe pain. She knew it was my day off, so she didn't want to wake me up, but at 9 a.m., Kelt came to tell me that when he was getting ready for work, Shea had told him that she knew her stent had migrated and was causing her pain. I immediately went downstairs and she told me she was calling Huntsman. When she got through, she was able to speak with the on-duty Oncologist (who had better pray very, very hard that they remain nameless to me....sorry Bishop....a new one by the way.....but I am in the mood to provide a verbal smack-down) anyway....this professional told Shea that she would just need to go to her closest emergency room and get help or wait until Monday and then go to the clinic. She kept telling Shea that the clinics were all closed over and over again, while Shea was trying to clarify a few things. You know it was pretty bad when Shea finally snapped and essentially said "I'm not stupid...you can stop telling me that the clinics are closed. I just need to have you listen to me for a little bit"....but that really didn't happen, so in short order Shea was bundled up in the car for a ride to the emergency room. now I know that there are fabulous people who work at the Brigham Hospital, but the last time we were there for labs they acted like they didn't have a clue about accessing a port or anything else regarding a patient with cancer paraphernalia, so that left Ogden or Logan. A friend just had a family member get a horrible staph infection in Ogden....so off to Logan we go. When we got there, the staff were exceptional. They had given Shea some pain killers and were discussing how to move forward, when we mentioned that Shea had recent blood work done the Wednesday before, so if they wanted to contact Huntsman, they could probably have that info faxed to them. The Doctor came back and said that he actually had found out that the doctor who had placed Shea's stent was the Gastroenterologist on call at the U of U Hospital ( close affiliate to Huntsman), and he had expressed a desire to take care of the issue for Shea. He wanted her to get to Salt Lake, have a CT scan and then go into a procedure to remove the stent. We were given the option of transporting her by ambulance down, or we could wait until her oxygen levels were normal enough to travel (they had dropped due to the medication they had given her) We decided to wait, so it wasn't until noon that we were on the road for Salt Lake and I was given the admonition to monitor her breathing while I drove (now there is an experience.....you have to keep the person awake...no sleeping for them, but they can't talk or else it drops, as well....so basically it is me in the car with diarrhea of the mouth and Shea patiently listening to my blabber....yuck!) We arrived at the U at 3:00 and at 3:14 we were escorted to room 17. At 5:30 she was finally given the dye to drink (after we had reminded the staff that we were scheduled for a CT) and we were told that the turn-around from dye to done was 3 hours. Shea was in increasing pain but she kept telling herself to hang on until 8 or 9 and it would all be okay. We kept talking to the ER staff, whose hands were tied because we were waiting on Doctor On-call. One of the doctors made the comment to Shea about if she was sure the stent had moved and Shea said " Yes...I haven't been eating alot of chicken wire lately....maybe spoons, but not any forks, so I'm pretty sure it is the stent". The look on his face was priceless, and we had to chuckle about that. Imagine or surprise and dismay when we were called and told at 9:30 that the procedure would take place at some unspecified time the following day. Actually, it wasn't surprise and dismay.....it was more like I had a nuclear explosion and Shea cried....a lot!! I was pacing in her room while I argued with a doctor on the phone for 45 minutes using words like reprehensible....irresponsible health care....bordering immoral....we are the ones bent over the barrel...etc. etc.....when all I really wanted to say was *&%$#*&#$@#%$^!!!!! but I didn't, because emergency room security was eye-balling me from the corridor and it wasn't necessarily his butt I wanted to kick!! When I was done arguing/negotiating/threatening/planning someone's pre-mature demise, Shea asked to talk to her on the phone. She was crying quite hard at this point, since it was too painful for her to even lie down in bed and she just told the doctor.."Please help me....I don't care who helps me....just find me someone....I trust you to care about me and take care of me". I was so proud of her....that was the best guilt trip ever....almost like she had learned from a master LOL. We had a call back and were told that the doctor and a surgical team were on their way...she would go into surgery at 11:30 at night. Pretty soon, the technician arrived with a whole bunch of equipment and room number 17 was transformed. Two doctors later, and we were ready to rock and roll. They allowed me to stay up by Shea's head and hold her hand since I was penned in by the equipment. As they began to administer the anesthesia, Shea's blood pressure kept dropping. We had to keep her right on the fringe of being awake, but relaxed enough to get the job done. It was scary for me because at one point, she was at 47/38....not exactly the kind of blood pressure you want to see. They were monitoring it every 2 minutes, so if she could tolerate more, they could give her more. Because she was only slightly under, she was feeling a lot of pain and she kept mumbling to me "Mom....tell them I take extended release...tell them I take extended release" which refrences the pain killer that she takes at home. When they were able to view the stent, they realized that it had failed to deploy on one side and so instead of being able to do it's job, these metal barbs were like claws tearing her up on the inside. Everytime, the doctor tried to remove it...no matter which way he turned it, it just would dig in deeper or grab another place....(imagine one of those Chinese hand-cuff toys...the ones you put on your fingers and they pull tight....only made out of metal....really horrific to watch). Finally, the technician was directed to get another surgeon on the phone so he could consult/google for ideas (In case I am in the end-of -the-world scenario, I hope google is available, because apparently you really CAN google everything and anything). He was busy typing (you could hear the keys click-clacking) when he said that he had worked with a few other stents that had been stuck and he had removed them by inverting them and turning them inside out. Viola! That is all it took, and it was out! Shea's body immediately collapsed and the nurse and I thought for a split second that she had died....but the blood pressure monitor proved us wrong. She was just so exhausted from all that pain, that once her body was free, she could finally rest. By 2:00 a.m. we were shown to our room in the observation area ( which happened to be the psych room...sink covered up, two cameras to make sure we were okay, door lock on the outside, etc.), I made a run to the all night Starbucks for orange juice and croissants (yes, there is one in the lobby of the hospital....amazing, huh!) and by 3:00 we were asleep. At 4 we were awakened by the glaring lights (remember the psych room?) because someone had accidentally hit the light switch out in the hall, but after I waddled out and turned it off, we were able to sleep until 6, which is the time that all nurses, doctors, technicians, custodial workers, phlebotomists etc. know is the time that no patient must be allowed to sleep later than...and if you have spent more than a day in a hospital, you know this is true ( I believe that if we allowed the sick to actually sleep....they might get better quicker....but no one asked me and no one cares.....and my Dad would just say I was lazy to want to sleep past 6, so there you are....) We cat-napped until 11:00, at which point we decided we had better get home, so we could actually sleep. Shea is doing well, but is tired after her ordeal, and we have vowed NO MORE STENTS!!!! (unless it is a matter of life or death....but even then, we will talk) I know all of this probably will embarrass Shea for you to know, but there it is. Like Shea says...colon cancer isn't glamorous like breast cancer...no cute T-shirts, no cute ribbons etc.....no one wears things that say "I like butts" or " check your "A"....although when we were talking about it at work and I was telling my co-workers this I had said "No one says 'get rid of your a@@'", and a coworker said "Ummm, I think that's called divorce." I laughed so hard....and it is probably one of those things that you just had to be there...but thank goodness for humor, otherwise I would be a permanent resident in psych/observation...which really is okay, since it is 50 feet from a Starbucks....so there you are.....life at the Liston's.....and now you are all caught up...love to all :)