Surprise! You've got Cancer!


As many of you may know, on March 27th I was admitted to hospital. This after a week of abdominal pain (which, being a guy, I tried to shrug off). Thankfully, my acupuncturist recommended I see a doctor, and I took her advice. Here's how it went down that Saturday.

I wake up, feel like crap, massive stomach pains. I decide I need to go to the doctor. I shower, have a bite to eat, then Alice and I pack up the kid and go down to the car.

On the way down to the car, I get really weak, almost collapse carrying Linnae in her car seat. I'm so weak I can barely walk. Alice ends up driving out to Cross Roads medical clinic in Maple Ridge.

We arrive at the Clinic, and luckily, there's only a couple of people ahead of me. I soon get into see the doctor. I explain my symptoms (abdominal pain, weakness, black stool). He looks at me, squeezes a finger to check to see my bloodflow, takes my pulse (120), and says "You're bleeding internally, you need to go to the hospital. You're not in shock yet". Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster is decided on as it's closer to our house. We call my parents on the way.

We get to RCH, and go into emergency. The Clinic's doctor has given me a referral form indicating that it's critical, but I end up having to wait in line to see a Triage nurse first. I look around at this time, and realize there's lots of sick people here, and I immediately tell my wife to take our daughter home so she doesn't get sick.

Alice leaves, and I stand in line waiting to see the Triage nurse. Eventually after about 30 minutes, I get to see her. She takes my vitals, looks at my form, and sends me into the waiting area. I wait another 15 minutes or so, and the admitting nurse calls me to register. After that, it's back to the waiting area.

As I wait, my parents arrive to wait with me. I go into get a blood test, then come back out to the waiting area. I'm really weak at this point and feel pretty bad. After another 30 minutes or so, they come out with a wheelchair to take me into an Emergency bed.

Finally I'm lying down. Got my gown thing on. Doctor comes to tell me that my hemoglobin levels are at 70 (normal is 140). He mentions that below 70 you can have a heart attack if you exert yourself. They put a unit of blood into me, the first of 12 over the next couple of days. They recheck my hemoglobin levels after the first unit, and find I'm down to 58. Another unit goes in, and after that, it's up to 78. I've also been given morphine and some blood clotting agents to stop the bleeding. The day drags on waiting for an endoscope.

Eventually, Dr. Brock Pullen shows up to consult. He comes back a couple of hours later with his Endoscope gear. He's in a really bad mood. I remember him asking me why I went to Royal Columbian rather than Maple Ridge hospital. He seemed really annoyed that he had to do work. He was also really annoyed with the nurse that was helping him with the endoscope. Anyway, they spray my throat with some numbing agent, and give me another drug. In the endoscope goes, and I pass out.

A while later, I wake up and they're showing me the image from the stomach. There's a 1cm or so wide ulceration in my stomach. He didn't do a biopsy because he didn't want to dislodge the clot that had formed. Pullen hands me off to another doctor.

Later that day (it's now Sunday) I get moved up to a room in the hospital proper. Dr. Peter Blair shows up. Really nice doctor, great bedside manner. They tell me that they're scheduling me for surgery soon.

I spend the rest of Sunday and Monday lying around waiting for Surgery. Surgery's eventually scheduled for Tuesday the 30th. They think it'll be about 2 hours for the surgery. Quick in and out and what not.

Tuesday rolls around, and I get hauled down to Surgery. Had some laughs with the Nurses and anethesiologist guy. Taped on my wedding ring. I remember passing out.

While I was unconcious, my whole family was waiting in the hospital to find out what happened. Two hours came and went. Four hours go by. After about four and a half hours, Dr. Blair comes out to tell my family they had found a serious tumour. Things were going well though, and they were just finishing up.

I wake up to find out that I had cancer. They have removed my spleen (I knew I could live without that), my gallbladder (nope, don't need that either), half of my stomach (k, people get their stomach's stapled, so that's ok), and 90-95% of my pancreas (DOH!). Turns out the Pancreas will be the toughest thing to worry about in the coming weeks.

I spend the next couple weeks in a drug addled haze. They've got me on a self medication system where I can just push a button to shoot myself up with some morphine. Yeah that's all well and good, but if you fall asleep, you're not keeping the dose up, so when you wake up... OWWWWWWW.

On April 11th, had a serious complication. I started feeling weak. Complete lack of energy. The doctors start to work on me to figure out what's wrong. I get a unit of blood, they up my oxygen levels, and eventually put me on an oxygen mask. They send me down for a Cat scan and find out that I've got clots in my lungs. Bi-lateral pulmonary embolism. Deep vein thrombosis type stuff. Apparently no one mentioned to the respiroligist that I was pumped full of blood clotting agents and fibrin during my first days in hospital and in surgery. I end up on blood thinners till sometime in October.

To sort that out, they put in a clot catching device (think of a 4 spoke umbrella, no fabric, partially folded down) into my vena cava just above the two main branches that come up from the legs. They insert it through a spot in my leg, feed it in and deploy it. It will come out through my neck 2 weeks later. They let me keep it.

Staying in the hospital was interesting. I had lots of friends and family come and see me, and without their support, it would have been a tough go. The hardest part of the whole stay was thinking of my wife at home having to raise Linnae by herself. I desperately wanted to get home to them.

Another bright point in my stay was the nurses, they were all awesome, even if they did make me walk when I didn't want to. Tough to see them when staffing levels were low, but they performed really well even then. I've run into a couple of my nurses since leaving the hospital, very glad to see them.

I was released from the hospital on April 25th. Perhaps the best day of my life. I was so weak. I spend the next 4 weeks resting and recouperating. I went back to work on May 25th.

I've since been to the Cancer Clinic in Vancouver. Talked to Dr. Meg Knowling there. The tumour was most like a Gastro Intestinal Stromal Tumour, however, they're not exactly sure what it was. There's no Chemotherapy for my type of cancer, and no radiation therapy due to it's location. Even though I have to get regular checkups, it looks to be promising for my future.

For images of my stay see the gallery.



Update: 8/21/2004 I was back in for a CT Scan on August 12th. I got the results on August 20th. I'm apparently cancer free for now. I go back in 6 months for another CT Scan. On with life!

Update: 2/11/2005 On January 31st I went in for a 6 month follow up CT scan. Results came back this last monday. All Clear!

Update: 7/19/2005 My wife forwarded me some notes she'd made on my ravings while I was in the hospital. Read them here.

Update: 8/22/2005 On July 29th I went in for my second 6 month follow up CT scan reports. Results came back all clear!

Update: 2/6/2006 Scan results from my January 25th Scan today, all clear! Additional good news, we found a contrast dye that doesn't make me vomit during the CT scan, AND Glevic is now approved for use in Canada for C-kit Negative GIST patients like myself!