When someone has a medical crisis, the aforementioned person is pretty darned sure that it is the most interesting and unique experience anyone that has ever happened to anyone in the entire world. No one wants to be that unique person while the crisis is happening, but afterwards we're all convinced we had a near-death experience and, obviously, everyone wants to hear all the gory details.
So, here's my incredibly interesting story...
Loy had a fall a couple weeks ago and has been having some rib pain since (which, if you don't know, always takes seemingly forever to get over). So, on Sunday night, after a vigorous day of lying on the couch reading a book all afternoon/evening, I noticed I was feeling a twinge in my ribs on the right side. Sympathy pains? I figured I'd laid in a strange position during my sojourn in other lands (in my book) and tried to stretch it out. It felt kind of like that strange feeling like a lung is hung on a rib or something. It hurt when I breathed in. I was hoping it would relax itself out during the night.
Well, next morning it was still strong. I tried having the warm shower water hit it and more stretching. I got dressed and headed to work. On the way there, I was pondering the increasing uncomfortability of it all, deciding (in my expert medical opinion) that I needed a muscle relaxant. I work at a hospital--you'd think I could just ask my doctor friends??? But, no, I knew that'd never fly. It was New Year's Eve, so I couldn't go to my doctor (probably closed), couldn't go to urgent care after work (probably closed). Urgent care in the morning??? In my experience, I do know that if you go into an urgent care and complain about chest pains--even if you know it's not a heart attack--they send you straight to the ER. (Same thing if you've lost consciousness and then go in--ER visit. Save yourself the money!) Therefore, I came to the decision while en route to work, I would go to the ER, get the muscle relaxant, and then go to work an hour late.
After I got settled in the exam room, I texted Loy saying I was going to feel so dumb when they told me it was nothing. Even right side chest pain gets you an EKG, followed by a CT, with lots of blood work involved in there. He was en route to Omaha, so didn't get my texts for about 45 minutes--by which time my motor fingers had texted pretty much everyone in the world. So, when his iPad finally got reconnected to the internet world, it was exploding with texts asking how I was!! Poor guy!
The doctor came in with the verdict...a small pulmonary embolism in my right lower lung (later they added that there was also a pulmonary infarction and a small (3 mm) nodule. I pride myself on being pretty medically savvy, but I didn't know anything about PE's (as we in the biz now call them.) I was being admitted and a course of blood thinners was started. Paroled on New Year's Day with instructions to take the week off. End of story, right?
As you're probably all aware, I've had breast cancer twice. Two different chemo bouts, lumpectomy, bilateral mastectomy, 33 radiation treatments. I'm sure I talk about it way too much. But, it's a part of me. I would say there is not a day, ever, when I don't at least think a fleeting thought about cancer. In my mind, life is divided into BC (before cancer) and AC. I try to whistle in the dark and joke about it and always be positive, but it is there. And, for the most part, I'm not too scared. If I have a headache, I give a laughing admission that it's probably a brain tumor. Back pain? Spinal tumor. Cough? Lung cancer. But, deep down, I really know it's probably not. My doctor told me back in then day to give a strange pain 2 weeks. If it goes away, it's not cancer. So, this cancer worry (I prefer the term "safety planning") is not an imminent kind of worry. I don't have to make the call about whether to go to the ER for something RIGHT NOW. It can wait until tomorrow.
I would venture to say that every cancer survivor out there deals with this constant awareness of a real possibility that Big C may rear its ugly head again. My mom, a wise woman, told me as she was fighting her terminal cancer that she wasn't afraid of being dead...just of getting dead. Truth.
But, you see, in remembering this day, I'm not totally sure WHY I went to the ER. I'm fighting the urge to let my worries--NOT safety planning--take over with this new diagnosis. If I get more pain, tingling, shortness of breath I need to go to the ER now. I have neuropathy...I always tingle in my extremities. Is it getting worse? Any time I start thinking about breathing, I can fake myself out that I can't catch my breath.
"I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all. my fears." --Psalm 34:4
"Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus." --Phil. 4:7
Here's the key...and I need to remember this always.
So, take a deep, really deep, breath right now. Imagine this inflow of air is the peace of God. That's what I'll be doing for awhile...
Thanks for reading! Kitt.
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