1 Year and (almost) 1 Month...

WOW. I knew it had been some time since I last wrote but I didn't think my last entry was July 14th...of LAST year. That's crazy! I guess looking back I may have needed to just live through what I was going through instead of living through it AND documenting it.

In a (very large and probably very long) nutshell, I completed 3 weeks of alternative treatments/therapies in Mexico, have remained on an all organic diet, continued with my alternative supplements every day, had a left lung/right kidney ablation surgery on January 9th, 2015 (that was done at Johns Hopkins because the doctor at Sloan basically told us that having the procedure done wouldn't prolong my life - in which my mom then asked if he was God...haha), had a right lung ablation surgery on February 2nd, 2015 (which I also had done at JH), wound up radically switching my diet to an as-Vegan-as-possible regimen, began hitting the gym as hard as I did back in 2011 when I started getting more in tune with keeping myself healthy, found out I now have a tumor in my pancreas (which cannot be ablated and both Sloan and JH told me the only surgery they would be able to do is to remove the entire tail end of my pancreas as well as my entire spleen - to which I said no to both...I don't care what anyone says, I'd like to think that organs serve a purpose and are there for a reason so I don't want my spleen removed), lost about 25lbs, found out my kidney and right lung ablations have stuck and I no longer have disease in those areas, got 26 ducks and now refer to myself as a Duck Farmer, found out my left lung ablation didn't stick because it was attached to a blood vessel and my doctor wasn't able to get it all, scheduled a second left lung ablation for August 5th and now here I am, recovering from that (non)surgery.

Before I go ahead and fill cyberspace in on my most recent brush with death, I'll explain what the hell an ablation is. First of all, an ablation in layman's terms is basically when they stick a giant probe directly into whatever organ the tumor is in using a CT machine as a guiding tool, then a little balloon-esque thingy grasps the tumor, encasing it almost and either burns or freezes it. I had Radiofrequency Ablations (RFA, which is burning) done to both lungs and Cryoablation (freezing) done to my kidney.

 I'm just going to go ahead and say my first ablations (left lung/right kidney) sucked. I remember staying overnight in the hospital, unable to open my eyes because they burned SO badly...that, of course, was unexplainable and no one could give me anything to make the pain in my freakin' EYE SOCKETS go away. Then the following 2 days at home were a nightmare. I was incredibly hot and cold, I couldn't take a shit for days, I was shaking and sweating, my kidney felt like it was going to explode, my lung felt extremely tight...but yet, all in all, it wasn't my worst surgical experience by far. Notice the strained smile on my face in the hospital room (which was, by far, the best hospital room in existence! I felt as though I was in some sort of low budget hotel room, which, for a hospital, is quite spectacular. It came with it's own sitting area, lounge chair, desk/work station, flat screen, huge bathroom, wood paneling...and the food was delish. It was wonderful!) since the picture took more than 2 seconds of me having to force my eyes open...

 

 

I had 2 tumors in my left lung and 1 in my right kidney that were all ablated on 1/9/15. Prior to going into surgery, my new JH doctor (whom I really enjoy as a person) informed me that the larger of the 2 tumors in my lung was attached to a blood vessel and would be nearly impossible to get it all because in order for that to happen, they would have to ablate some of the blood vessel, which just isn't any sort of option. Still hopeful, I kind of pushed the thought of it not working out of my head until recently when my latest scans showed that the tumor was back and had actually gotten a little bigger than the first time.

The recovery time wasn't horrendous for my first set of ablations so the second one for the 2 tumors in my right lung was scheduled and performed less than a month later, on 2/2/15. I can honestly say that I don't remember much about this surgery except that once again, my eyes were so sensitive that people walking by my recovery nook may have mistaken my need for sunglasses as me being a total diva and not wanting the paparazzi snapping any unwanted photos.

I know, I know...I'm sure some of you are probably thinking, "well Erin, you kind of are a Diva..." To you I say, you can kiss this Diva's ass  ;)

SO, this catches me up to present day. I am currently propped up in bed with 4 too many pillows, Vaseline slathered all over (an in) my insanely dry nose (which I'm assuming is a lingering issue from the oxygen tube they had in my nose), on a cocktail of anti-nausea, anti-pain and anti-constipation pills and recovering from a surgery that I didn't have.

A surgery you didn't have, you ask? Oh yes...! Let me try to explain without having a mental breakdown.

This past Wednesday, August 5th, 2015, I returned to JH for another left lung ablation. The original larger tumor that was attached to the blood vessel had returned and there was also a tiny spot right below it that he was going to burn outta there as well. The week prior to my procedure, my surgery was pushed from 8am to 10am to 11am to 1pm. How fun!!!

We arrived at 11am for my surgery at 1pm. Around 12pm I was informed that the person in front of me had yet to get into surgery yet and that their procedure would take at least 2 hours. I won't bore you with all the details, but it wasn't until AFTER 4PM that I was FINALLY taken back for my surgery. Mind you, I had not eaten and now I KNEW they would keep me overnight since who knows when I would even be getting out of recovery. I was pissed, to say the very least.

I woke up a few hours later to a bunch of nurses around me saying my name, in excruciating pain because of some giant IV sticking out of my wrist where there wasn't one before. It was kind of all a sort of whirlwind experience but I know I kept telling them to give me more pain meds (as usual - since NO ONE ever listens to me when I tell them I'm some sort of tolerance anomaly) and then my doctor coming in to tell me I gave everyone "quite a good scare". Ohh, did I? How so?

 

To summarize the events that followed 5 minutes into my surgery, they were beginning to do the ablation when an air bubble just so happened to get into the blood vessel that the pesky tumor was attached to and then that lovely air bubble started to make it's way to my beautifully beating HEART! The ablation was called off and instead another team of doctors were called in to make sure I actually woke up from said ablation. JOY!

In my anti-pain induced state, all I kept asking was, well did you get it? Because even now, I just don't want to accept that I had surgery for legit no reason whatsoever. Ain't that a bitch? So again, I say with great disdain, I'm now recovering from a surgery I didn't actually have. And the even shittier part of this whole thing is that I was going to have to follow this ablation with 2 weeks of radiation to hopefully get rid of any leftover tumor that he wasn't able to get again this time around. NOW I'm going to need who knows how much more radiation to hopefully shrink the fucking thing enough to actually HAVE the ablation done again. I won't know anything more until this week when my radiologist gets back from vacation, but the whole purpose of going to Mexico and repeatedly turning down chemo was to take alternative route and not pump my body full of toxins and poison. Therefore, I'm even more upset now about having to have more radiation than what they originally told me I would need...which I never wanted to have to begin with anyway.

Basically, this whole thing just sucks some huge hairy balls. And I won't even begin to explain how horrible the night was after my non-surgery. I may have gotten 1.5 hours of sleep total, but that was in 10 minute increments. I just could not sleep for the life of me. And because I was on so much pain meds, they wouldn't give me anything to help me sleep. That night of zero sleep was followed by a morning of violently puking with 3 anti-nausea meds not doing shit to help. Take notice of my facial expression in this picture compared to the last two times I was able to bust out of the hospital post surgery...

So now my focus is recovering from the non-surgery and getting through radiation. I pinky promise to never exceed a year between entries again...if for no other reason then typing myself to sleep as I write this.