Catching Up

The events of the past few days have kept me very busy. Today has been a much better day.

So here's the recap. Jan had her surgery on Monday. It was a bad, bad morning as they sent her to the "Holding Room" without her pain pump, with the promise that her pain would be managed for the "short" time she would be there. By the time we were there her pain was beginning to return. After a little fuss we were able to get the nurse to give her some IV pain med. The pain management team arrived to put in her epidural (in her spine) access, but that medication would not be administered until she was in the OR.

When I returned to see her that had told her any minute they'd be taking her. Any minute turned into 5, then 10 minutes and I requested that she be given more pain medicine. We were told again it would be any minute now and they would take care of it in the OR.

At 20 minutes, I put on my mean bitchy face (yes, I have one) and asked, in a rather unfriendly tone, "what are you going to do about this?" My friend was crying and scared and apparently no one there understands what "any minute now means". There was a flurry of phone calls and finally an anesthesiologist appeared to ask what she needed. It still took another 10 or 15 minutes for the promised drug to arrive. This whole process took about 50 minutes with Janice in terrible pain and feeling very scared that no one would take care of her.

They took her about ten minutes later and I collapsed in tears. I am very grateful that Rick was there and I didn't have to answer any one's questions. He took me for a walk and a chai to calm down. And then we waited.

The surgeons came in with their report about 6 hours later. They removed a football sized tumor, her spleen, lymph nodes that were involved. They got everything they could see, but said that this is just the first step in the long road ahead. More tears, some from relief that this was over and some from fear of what is to come.

Rick took Doug, Bobby and me out to dinner. Rick and I had a beer. We were a bit irreverent and laughed a lot and relieved our stress. Doug and I went back to the recovery room to see her and she was some what loopy and talking in circles in a southern accent. She knew who we were and we stayed for a little while and went back to the hotel to finally get some sleep since we had slept very little in the last several days.

Tuesday was a scary day. Jan was past loopy and maybe into a psychotic state brought on by drugs, anesthesia and stress to her body and mind. They stopped her epidural pain meds, which helped a little, but we remained scared that this might continue past her physical recovery.

Wednesday she was somewhat better, but her eyes expressed sadness and terror over what was happening to her. She was able to let us know that us being there was too hard for her, so we called it a day and went home. Doug and Dylan and I all fell asleep not too long after we got home, too tired and stressed to even be together.

Today she is much, much better. Her eyes and mind are still "playing a few tricks" on her, but she is mostly here and communicative and her pain is being controlled. What a relief!!! She is Janice again.

Doug is with her now, I found a public computer to write this on and everyone is more relaxed.

So, we're on the upside for now. Next comes dealing with drug therapies for the cancer, which has the potential of being another rollar coaster ride, but maybe just a little one, a kiddie rollar coaster would be good.

Love and light to all who read this.