C-scare

I've been waiting for weeks to write this blog entry. Sometimes it seems like my family can't catch a break. During Calvin's CHOP hospital stay, last fall, my Crohn's disease steadily made its presence more known. Even before the seizure I knew that I was within the window of time that I could expect to need a bowel resection. During the hospital stay I came to realize that the sooner the better. So I had the resection a month and a half after returning home. At the same time my wife discovered a malignant melanoma. She nearly canceled her dermatology appointment because of the difficulty of getting there when CHOP felt like our permanent residence. The dermatologist didn't think it was anything, but malignant it turned out to be. After having the area excised it was difficult waiting for the pathology report. Waiting really sucks, but it was good news. The edges were clean! It was stage one and hadn't spread.

Fast forward 6 months and a lymph node in her armpit is extremely swollen. She reported it being sore beforehand, but it seemed to have multiplied in size overnight. It was a couple weeks before she could be seen by student health and then another week before she could be seen by the surgeon. Waiting is miserable. For someone who already deals with enough anxiety in my life these few weeks were especially bad. Some of the signs should have been reassuring to us. Cancer generally doesn't get so big so fast and Dawn's labwork looked great. It is her family history, however, that is so frightening. Her mother is one of 5 girls, 4 of whom have had this particular type of cancer. Her youngest sister died from it. She had a melanoma removed from her leg and was told the edges were clean. Six months later a lymph node in her groin was noticeably swollen and shortly after that she passed. The similarities were frightening.

One week ago today we met Dawn's surgeon (I guess it's more accurage to say that I met her and she became reacquainted with Dawn, having not recognized her from doing anesthesia in her operating room). She was great, however, she wanted to put Dawn on the surgical schedule for the 22. That was a day short of 2 weeks from the appointment. If we were going to wait that long I thought I would lose my shit. I really did. Somehow Dawn got on the schedule for the next day. Surgery went well and the goofiest resident I have ever met came to tell me that "cyst-like fluid came out." I've never been so happy about a cyst before. I felt like so much anxiety lifted that immediately a 2 day headache set in. I wanted to share the good news immediately, but thought I should wait until we have official pathology reports. As of yesterday we have those reports. Good news, it was a benign cyst!

It feels hard to concentrate on this experience given the events of yesterday in Boston. I am so glad that my cousins are ok, but I've been reading about the Richard family. Father was running in the marathon, 8 year old son died from the blast, daughter lost a leg, and wife suffered a brain injury. I hurt for their family and so many others, but I realize my family has, in fact, caught a break.