Saturday May 24, 2014…now the adventure starts, email to my family...

The following is the events for the week roughly (some of the info was stated earlier but now it has added details). The email I sent to my family;

As most of you have recently been aware I had a hysterectomy on the 15th of May. I had been having some bleeding issues that weren't going away which prompted the surgery. I almost didn't have the surgery due to an exposure of mrsa so I had to be tested if it was positive I wouldn't be able to have the surgery. It was negative so the surgery was on. Mark gave me a really nice blessing. In it he asked that the Dr. would use her knowledge and skills but that she would also be guided by the spirit throughout the surgery as to what things need to be attended to (or something like that). We felt good about the blessing and going into surgery. The day of surgery was an interesting one. I went in and awhile later the Dr. came out to talk to Mark. She told him that the surgery went fine but there were complications when she went to pull out the uterus she also found a small mass that fell into the now available space. At that point after looking a little further and finding the mass was attached to the fallopian tube and maybe the colon wall she decided to call in a General surgeon to look at it. They went out and talked with Mark then they went back in. The General surgeon went in laparascopically where the other Dr. went in vaginally.  He checked everything and couldn't see anything that might have been attached to the colon wall just the fat on it which was a good thing because he was able to cauterize the fat and not the colon wall. When I got back from surgery I asked Mark how the surgery went. He told me the surgery went fine but there were complications, I had cancer...I really didn't know what to think. I think I was in shock a little, then I said I'm going to lose all my hair... I told Mark we needed a picture before I lost it. The OB came in a little later and we talked and she explained more to me. Basically I have fallopian tube cancer. In most cases the fallopian tube cells spread to the ovaries causing ovarian cancer. Fallopian tube cancer is very rare only 1500 in the US (possibly worldwide) each year. The OB said they treat it like ovarian cancer. I will more than likely have another surgery where they will take out my one ovary I still have, a few pelvic lymph nodes (to see if it spread to them) and my omentum. An omentum is a layer of fat in the pelvic/colon area. The OB says everyone has one but doesn't serve much purpose, mainly protection and support of those internal organs. The reason you want to take it out is because cancer is attracted to fat. So at this point we would wait for the pathology report to send with a referral to an OB oncologist. That appt. is scheduled in 8 weeks because he wants me to fully recover from the hysterectomy.

Saturday May 24th - May 30th...Dixie Regional stay

....In the ICU sending love to my loved one's (even though I felt like crap!)....

Before going to the ICU they did a CAT scan of my abdomen. With this they found a small abscess where they had taken out the cancer. Again they were trying to stable my blood pressure. Once they got it stable the ICU doctor and general surgeon talked to us about surgery to remove the abscess and at this point my white blood count was 6,000 (normal is about 4000-10,000) but showed a big "left shift" suggesting significant infection. We opted to give the antibiotics some time to work because the abscess wasn't real big. Then when the white blood count went up to 22,000 the next morning they decided to do surgery. Later I could tell the surgery had helped because I was feeling better. The next day was a waiting game for cultures and blood test results. The infectious disease doctor came in and talked to me about some of the results but had to wait another day to be sure what bacteria we were fighting. At times I felt good but more times I felt yucky. Then I became very nauseous and throwing up with no appetite they gave me nausea medicine that knocked me on my butt, "ask Larry and Nadine about my dreams “hee, hee".  Each day my white blood count got better and they changed my nausea meds and I started feeling much better. I finally got the tube out of my neck!!! I still have a JP drain that drains excess fluid out of my abdomen. Everyone at the hospital, doctors, nurses aids, were Very accommodating, helpful and positive. I also had great family support between Larry's and Kerry's family. So if you ever get stuck down here in the hospital know you will be well taken care of! I didn't really realize how sick I was. I am very grateful to have a brother with the skills and talents to help me make it through this crisis. I'd recommend Dr. Stratford to anyone. Feel free to ask me any questions. Text me whatever and I will answer what I can. I just appreciate your support and prayers in the coming months.

Love you all!

Laurie

...Mark turned to talk to me & he fell off the bed, just then (2) nurses walked in. The one asked if he was ok while the other one started laughing with us. I quickly asked her if she could take a picture. Laughter is one of the best medicine's....

Saturday May 24, 2014…the St. George ER

     Now for the rest of the story...Mark was coming down to St. George to clean so Courtney and I thought we could tag along. My OB said it was ok just take frequent breaks and to remember my lifting restrictions as well as rest. Mark and the boys went down Wednesday and I started to get sick with a fever chills etc. So I wasn't sure I would go or not. That night I felt better and even better the next day so I decided to go down after all. We took our time. We got to the condo relaxed, the girls swam I sat on the edge and watched. Friday the boys went on a motorcycle ride to mesquite and Courtney, Paul the girls and I just chilled doing things at the condo. We were leaving to go home Saturday but...Saturday morning early like 4-5 am I awoke freezing and had uncontrollable chills. Mark threw every blanket, jacket, shirt anything he could find on top of me to get me warm. I finally told Mark "call Kerry". He said we could meet him at the clinic but thought I should just go to the ER well I didn't think I was sick enough to go to the ER. So Mark went back to sleep but I was having a hard time breathing also, so I woke Mark up and apparently Kerry had been trying to get a hold of us to say just go to the ER. So off to the ER we went and when we got there Kerry was there and had everything in place. As we were rushing through the ER doors Kerry was giving directions to lots of different people "Just like in the ER movies" they rushed me back. My blood pressures were low, I had a fever, and I was Very sick. They started pumping me full of fluid and my blood pressure was still not stabilizing so they took me to a special room where they put in a central line in my neck and another in my artery (to better measure my blood pressure). Then Kerry and Mark gave me a blessing before taking me to the ICU. 

Friday May23rd...just chillin around the condo

We were off to St. George and I was feeling ok. We took our time driving down. Later we met up with the boys at the condo. Later Courtney took me over to my brother, Kerry’s house (he’s a Family Practitioner doctor in St. George). We visited for a while and I felt pretty good. He drove me back to the condo.

Oh by the way Mark decided he wanted to get some Palm tree's (like his friend Scott Bringhurst) to plant in front of the house. Sooo he got (3). We'll see how they work out...

 

Thursday May 22nd....the girls off to St. George

We were off to St. George and I was feeling ok. We took our time driving down. Later we met up with the boys at the condo.

Wednesday May 21st... the boys off to St. George

Mark and the boys left for St. George to clean. I was not feeling well had a low grade fever, I felt constipated so I was wondering if it was from that, I was also a little nauseated. I slept most of the day. Tam came by to bring me a corn dog and I couldn’t stay awake to talk with her. Courtney ran to the store to get Gatorade etc. for me. Finally that night I started to feel better so I decided that I would go down to St. George with Courtney and the girls the following morning after Peyton was done with preschool.

May 18th....Unexpected miracles leading to a new path...

With everything that happened prior to my surgery; Chloe having MRSA and maybe not being able to have the surgery, the blessing the night before-blessing the surgeon to know how and what to do as things came up in the surgery, the cancer hiding where no one would detect it until it was too late and then all the sudden appearing. Mark and I feel calm that this will be a difficult journey but one that will help us to grow. Even though we know it’s cancer but we don’t know the pathology behind it; staging etc. we don’t feel like this is a death sentence like most people would tend to think. There will be a lot of changes good and bad each one to give us a new perspective on life. Don’t get me wrong IT WILL BE HARD but we are surrounded by good family, friends, the gospel and most of all love.

I thought Mark would have a hard time as well as Chris. I texted Tom to tell him Mark needed a blessing and maybe a few others. I think Mark is still in shock. Chris is angry. Courtney will cry with me and support me. Peyton wants to see my owies and sit on my lap. Paul-I haven’t come out directly and told him but he knows I went to the hospital and that something is wrong. He keeps asking if he can stay and help take care of me… Mark and I told Austin he just sat there quiet like usual. When Mark went down there later he asked him if it made him sad and he said yes, but I wonder still his full comprehension of what’s ahead. I guess in a certain sense none of us do. When we find out more information later this week we will call Parker’s mission president and ask him how to proceed with telling Parker.

May 15th....Dr. Hoverman and unforeseen miracles...

Later when Dr. Hoverman came in to talk to me it came up in our discussion that “Dr. Williams (another OB that assisted her in the surgery) said after they discovered the cancer, she was meant to come in today for us to find this”. Dr. Hoverman said the same thing to me when she took the uterus out this blob/mass about the size of 50¢piece fell into that space where the uterus was. Since they were doing the hysterectomy vaginally they had a hard time seeing where it came from. She thought it came from the colon wall or was maybe pushed up against it. So she looked at the ovaries and they looked good, then she went inside the bladder to make sure nothing cancer like was there and it looked good also. Between the doctors they couldn’t really tell where the source was coming from but since it was attached to the fallopian tube they concluded that must be where the source came from. They sent everything off to pathology and said it would take 3-5 days before we knew anything. So far it’s been the longest 4 days of my life (two of which pathology doesn’t work because it’s the weekend). So really the earliest we would hear something would be Tuesday and the latest hopefully would be Friday. We would be in St. George by then so I asked her to call me with the staging results.

I asked her what would happen next. She said that I would have a cat scan and that she would refer us to on OB GYN Oncologist and they would take it from there. I asked if I would lose my hair she said yes probably. She explained that they treat it like ovarian cancer. First surgery, where they would take out the ovaries, whatever lymph nodes might be affected and any peritoneal lining they think might be affected. I’m sure I asked her more questions but I started to become numb at that point. I thanked her for all her help. She left and I just sat there pondering how my life was going to be changing. One thing I did know is that I wanted a picture of me with my hair before I started to lose it and the family. I also was worried how Parker would take the news. Mark was afraid he would say if I’d only gone out sooner I would’ve been back by now to help. My opinion- I think him being on his mission is a blessing that will help us through this and that maybe him being out serving made it possible for them to find it when they did.

May 15th....Mark in the waiting room...

Mark was in the waiting room ad they called him back to a conference room. Dr. Hoverman said that as she took out the uterus a mass/lump of something fell in its place. They froze a section and determined that it was cancer. It was attached to the fallopian tube but had fallen away from the colon wall. So to be safe she called in a Colon Rectal specialist/General surgeon. He came in and talked to Mark and got permission to go in laparascopically and check things out. I believe the Colon Rectal/General surgeon doctors’ name was H. Tae Kim, anyway he went in and after he took the mass out he looked around and couldn’t find anything. Looking at my hx (history) and what they were seeing the doctors believe it wasn’t colon cancer but probably fallopian tube which is a rare cancer maybe 1500 people in the whole world get it. It possibly could be from my colon also, but we just don’t know. 

"Heavenly Father knows when even when a sparrow falls to the ground"
(Mark)

"Mark's 'swallow experience': when Doctor Hoverman came out into the consultation room and told him I had cancer, his first thought was how am I going to tell Laurie. He walked out of the room called the temple and put my name on the prayer roll. Then he met with Doctor Kim, which afterwards he went to the waiting room sat down and the thought that came to him was; the scripture about the sparrow and how the Lord new each one of us and everything about us. Mark said "He knew that the Lord knew us and our situation,  the Lord knows each of us individually. "

 
 (New Testament-Mathew 10:29-31)

     

       29) Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground

             without your Father.

       30) But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

       31) Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.

May 15th...Hysterectomy plus...

The next morning they had tried to call early to move up my surgery time but I didn’t get the call until 8:15 am they wanted us there by 9:15 am. It would be pushing it but we would hurry. So we got there to the hospital did the pre-op check in. changed, got my IV and we were off to surgery. I met one more time with Dr. Hoverman and then with the anesthesiologist. I got into the operating room they had me scoot over onto the operating table. Dr. Hoverman said just think when you’re done you’ll have no more periods and the anesthesiologist said “it’s been great not having one for so long now”. We all cracked up. Then he asked if I was ready to go to sleep, I said sure see later.

When I got to my room after the surgery I was hurting. The first item on the agenda was to get my pain under control! The nurse went to check on the orders and I looked at the clock thinking to myself its 5 pm why is it so late. So I asked Mark how it went. He said the surgery went fine but there were complications, they found cancer. He said I told him “I wondered if they would with the pain I’d been having.” Then the nurse came back. Later when we had time to talk this is how I understood the story went.

          

Marks Birthday...

On the Monday before my surgery Chloe came down with MRSA again. Dr. Hoverman wanted me to be tested if I tested positive we would have to postpone the surgery until after I had taken the antibiotic. So Tuesday morning I got an order from Dr. Hales and got tested for MRSA. We didn’t find out until about 3 pm on Wednesday that the preliminary said I was negative, so the surgery was still on.

The night before my hysterectomy Chris & the girls came over for Marks birthday. We had a bbq with cake and ice cream. At the end we remembered that we wanted to give me a blessing but the girls were done so Courtney took them home. Mitch ended up coming over so he stayed and helped with the blessing. Chris did the anointing and Mark gave the blessing. There was a peaceful feeling throughout the whole blessing. He blessed that the Dr. with her knowledge and skills would also be aware of things throughout the surgery and to be able to make good decisions as things presented themselves and how to handle things. He blessed me and the family with many other things but that is what stood out to both Mark and I. We both felt confident about our surgeon and her skills especially with the blessing. 

Dr. Hoverman and the bleeding options...

Dr. Claire Hoverman met with me and discussed my options. I was already on progesterone to help with the bleeding so we opted to have the hysteroscopy done. After the hysteroscopy Dr. Hoverman said she removed 5 polyps. It didn’t help the bleeding right at first then it stopped it except for some occasional spotting. I asked her what it meant if I felt like I wasn’t emptying my bladder all the way, she said it was stress incontinence, where when you sneeze you might have a little pee come out. She said it was fairly common in women, who have given birth because it weakens the sphincter muscles, which hold the pee in. So we talked some more and decided that I needed a hysterectomy but I couldn’t get it done until after I was done with finals around the middle of May. We also decided that she would do the trans-vaginal sling at the same time. 

First semester of Nursing School...

 All this was going on while I was in my 1^st semester of nursing school. During the same time I also had an endoscopy because my stomach was bugging me. I ended up having erosive esophagitis. In the top layer of my lower esophagus the tissue was changing because of acid from my stomach coming up into my esophagus. Dr. Merrill put me on a new medicine that gave me diarrhea and made me nauseous. After about a week I couldn't take it so they had to get another one approved by the insurance company. Luckily that one is working! I really struggled with school…I got a study group, I spent lots of time studying, I just wasn't testing very well. Well finals came and I didn’t pass Pharmacology, so I had to write a letter of acceptance asking them to put me back in the program. So I should be getting a letter in the next week or so. In the fall I will only be taking pharmacology instead of moving on ahead with my nursing cohort. I’ m sad about it, they are great people but life happens. So I will only have one class next fall but will start
with a new cohort in January for my 2^nd semester of nursing school. It will only put me behind one semester.

This is my blog on my Fallopian Tube cancer…

This is my blog on my cancer… it feels really weird to say that, knowing you are writing it about yourself, trying to realize that me, I, really have cancer. Let me fill you in on a little background.

In August of 2013 I went in to have my 2^nd total knee done on my left knee, about 1 ½ years previous I had a total knee replacement on my right knee. Everything went very good; recovery was hard as usual but it went great. Towards the end of my physical therapy treatment my left foot started to bother me. I figured it was from the knee surgery and my body would just adjust. I started to have unusual menstrual bleeding. Again I thought it was stress from the surgery. After the bleeding continued and got worse I decided to call the doctor to be seen. At this point I was bleeding through a super tampon, a maxi night pad and through my clothes. Sometimes this would happen every hour sometimes a little longer.

When I got in to see my regular doctor (Dr. Reid Hales) in October he said he would like to send me to an OB GYN. I didn’t have one currently so the first one I could get into would be in December. So I had to deal with the bleeding until I could get in. 

I saw Dr. Williams in December for the initial exam then we went in and did a D&C to see if that would help stop the bleeding. She did some tests that said I hadn’t gone into menopause yet. She cut out a cervical polyp that wouldn’t stop bleeding so of course she got it all over her scrubs. I felt bad. The procedure still didn’t stop my bleeding. I was becoming anemic. At one point my hematocrit was 29 and my hemoglobin was down to 9, which both were pretty low. I was having all the effects of being anemic; light headed, not thinking clearly, easily winded and fatigue. All of which made sense. So Dr. Williams referred me to one of her partners who was the only one in their clinic that did hysteroscopies. That’s where they take a camera and go up inside your uterus to see if they can see anything.