EWK
Saturday, April 14th. 10:05pm. The shit hit the fan. HARD
So things were going swimmingly. Aside from the fact we had not gotten our pathology back, we were on a definite upswing.
And we were super hopeful. Our surgeon (who again I can not reiterate enough was amazing) had his boss, The Chief of Neurosurgery, scrub in as his second in command.
After the surgery, the Chief of Neurosurgery had said to us “I think you are going to be very happy with what we find out. I am not even sure if it is a tumor…it could be something like a Venus Infarct”. Well, I didn’t know what a Venus Fart, as we called it, was, but I do know it sounded better than cancer.
But he then cautioned me and said, in the medical world there is this aphorism that says “when you hear hoofbeats, you think of horses not zebras”.
Basically, saying he can’t guarantee what he sees or believes…because well, sometimes a darn zebra walks up unexpectedly.
However, I was so excited and unfortunately while in the hospital, I had my phone. I decided to tell my entire universe via email that everything was going to be okay…and that most likely – it was not cancer. Hooray!!
My mom was still with us, and my sister Maureen was going to be arriving on Sunday, April 15th. We would all go together on Monday, April 16th to meet with Dr. Patel, my surgeon to get the pathology. He preferred to speak to us in person, as normal course of business. We could have received the initial pathology after just one week, but he wanted to present it at the U of W Tumor board for two weeks to make sure. The last thing I wanted was to be told one thing (positive) only to have it reversed the following week. So we decided, lets just wait out the two weeks…I’m going nowhere and will be busy recovering. Getting word on pathology would not be the highest priority for at least a week.
Nine days post surgery we all head to bed. Remember, our kids sleep on mattresses in our bedroom…so when we go to bed, we all go to bed, in one room. My mom was staying in our guest room. Kids fell asleep easily comforted by the fact they were literally feet from Will and me. They had fun full activity packed days thanks to Kate.
Will and I decided to finally watch a show together on his laptop. We pressed play at 10pm exactly.
At 10:05pm Will was on our house phone with 911 and calling our neighbor Jim who is a friend and doctor, from his cell phone yelling for help asking him to come over and turn on all the lights and make sure the door was open so the ambulance EMT’s can get in the house.
He thinks I am dead. I am completely blue, all the color drained from my face. I am foaming at the mouth. Eyes have rolled to the back of my head and I am no longer breathing. 911 operator is teaching him how to correctly administer CPR. Compressions on the chest only, to the beat of the Bee Gee’s tune Staying Alive. Not kidding. It is also not working.
Panicked, Will is yelling for our son Will to wake up. Blessedly, he did not.
Why Not Me 