First off, I am sure there are others who could use the tickets more than me. I have had a pretty rough year, but I have felt the influence of the Holy Ghost in my life helping to give me perspective and I believe I will be with my family forever.
Also, I had mentioned back in February a few of the issues I was having, and have never posted a follow-up. Some of you might be interested in knowing what else has happened. Or maybe not. 🙂
Oh, I guess it might be important to note that I am not *that* old. I'm 50.
That said, on Feb 1, I woke up having not been able to pee for a day or two. My wife took me to the emergency room. Turns out I had a few legions on my brain and on my spinal cord. They said I must have had a stroke sometime in January, and at the time they though I had MS. A few spinal taps later (the first 2, the "spinal tapper" wasn't able to get the needle in the right place, so they had the Neurologist come and do it, and it worked) and they said the tests for MS came back negative (there are false-negatives, however) so they tested for a few other "worse" things all of which came back negative.
The legions on my spinal cord left me with numb finger-tips, a numb left leg (just the outer layers of the skin), a numb lower back, and the inability to fully empty my bladder. So I had a catheter in for about a month, which caused a few large bladder stones to form, so I had to have surgery to remove those.
Still unable to fully empty my bladder, and with the Urologist not wanting me to have a catheter because of the likely hood that I'd get more bladder stones, I chose to self-catheterize, which means I have to use a catheter a few times a day when I want to fully empty.
All the while, they kept trying to figure out why I had the legions on my brain and spinal cord. I had cancer when I was a child and it caused issues with my heart/arteries that we didn't realize until now. The radiation caused scar tissue, leaving my right carotid artery totally clogged. They thought/think that could be a cause of the strokes. I also have a hole in my heart that they thought could be the cause.
In the process of doing this, my Neurologist had said that the cause of the legions on my spinal cord could be due to a cancerous tumor somewhere in my body. He said that my body could have created anti-bodies to fight it, and they also attacked my spinal cord. But he couldn't find anything. Until May.
I was getting an MRI to see exactly where the blockage was in my right carotid artery (turns out it's right where at the base of the innominate artery, so I don't have great blood flow to my right arm, either) and they needed it done with contrast, but I had once had an allergic reaction to the contrast and told them I couldn't use that, but the vascular surgeon said he really needed it with contrast and that he'd give me Benadryl and steroids beforehand and I would be fine. So I agreed. The morning of the MRI, miraculously I remembered that the neurologist had wanted an MRI with contrast of my gut, and I had told him that I couldn't. My memory isn't that great, so I really believe I had some help in remembering that. So my wife called the neurologist, he was in, even though it was like 7am, and he said "yeah! I'll call the hospital and try to see if they can scan your abdomen as well!" They were able to, and they noticed a mass in my colon. So on that day, I got a call saying they thought I had cancer, and also that they thought I needed open-heart surgery to repair the clog in my innominate artery. (However, they ended up saying that fixing my artery would be too risky, so they have taken open-heart surgery off the table for now.)
So I had a colonoscopy where they removed some of the mass and it turns out it was a Neuroendocrine Tumor. Cancer. I had surgery the next week to have the tumor, some swollen lymph nodes around it, and my ascending colon, removed. Luckily the lymph nodes ended up being fine, and they got all the cancer, and a subsequent PET scan showed no signs of cancer, so I just have to see the oncologist again in December for some blood work, but he thinks I'm fine.
Lastly, (hopefully) my wife and I got in bed after the BYU/Troy game with the idea of watching it again as we fell asleep (we had some family over to watch the game, and my wife ended up talking to her siblings and so she wanted to watch it again, so she could pay more attention) and I noticed that I was seeing an aura like I do when I get migraines so I told my wife that I thought I was getting a migraine. But then I realized that I was starting to feel really, really weird, unlike anything I'd felt before and I knew I had to tell my wife that she might have to take me to the hospital again. The next thing I remember it was 2 hours later and I was in the AF emergency room, listening to the doctor say that he's getting an ambulance to take me to Utah Valley. I had had another stroke. I guess my short term memory had been lost for those 2 hours. I don't remember the car ride to the hospital, the MRI they did when I was there, etc. My wife said I asked her every 30 seconds what we were doing at the hospital - I couldn't remember sailing on my brother Mike's boat at Bear Lake earlier that day ("Mike has a sailboat???"), or even that BYU had played a football game that day ("BYU played football today???" ) I could remember all my kids, but I couldn't remember how old they were, or what year it was, etc. After I "woke" up, I could remember things from earlier that day and year, but those 2 hours are still lost to me.
I was in the hospital for a couple of days while they observed me, and there doesn't seem to be any bad effects from this latest stroke.
They are worried about doing anything with my arteries because of the scar tissue, etc. from the radiation I had for my cancer treatment as a boy, so all my doctors agreed that it wouldn't be bad to fix the hole in my heart. So I got that fixed last Wednesday. The surgery went great, but a few hours later, they were removing the things that they had inserted into my upper thigh to get the equipment up into my heart through, and I started feeling really nauseous. I told the nurse, and then I said "I think I'm going to pass out." My wife was sitting there and looked at my monitor and saw my heart rate was at 40, and then 30, and then 20, and then 0. The nurse yelled into her "communicator" that she needed the "crash cart" and a bunch of doctors and nurses came rushing in. When I "came to" lots of doctors were around my bed, somebody was inserting another IV, somebody was doing an ultra sound of my heart, and a bunch of other things. I still felt bad, but I could tell I was feeling better. Turns out I had flat-lined for 6 seconds, and then for 15 seconds. My poor wife 🙂
So the cardiologist thinks that, based on the locations of the legions on my brain, that it was probably caused by the hole in my heart. So we've got our fingers crossed that this was the last of my strokes.
Anyway, like I said, I know Heavenly Father is aware of all of us, and knows what our needs are, and knows what's best for us. So I'm not depressed. Not even mildly. I have a great life with a wonderful wife and 5 fantastic boys, and a great job with a fantastically understanding boss. Others who have lost their job, or gone through a divorce, or have had a loved one die, or a lot of other things, probably need this more than I do.
Go Cougs!