Lashed By Storms

Chapter Twenty

Surgery and Travel

For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Psalm 30:5

            Had her doctor’s office notified Anne about the atypical results of her last pap smear, she would have scheduled a follow-up appointment. For years she’d had unusually heavy bleeding during her periods, and pain during intercourse. She didn’t want to complain, and she didn’t want to be seen as weak.

            “I just sucked it up,” she said. “I shouldn’t have. No woman should go through what I went through, especially when something can be done.”

            “My pain had reached an intolerable level before I scheduled an appointment with my gynecologist. His office was in the same hospital where Mike was working in the emergency room.

            “After he finished his examination, my doctor asked me to stay, saying he would call Mike to come up to the office so he could visit with the two of us. That was my first indication things probably weren’t good.

            “I was right. The news wasn’t good. He told us there was the possibility of endometrial cancer. When the three of us looked at images from my vaginal ultrasound, even I could see the unmistakable evidence of what the doctor said was a complex tumor.

            “The tumor was seven inches in length, with fingers shooting out in all directions. My mind didn’t believe what my eyes were seeing or what my ears were hearing.

            “As we continued viewing the images, my doctor told us it looked like I had ovarian or cervical cancer, and that it appeared quite advanced. He said the tumor looked too far along to give me a good chance of survival.

            “The final blow was hearing that I probably had no more than six to eight weeks to live.”

            Nothing about what she heard seemed real to Anne. For a moment all she could think about was losing her Dad to cancer, their losing Mike’s Mom to acute leukemia, and her fighting like a mama bear to help Mike get through his battle with PNH.

            “And then,” Anne said, “my biggest fear was not surviving the recommended surgery and never seeing my boys again.”

            Time was of the essence that Friday afternoon; surgery was scheduled for the following Monday. Rainy arranged to fly in to take care of Noah and Aaron. Mike and Anne met her at the airport Saturday morning.

            “I spent as much time as I could that weekend with the boys, and I prepared a few meals for the freezer to help make things a bit easier for their grandma. Mike prayed with me, and I knew God had me in the palm of His hands, but it was hard not to think about the surgery.

            “When Monday came, I was a crying mess. I was afraid of the surgery, and even more afraid of dying and leaving Noah and Aaron. My boys mean everything to me, and it made my heart hurt to think of them growing up without me.

            “Though I knew Mike would take care of them if I didn’t survive, I wanted to be there for every first for each of them; Little League games, prom nights, high school graduations, and more.”

A Tough Surgery

            Anne’s surgery was brutal—at one point she started bleeding out. Her surgeon and his assistants had so much work to do. They removed her uterus, her ovaries, part of her cervix, her fallopian tubes, and some lymph nodes. Then they had to rebuild her cervix and repair her colon.

            The surgical team included a pathologist. Part way through the surgery, he was able to tell the surgeon that Anne didn’t have ovarian or cervical cancer. Five days after her surgery, a full pathology report led to a diagnosis of endometrial cancer.

            “When the anesthetic wore off, I was in mind-numbing, off-the-charts pain. The nurses wanted me to get up and move around. I wanted to choke them.

            “My pain continued well into the second day after surgery, and no one would give me anything for relief, because I had an epidural in my back. The nurses said if I were given any more pain killers, I would be over-medicated.

            “I knew the nursing staff was overworked, but I also suspected they thought I was being a drama queen because my husband was a doctor—they no doubt thought I wanted extra attention.

            “After thirty-six hours of pure hell, a nurse checked the epidural. It had worked its way out of my back. Finally, someone was willing to give me medicine to alleviate my pain.

            “People kept coming to see me. I was so sick I was throwing up and hurting in a way I hadn’t hurt earlier. On top of all that, I was exhausted from having gone so long without pain meds. I knew I looked like hell, and I just wanted to be left alone.”

            At Anne’s request, one of the nurses put a sign on her door that said “NO VISITORS.” When Mike saw the sign, he took it down.

            “I wanted to wring Mike’s neck.”

          “What the heck are you doing?” I asked him.

            “Anne, people want to see you,” he said, “and you need to let them visit.”

            “After all the support I had given Mike during his bone marrow transplant, I couldn’t believe his actions. I wanted him to experience, for just one hour, the pain I was going through—I knew if he did he would have slapped that sign back up on the door in a heartbeat.”

            The positive news about the endometrial cancer was that after the surgery, the cancer was gone. Endometrial cancer feeds on estrogen, and there was none left in Anne’s body. She immediately plunged into menopause.

            “Before sending me home, my doctor had warned me that I was in for a long, painful recovery. The menopause situation only exacerbated things. For the next four months I endured night sweats that drenched the beach towels I put on the bed. At the same time, I had tremendous on-going pain while the nerves surrounding my bladder and colon reattached.

            “Mike and I were grateful for the two weeks Rainy stayed to take care of our boys. There were times I wished she could have stayed just a bit longer. Keeping up with Noah and Aaron was challenging; it didn’t take long for pain to drain my energy.

            “Thankfully, when we needed help, the friends we had made at a small non-denominational church were willing to come spend time with the boys, or to bring in a meal.

            “Mike’s focus was on his work, where he was in charge of the emergency room. When he was home, he would spend time with the boys. It warmed my heart to see the special bond he had with each of them.

            “While I was recovering, all kinds of thoughts went through my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about the marriage conference Mike had insisted we attend, and about the words he had written in his letter to me.

            “I didn’t think the conference had changed him all that much; in fact, the words he had so passionately read had become a distant memory.

            “I thought back to the surgery I’d had as a teenager. If my mother had been honest with me, and told me then what was going on with my body, I could have avoided the emotional and physical pain of miscarriages. Mike and I could have planned for adoption earlier in our marriage.

            “It hurt to think that my mother hadn’t been honest with me. I remembered her telling me, after each of my miscarriages, “’That’s God’s way of telling you that something’s wrong and you shouldn’t have children.’”

            “Her words, etched deep in my heart, caused painful memories to surface; I had to wonder how she could have been so insensitive.”

Orders for Mike to Deploy

            Anne was still recovering, doing her best to keep up with the boys and take care of the house, when Mike got orders in late January 2003, to deploy to Rota, Spain. They were surprised the Navy hadn’t ordered his deployment sooner, but we were grateful he was being sent to a safe area of the world.

            Rota proved a secure, as well as predictable environment. Patients who were sent there had been injured three or four days earlier; they had already received treatment and been stabilized elsewhere.

            Sometimes there would be as many as fifty patients brought in every second or third day. Mike was one of twenty doctors available to treat them. On days when patients weren’t being received, doctors were free to go to the beach or into town for dinner.

            “Neither of us knew long he might be away, so we couldn’t make plans for when he might come back,” Anne said. “I knew it might be a long haul. Thankfully, each week I seemed to have a bit more energy, and slightly less pain.

            “With my boys so active, I had to pace myself. On the days when I thought my energy wouldn’t last until bedtime, I’d breathe a prayer of thanksgiving after I made it through the day. God had brought me through surgery—because of His grace, I would be around to watch Noah and Aaron grow up.”

            With Mike away, Anne dreaded going to the mailbox—there was never anything but bills and junk mail. She meticulously paid utility and other bills, making sure nothing was overlooked. She knew she wasn’t alone; those responsibilities and others were what all military spouses handled when their loved ones were deployed.

            Three weeks after Mike left, she found something more in the mailbox. It had been some time since she had received a letter, and the handwriting was familiar. She opened the envelope and began reading.

Mike had sent her a love letter!

Love Letters Kept Coming

            Anne couldn’t believe her husband had written a love letter. In it he told her how much he appreciated her, thanked her for all her hard work while he was away, and reiterated how much he loved her.

            “I would re-read Mike’s letter, especially on those days when the boys had been particularly energetic or tried my patience in some way. Reading again how much I meant to Mike picked up my spirits.

            “And his letters kept coming! Before, I had never looked forward to going to the mail box. Now, I couldn’t wait.

            “Mike was letting me know how much he missed me. He begged me to come visit. I was feeling lots better, but I knew making arrangements to visit my husband would take time and energy.

            “And then, Mike informed me all necessary arrangements were in place for me to visit. I was pleasantly surprised. It has always been my responsibility to make travel arrangements. On his own, Mike arranged for his dad and Rainy to take care of our boys while I traveled out of the country. He had seen to every detail; all I had to do was pack.”

Four Days of Romance

By June 2003, nine months following her surgery, Anne felt the best she had in years. She flew with her boys to Rex and Rainy’s home in Indiana, and from there to Spain to meet up with Mike. Once in Spain, she couldn’t believe all the plans he had for them.

“Mike had thought of everything! Those four days were like the honeymoon we’d never had. I felt loved, cherished, and treasured. Every hour of every day was filled with things to do and see. Our evenings were over-the-top romantic.

“I fell in love with Mike all over again!”

            Anne’s body had completely adjusted to all the trauma from surgery, and her and Mike’s physical relationship was the best it had ever been. She regretted waiting so long to seek medical help. Looking back, she found it hard to believe she had had lived with and tolerated pain for so many years, particularly during her cycle; if she could have had a do-over, she would have sought treatment options sooner.

            “I was amazed by the effort and consideration Mike had put into planning for my visit. It made every minute of our time together extra special.”

            Included in the activities Mike had arranged was an evening of sampling sangrias and tapas, a type of hors ’d’ourves. He wanted Anne to make their favorite tapas at home, so he purchased a cookbook for her with a variety of recipes. Their favorite tapas were made with hard cheese; brushed with oil; seasoned with paprika, garlic, and other flavor enhancers; and then grilled.

            “To this day,” Anne said, “I use Manchego cheese, a Spanish cheese we first tasted in Italy, to make tapas. And I have to admit, the mention of them still makes my heart go pitter-patter.”

            Anne and Mike made a life-time of memories in those four days. They hated to see their time together end, but other doctors would soon want short vacations. They also knew their boys would be anxious to have Mom home.

            Anne hadn’t been home long when she was given information about her boys’ educational progress. She was also asked to become women’s ministry director at her church.

She didn’t anticipate the degree to which both would impact her family.

***
When Anne shared her story of having no choice other than surgery, it made me wonder why we, as humans, so often endure and suffer, when there are options. Why do we wait until we are at the ‘edge’ to do something? Perhaps the cure seems worse than the condition? Perhaps we are more comfortable with what we know and fear change? Regardless, I was happy this portion of Anne’s story had a happy ending. And I could tell by the look in her eyes and the expression on her face, her happy ending wouldn’t last.

Chapter Twenty

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version,