Karen's Day at Shands

Karen wanted a place for family and friends to be able to see how she is doing each day at Shands. This is how she is making that happen.

Results are in

October16

Oct 2, Friday, Dr. Morris Office

I am healing good, pain better, incision looks good.  Pathology report is in.  Dr. Morris was unable to give us much information but said it looked like a process associated with Leukemia.  He suggested that we not google at this time due to the fact, we don’t really know anything, and there’s alot of weird or misinformation out there.  so I went straight home and got online…lol…he was right.  He set up an appointment with Dr. Mahmood Oncologist for Oct 8.

Something kind of funny that goes with this… I had gone to Johnny Dukes to watch him ride my horse and get some fresh air and sunshine.  Also listen to his stories.  He has some amazing stories of years of horse riding and training.  I love him… Anyway, Don was coming home to get me because I wasn’t really supposed to be driving.  I still had plenty of time to make it to Dr. Morris’ office for the appointment and here comes Don flying down the dirt road to Johnny’s arena!  That’s weird, what is he doing?  Well, Dr.  Wadhera needed me to call his office by noon, so Don, was trying to get me.  It was 12:10.  Supposedly, the Doc was waiting for the phone call… Anyway, we hurried home, called him, put him on speaker so we would both hear what he said.  It was so crazy…he couldn’t really tell us anything over the phone, and was kind of scetchy and unclear,  but said that Dr. Morris would be consulting another doctor.  We looked at each other…  I told Don..this could not be a good thing, considering all the doctors I already had, what would I need another for…we shall soon see.

Surgery Bay Medical Center

October16

So they started with a nice laproscopic procedure but after they got in decided they needed to go in through an incision in my abdomen.  For those that don’t know,  laproscropic is just a few tiny little holes in the abdomen, but with an incision, it ends up being about 4 inches or so  straight up and down, at the belly button.  Anyway, they removed a mass about the size of a tennis ball, and put me all back together again.  I was on a clear liquid diet (that is nothing to eat that you cannot see through, for 6-7 days.  I was also on a patient dosing morphine pump a big part of the time, so I was also in “La La land”, and not necessarily in a good way.  I think the morphine made me see and hear very weird things.  As soon as I closed my eyes all kinds of colors and graphic objects would start swirling around like rivers.  I was scared to close my eyes, but of course, the morphine made me very sleepy.  Glad that part is over.  All in all, I was hospitalized from monday to tuesday (8 days).  Dr. Morris sent off my mass to get evaluated, but told me at the time, that it just looked like a lump of lymphnodes all clumped together and he couldn’t say for sure, but that he didn’t think it was cancer.  I remember thinking at that time,  that it would be very strange for a bunch of lymphnodes to gather up for no reason and start causing trouble, but whom am I…next apointment friday Oct 2, with Dr. Morris for post op and hopefully results…

Surgery prayer

October16

Sept 23.  Surgery was scheduled for 10 am.  I had several people come and pray with me but the most amazing at this point was when I was getting wheeled down to hallway to surgery and Don was with me. Here comes Carlos Isaziga and Jack Reese (from Jenks ave) running up the hallway towards me!  I was so suprised to see them.  They seemed somewhat out of breath, and said “Just in time, can we pray with you real quick?”  I felt so special and loved.  I knew someone had called them and they had made all this effort to get to me before I went.  This is God’s work.  I could not leave this out because it touched my heart so much.  I haven’t been to Jenks Ave. Church of Christ in years… I love the family at Jenks.  They continue to make such a huge impact on my life.  Praise God

at Bay Medical Center

October16

Sept 21, Monday I had called in sick, and was trying to feel better.  I was scared to eat much so I just ate a bananna and took some pain medicine I had.  My preop appmt was at 3:30 pm but I wasn’t sure I would make it.  something just didn’t feel right, it felt like something was trying to grow through my backbone.  Around 2 pm I called Dr. Wadhera’s office and told them I needed to either come there or go to the ER and they said go to the ER.  I called Dr Morris’ office and they said come there first.  I grabbed the kids and drove to town.  Myback was really hurting.  Dr. Morris got me admitted directly and I was put on the 2nd floor.  They scheduled another CT exam, an xray and hida scan to check gallbladder function.  The CT showed the mass to have changes since previous CT done 1 week earlier.  We would continue with the plan for laproscopic surgury for wednesday Sept.  23.

Let’s Begin…pt 2

October15

Dr Albibi scheduled an endoscopy/colonoscopy which only showed mild gastritis. Colon looked great. Dr. Morris decided he needed to do a diagnostic laproscopy of abdomen which he scheduled for September 23 with preop on September 21.

I continued to work at this time and ride my horses. I had met a girl named Rebecca and she started coming out to ride Cash. This was on the saturday just before I went into the hospital at BMC.  I was noticing some back pain but just thought is may be muscular.  So anyway I worked Thursday, Friday, was off Saturday and scheduled to work Sunday and Monday. While at work Sunday I spoke with Dr. Wadhera about the pain in my back. My stomach was bothering me too but the pain across my rib cage in back seemed worse/different. Don would press on it like counter pressure and it would really help. Dr. Wadhera thought it was muscular and a friend at work gave me a back rub ( thanks Kim). By Sunday night I was not doing well. I told Don I needed to call in sick. He had bought Subways for dinner.  my sandwich hit me like a ton of bricks.

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