My Raging Tumor

I was reading my friend Leslie's blog about corn detasseling today, and I was reminded of my very angry past. I used to get mad, and I'm not talking throw a couple of cuss words around mad... this was full-on RAGE. I tore up many things. I remember being angry about something and picking up a piece of cloth and tearing it to shreds. I trashed my music stand once. I don't even remember what I was mad about. My friends dreaded my moodiness. I would go from happiness to complete depression or anger in seconds.

As it turned out, it wasn't just raging teenage hormones. I had an adrenal tumor that played with my emotions constantly. The tumor also caused me to have high blood pressure, and I couldn't do anything to raise my heart rate without having a horrible episode in which my head pounded, my heart palpitated, my whole body became weak, and then I would throw up. That went on from fourth grade until I was a senior in high school (the tumor wasn't found until I was 18). I was a fourth grader taking high blood pressure medicine and putting nitroglycerin pills under my tongue whenever I felt an episode come on. Yeah, our small town doctor was a quack and a half. He discouraged my mom from taking me to "the big city" for tests... "They'll just tell you the same thing and charge you a lot of money" he said. Over the years, the symptoms got worse, so finally I went to a specialist.

The specialists ran numerous tests on my heart and could not find anything wrong. Finally, one of the doctors insinuated to my mom that it was all in my head. I was sitting right there when he said it. Asshole!

One last test was performed (by a female doctor I might add) and the amount of catecholamines in my urine was high. They did an MRI, and sure enough, there was a fist size tumor growing on my adrenal gland. I was scheduled for surgery right away.

I spent spring break of my senior year in the hospital. I wasn't worried about the surgery, but I had no idea what to expect. No one prepared me for what I would wake up to find... tubes hanging out everywhere. I had medical students come to visit me and perform exams because my condition was so rare at the time.

When I woke up from the surgery, I was being moved to the ICU. My blood pressure dropped to 50/20. I was completely miserable. My throat ached from the tube going through my nose down to my stomach, but they couldn't give me any water. My whole body felt like it had been hit by a truck. I couldn't see anything because I didn't have my contacts in and my glasses were packed away somewhere where no one could find them. I have no idea what the nurse taking care of me looked like. They had to give me blood. I remember lying there watching the blurry blood drip into my arm. It was the early 90's, so not much was known about AIDS then. As I lay there I thought "God, please don't let me get AIDS."

The misery wasn't over yet... the next day I was moved back to a regular room. The surgeon informed me that the tumor had grown into my kidney, so he also had to remove my left kidney and adrenal gland with the tumor. I took the news just fine. I think my parents were surprised. I was just glad the tumor was out. That night, the IV site in my hand wore out. I felt like my hand was on fire. It was almost unbearable. Since it was the middle of the night and the hospital had less staff, an inexperienced nurse tried to put a new IV in my hand. I watched her wriggle the needle around under my skin. She finally gave up and said they'd have to wait for a certain guy who was busy. Meanwhile, I thought my hand was going to burn up. I don't know how long I waited before he finally showed up and took care of it.

I don't remember exactly what day this happened, but suddenly I was freezing cold and couldn't stop shaking. I called the nurse, and she found that someone had mistakenly raised the level of one of my IV's (it was one of the other nurses).

One of the highlights of my stay in the hospital was when they pulled the tube out of my stomach. Gag! The staff at St. Vincent's also pumped me so full of fluids that I gained 10 pounds overnight. When I left the hospital, I had stretch marks on my legs from all the fluid gain, huge purple bruises on my arms and hands, not to mention a giant scar (about 15 inches long) on my abdomen.

That was a horrible experience, but thankfully the outcome is that I remain tumor free. My blood pressure has actually been on the low side for the last 14 years. I am glad my friends stuck through the rage and mood swings. Since the tumor was removed, I have been a very laid back person. People who didn't know me then would find it hard to believe that I had such rage.

Living with one kidney is no different than living with two. I'm not bitter about it, but I have to wonder if my kidney could have been saved if the idiot doctor had sent me for tests earlier.

Happy New Year

James and I actually went to a party this year for New Year's Eve. It was lots of fun. We drank, we danced, we yelled at passing cars...

On New Year's Day we ate our traditional meal of Reuben sandwiches and cooked cabbage. It's tradition in my family to eat corned beef and cabbage on New Year's Day for prosperity in the new year. We laid around all day and watched movies.

I had a great 2005 because I had Tess and was able to work from home all year so that I could take care of her. I am not sure what 2006 has in store. I'll be returning to the office (part time in the office and part time at home), so we'll see how it goes. I don't have any resolutions because I think I would just be setting myself up for failure; however, I'm going to try to eat less sugar and save more money.

Happy 2006!