All done! It was a long day, we got to the hospital at 11:00 and left at 6:00 for a procedure that took less than an hour. Dr. Jaimes (pronounced hi miss) did the procedure. He also did my first liver biopsy. I really like him. He’s calm, confident and has a kind bedside manner. All the staff at St. David’s Medical Center Central were super organized and friendly.
After being prepped in the room, Dr. Jaimes said he couldn’t find the lesions on the liver. Ha ha I thought, that’s because they’re gone! Unfortunately he was able to locate them. I was awake but in twilight with local anesthesia. He needed to take a lot of tissue with two different needle locations in order to get the right amount of tissue. I like to think those tumors were hard to find and biopsy because they are so small. After he finished the last tissue grab I was in some serious pain. I’m talking the kind when you start groaning and saying things in a little gasp y voice like, “help me” and “it really really hurts”. I was not f-ing around, it ranked up there with labor pain but was short lived. The doctor was very apologetic and I know it couldn’t be avoided. Needless to say, there will be no running for 48 hours and I expect tonight may be a little bit difficult to sleep despite some pain meds.
Becca and I were sitting on my couch after she brought me home and were laughing about something Charlotte wrote and I nearly cried it hurt so much to laugh. If you’ve ever broken or bruised a rib, you know what I’m talking about.
Becca the wonder sister took me to the hospital, sat with me until surgery time and picked me up and drove me home. Friend Beth sat with me and bought me food after an all day fast after the procedure. And friends Robyn and Denise took care of our kids all day long. Thank you, thank you for all the help today. What a blessing to have so many helping hands.
I am wondering how meditation will go tomorrow as deep breaths are very painful. I will do my best. Enjoy the holiday weekend. Right now 11 years ago we were high above the city of San Francisco at the Carnelian Room for a beautiful rehearsal dinner given by my parents in law, Charles and Cornelia. It has a panoramic view of the city and the bay but that night it was socked in by fog so you couldn’t see a thing. It didn’t matter because all we needed was inside the walls of that room. There were speeches and moments that night I will always remember and we were surrounded by love. It’s what I’m learning. Look within, there isn’t a thing outside ourselves that can make us happier than what we feel from a strong, calm inner spirit.
When I woke up Thursday morning in Houston to find out the results of the last scan Charles and I were both paralyzed with fear. I started to get tied to an outcome and panic. Then I listened for exactly one minute to Oprah Winfrey’s voice on my Oprah/Chopra meditation. She said everything is made of energy EVERTHING (as she draws out that word) and if you put out to the Universe all your energy towards something, the Universe will rise to meet you. That’s all I heard and in an instant I felt calm and at peace. I realized that whatever the scan said, I would handle it and make a new plan if need be to reach my goal of beating this. I decided I didn’t need to be scared of the next thing because it’s going to happen regardless of what I am scared of. What I CAN do is handle each new piece of information as a guide towards reclaiming my health. Living a life full of anxiety I can’t tell you how joyful I felt with that power. Charles had been in the shower during my little transformation and as he stood in front of me, worried and scared I held his hands facing him with a deranged grin no doubt and said, “it’s going to be all right no matter what the scan says. We are going to be fine, we’ve got this.” He looked at me like – who came and stole my wife! Needless to say in full disclosure, I did fully wet my pants while walking into MD Anderson that morning, not kidding. I was still nervous, but not scared. I know, TMI but I just have to share these things because if you have to sit for 45 minutes in pee filled jeans and you are 44 and sober, you just have to laugh.
Here I am getting into the car tonight which was a challenge with the pain and laughter combined.
Becca and Beth
Nite nite,
xoxo Hilary