IN THE BEGINNING...

On 12 May I took Anna to the ER @ S.E. MO. Hospital because she seemed confused and disoriented. I thought it was from blood loss due to extremely heavy menstrual flow. At the E.R. she was examined, blood work was drawn and she was admitted to the Gyn floor.

No sooner than her butt hit the bed the lab results came back and showed that she was in diabetic keto-acidosis, so they rushed her to ICU. Due to the fact I got about 8-10 hours of sleep over 6 days, the next week runs into a blur, so events may not be chronicled in exact chronological order.

Because her body was working itself to exhaustion trying to breathe fast enough to burn off the acid, the decision was made to sedate and intubate her and put her on a ventilator and let the machine do the work. During the next 6 days CT scans, X-Rays and MRIs were done of her head, chest and abdomen. These showed shadowing in her lungs, a tumor in her uterus and that she has had a stroke.

Dr. Everybodies Feelings, the Gyno guesstimated late Stage II/early Stage III endometrial cancer, did a D&C, said she took biopsy samples and said the pathology report would be back in a few days. In the mean time she would consult w/ an Oncologist friend of hers and we should start looking for somewhere to get treatment. I said to send her to Barnes.

The folks @ Barnes Radiation examined her on 25 MAY, but could not take biopsy samples due to the location of the tumor. So WTF did Dr. Feelings @ S.E. sample?? A friggin' ham sammich??

(*UPDATE - OK, got the biopsy straightened out. I didn't think about Radiation NOT having the equipment to access the inside of the uterus like they can in a D&C, so that's why they couldn't get their own samples. Told you I'm sleep deprived.*)

While she was 'tubed, they biopsied her lung tissue to determine what was causing the shadows on the chest imagery. Before the results came back showing nothing more than pneumonia and a form of yeast infection, some 3rd world doctor veterinarian, Dr. M'Bufu, after consulting w/ Dr. Feelings, took it upon himself to scare about 7-10 years off my life by informing me it was their opinion that the cancer had spread to her lungs. This drops the patient's survival rate to 16.5% over 5 years.

The Most Excellent Nurse figured out I was dealing with more than just exhaustion, so I told her what M'Bufu said. She was like "WTF?!?" and pulled up the last 3 days x-rays to show me that the shadowing was clearing up. Cancer don't just clear up. That gave me back a few of the years M'Bufu scared off of me, and now I'm planning on spending them figuring out how to water board a goat beauty pageant judge reject with molten lead...

After a few days and some Weapons Grade Antibiotics, the pneumonia cleared up, and the acidosis and her diabetes was brought under control.

The stroke was brought on by a blockage in one of the blood vessels in her brain. The damage progressed so slowly that no one noticed anything amiss, and she was able to adapt to it as it happened. Most of the damage is in the part of her brain that processes what her right eye sees, some in the memory and cognitive centers as well. There appears to be very little if any impairment in her muscle control and no paralysis, so she should make an excellent physical recovery with the exception of loss of vision in the right eye. But we can't make a full assessment until she has had some time to recover.

They removed the tube mid-day Sunday, 20 MAY and transferred her to Barnes Monday night.