The Dramatic Demise of a Tiny Little Tumor... Hopefully

Today is my surgery day!! It is a day that I have been looking forward to for almost 2 years now.

A little history. It all started at the end of summer 2009 when I felt a pain in my hip that wouldn’t go away. I originally thought it was growing pains, but the fact that it didn’t stop and the fact that I wasn’t growing to be ten feet tall convinced me otherwise. I didn’t actually go to the doctor’s for a while after that because I was taught that unless you are knocking on death’s door, you do not go to the doctor’s. Not that doctors were particularly helpful. But as time went on the pain got worse; it got so that I couldn’t function or sleep through the night without being woken up in stupid amounts of pain. The official stats, over the course of two years are:

·      Over 3000 Tylenol and Ibuprofen pills consumed.

·      Over thirty different blood tests (thank God I got over my childhood fear of needles)

·      Approximately 15 X-rays

·      Six different doctors

·      Multiple trips of driving back and forth between Calgary and Lethbridge to meet with different specialists

·      Two CAT scans

·      One MRI (which are THE coolest)

·      One professional massage (from a horse massager—ugh)

·      One full-body bone scan (I always regret not keeping the image that came from this one—how often do you get to see your entire bone structure?)

Reviewing that list, it doesn’t actually look like THAT much, it was more so that I expected a solution after every test so each undetermined result was a disappointment. Though, with the each different doctor came a different experience, such as:

·      The doctor who sang everything she spoke throughout the entire appointment. Super kind lady, but when she diagnosed me with something and then ten minutes later (after checking Wikipedia) informed me that only female children could get it, I lost a little bit of faith.

·      The doctor who was obsessed with my hypopigmentation (aka, the funny white colouring on my leg). He spent the entire appointment analyzing it and getting his student doctor to feel it. It was kind of like being a camp counselor all over again (except this time I didn’t try to convince the doctor that it was contagious—though he may have actually believed me).

·      The “long walk” incident. Ok this one was my bad. For the first three doctors, after they asked me if I had done any extreme physical labour lately, I told them that I had gone on a “really long walk” a couple months before (referring to my camino). Apparently doctors don’t equate a really long walk to a month-long hike carrying 60 lbs. After my dad sat in on one of my appointments we were able to clarify everything and the doctor had a good laugh at me about it.

So, after a year and a half, last month I finally found out that I had a benign tumor in my hip joint that is called an osteoid osteoma (guess who feels the fanciest whipping that out in a normal conversation). It was so nice to be able to have a name for it and even a possible solution. The most frustrating part of all of this was just not knowing what was going on, because just telling people that "my leg hurts" got pretty lame. This experience has been quite an emotional and spiritual rollercoaster for me though, and I have learned quite a lot.

I have learned that I have a lot of really awesome and supportive people in my life (including, but certainly not limited to, the group of old ladies who met every Friday at my mom’s work and prayed for me). I learned a lot about humility—about acknowledging when I’m in over my head and when I need to ask for help. I had to learn a balance and I had to be honest with myself. At times I would lie to myself and pretend that the pain was more manageable than it was—which was unhealthy—and at times I would lie to myself and use my leg as a justified excuse in my head—which was also unhealthy.

I have learned that God gave us modern medicine for a reason. This one was a hard one for me. Halfway through summer last year I decided to go off painkillers because a part of me thought maybe I just wasn’t trusting God enough. This worked for a time, but it wasn’t long before the pain was keeping me up the entire night and making me completely unable to focus at my job. It took a lot of checking the Bible, checking my heart, and asking spiritual leaders in my life before I came to the conclusion that God does heal, but he has also given us means by which we can help ourselves. He has given us Scripture and faith, but He has also given us reason and technology, and I believe it’s our job to find a middle ground amongst the two.

This time of being off painkillers turned out to be incredibly helpful though. Prior to stopping, I was taking 8 - 9 extra strength Tylenol to get through the day. During my time off of painkillers, I discovered that I had pericarditis (an inflammation of the sac around your heart). The prescription for pericarditis was ibuprofen, to keep the swelling down. Turns out, ibuprofen was 100x more effective at dulling the pain in my leg than Tylenol, and I was able to limit my pill intake to only 2 – 3 a day. If I had continued increasing my Tylenol intake it wouldn’t have been long before I had completely screwed over my stomach lining, so it turned out to be a really good thing.

I didn’t sleep at all night last night partially because I had to be off painkillers prior to the ablation (that’s the technical term for how they’re removing the tumor), and partially because I’m just really nervous/anxious/excited/whatever the word is. A lot of me is also scared because the doctor didn’t guarantee that this would work, but I’ve (optimistically/possibly foolishly) allowed myself to put a lot of expectation on this. If this doesn't work than the doctor said we're just going to have to try it again. Like I mentioned earlier, I have a lot of really awesome people in my life who have offered a lot of prayer and support (including a special shout out to my mom for putting up with my manly pain-grunts all night for the past five nights). Also I have entertaining family members:

Dad: “Happy NOOBB Day Son! (Nuke Osty Osty Bad Boy Day)! Go slay that ornery weasel, eh."

Kari: “Break a leg tomorrow! Oh…….”

Fun. Anyway, wish me luck!


PS: Somebody suggested that I might be able to pick a song to listen to on my iPod during the surgery. I seriously doubt this is actually true, but the thought of it excites me. What genre would best accompany watching your innards being cut open? My first thought was to listen to the Inception soundtrack, but I feel like the doctors wouldn't appreciate the racing heart which would result. Perhaps some Jack Johnson or Joshua Radin to lighten the mood. Perhaps a lyrically-fitting, emotional rendering of Coldplay's "Fix You" on repeat. Or maybe just something completely unexpected like "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" just for the ironic and postmodern implications. Oh the possibilities.


PPS: I still don't know if I'm getting local or full anesthesia, so this question is probably moot. Scratch that, it's most definitely moot. But as suggestion to all you doctors out there: surgery soundtracks could be a great market.