So I was trying to think of what I should call this blog that talks about my experiences both with having colon cancer and also with living colon cancer free.  I read Our Daily Bread (ourdailybread.org) every morning for inspiration and to get me through whatever challenges may come my way.  On Saturday, July 11th, I read a post called “Desert Places.”  This post spoke to me as it summed up my own reality when it said, “But the point of going through a desert, whether literally or figuratively, is to remind us that we are dependent on God to sustain us–a lesson we need to remember even when we’re living in a place of plenty.”

My ‘place of desert’ happened almost 4 years ago in August of 2011 when I found myself lying in a hospital bed, wearing a hospital cap, gown and footies, and waiting on surgery to remove cancer from my colon.

Smiling pre-surgery because somehow I know that ultimately I was going to make it through

I had not spent any time in a hospital bed in my then 49 years of living, outside of being born and then when I was 2 and had spinal meningitis which my mother told me about and which I have no recollection of… So you can only imagine my surprise…

I was having stomach issues off and on for about 8 or 9 months prior to that day.  My stomach has always been weak and problematic so I didn’t pay it too much attention.   I would share my stomach issues with a co-worker who had gastrointestinal issues herself and could relate.  When I continued to talk about them, she told me to just go ahead and get it checked out.  This was around May of 2011.  As is protocol, I first went to see my Primary Care Physician,  who then referred me to a Gastrointestinal or GI doctor.  The GI doctor my PCP referred me to misdiagnosed me by saying after she examined me  that there wasn’t anything wrong with me, that I was okay and that I could go home.  I was flabbergasted because the pain I was experiencing at that point was real and becoming more and more severe.  I told my co-worker Janice what happened and she gave me the name and phone number of her GI doctor and the GI group he belonged to.  When I described my symptoms to the receptionist over the phone at this new group, she immediately secured an appointment for me that very same week with a Physician’s Assistant.   The PA conducted a thorough 2 hour consultation with me asking about my background, my medical history, how I was feeling in general, etc. and her very first recommendation was that I get a colonoscopy.   I have to admit I was a little nervous  about getting a colonoscopy as I had heard horror stories (mainly about the prep) but I agreed to it as it felt like I was finally on the right track to getting my health back.

The colonoscopy was scheduled in June of 2011 and my father, Jonie B Hollis, or Jonie B,  as we affectionately call him, came with me to act not only as the driver, which is mandatory, but also as a means of support.  I followed all of the pre-operative instructions and cleaned out my “system” the day before with the icky prep so I felt nauseous and light-headed that morning.   I recall very little of that day, mostly what I  remember is the hot liquid burning through my body and counting down from 100.  The next thing I knew I was awake and wondering what the fuss was all about.  I imagined being asleep for 30 minutes tops so I was surprised to find out that I had been under for over 4 hours.  After I got dressed in my street clothes, the GI doctor (Dr. Chan) called me into  his office and told me that there were complications and that it appeared as if I might have colorectal cancer.  I was still out of it from the anesthesia so I did not quite comprehend what he was saying.  When me and Jonie B got back in the car I told him what the GI doctor told me and he seemed to not quite comprehend what I was saying as well.  I think he might have been in shock…The next morning I called Dr. Chan up and asked him if what I heard the day before was true and he said yes but that I would need to get scheduled for a CT Scan which would tell them more.   I had the CT Scan performed a week later and just as my GI doctor had suspected, the test came back positive.   My ‘desert place’ had begun…

My immediate thought, Oh my God, I’m gonna die!  Then I thought, maybe this is all happening for a reason, maybe I am supposed to go through this so that I can help someone.   I clung to that thought as it was more reassuring than the first…

It was now July of 2011 and I scheduled a pre-surgery meeting with my surgeon, Dr. Robert Schlessel, who came highly recommended.   I told Dr. Schlessel of my vacation plans to take my great-niece, 3 great nephews and niece in a rented mini van to a condo I rented in Hilton Head South Carolina for 10 days.  I asked him if he thought it was wise to drive 16 hours one way considering my diagnosis.  He said ‘absolutely!  go, and when you return, we go straight to surgery!’   I took his advice and aside from feeling extremely lethargic every single night, had the time of my life in Hilton Head, SC.

Me and my great niece and 3 great nephews on the beach

Enjoying the beautiful beach in Hilton Head, SC

I returned from Hilton Head well rested from the vacation but much thinner from the abdominal pains which had worsened and my not being able to keep food down.  I met with Dr. Schlessel again who told me I was at mid stage (level 2).   Here is the letter I sent to my co-workers:

Hi everyone,

I met with my surgeon Dr. Schlessel today.  I liked him instantly.  He’s warm, personable and very down to earth.  He made my upcoming colon surgery sound like it’s going to be a piece of cake in a manner of speaking (smile).

He said that one third of my colon is damaged and that is what he is going to remove. he is doing this macroscopically which means that he won’t have to cut me wide open, just make 3 to 4 small hole incisions and an additional tiny (one inch) incision which was very comforting.  Also he said that if my lymph nodes come back negative (which he will not find out until the surgery) I will not need chemotherapy!  Please pray that this happens…

Also, he said that since I am so “healthy” the recovery time will not be as long nor will I need a colostomy bag (whoo hoo!).   He scheduled me for surgery at Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale (my choice) on Friday, August 5th at 730am.  And he said (including surgery) I will be in the hospital a total of 5 days.  When I get discharged from the hospital I will be home a minimum of 2 weeks, possibly 3 and on bed rest.

Before I go in for surgery I am scheduled to see my Primary Care Physician on July 27th for a cardiogram and for some blood work.

That’s the long and short of it.  He says when I’m fully recovered I should have no more abdominal pain and should be able to start eating normal foods again.

Please keep me in your prayers and thanks for the pre-prayers!

Love,

Lajeune

Friday, August 5, 2011, the day of surgery was a blur.  My father Jonie B was with me as well as my sister Casandra who is a Registered Nurse.  Surgery was scheduled for 730am but we had to be there an hour and a half earlier to fill out forms, get my vitals taken, etc., so I was extremely tired and extremely hungry.  All food, drinks and chewing gum was forbidden before surgery.  Despite all that, I felt optimistic, I felt that everything was going to go smoothly and I would be back to normal and back to work in no time.  This was not to be the case…My surgery was scheduled to be 4 hours long and not long after I was under, there were complications.  Apparently the cancer, now the size of a baseball, had spread from my colon to my uterus as well my ovaries.  My surgeon immediately sounded the “alarm” to let my sister and  father know that something had gone wrong and he was coming in to talk with them.  My sister, being a Registered Nurse, knew there was a problem when the lights flickered so she asked my father to brace himself for some not so good news.  When Dr. Schlessel arrived in the waiting room he explained that the cancer had now spread to my uterus and ovaries so now with this new change, he would need their permission to allow his friend, an OB GYN doctor,  to perform a total hysterectomy and then he would go in after him and surgically remove a third of my colon.  God was with me all morning long because Dr. Schlessel’s OB GYN doctor-friend (Dr. Thomas J. Rutherford) was not scheduled to be in the hospital at all that day and just so happened to come in that morning…Dr. Schlessel asked Dr. Rutherford if he could scrub up and get a team together as quickly as possible and perform the much-needed surgery.  Dr. Rutherford agreed, went first and then Dr. Schlessel and his team went afterwards to now surgically (instead of macroscopically) remove a third of my colon.  This was all done in the same 4 hour time frame that I was originally scheduled for.  I woke up weak and sore.  Dr. Schlessel immediately gave me the updated news.  He also informed me that because the cancer had spread, I was strongly advised to go on chemotherapy after my (now much longer) recovery.  I started to feel despair – why was this happening to me?  Here I am 49 years of age, never had children and now I never will!…and then I snapped out of it and thought, you weren’t going to have children anyway, you are 49 years old…Be thankful and blessed that you were able to have these 2 surgeries now instead of them closing you up for one and then discovering there’s more cancer and you would still have to come back in and go back under the knife and start all over again…

I had a single, private room at Yale’s Smilow Cancer Hospital with a lovely view of the city.  Thank God for good company insurance because, as you can imagine, none of this came cheap!   I also did not realize that Yale was a training hospital  as I did not sleep a wink for 5 days as I was constantly being awoke at all times of the day and night to be examined by a group of  medical students in training, not to mention being woken up to change the fluids on my IV fluids machine, to take meds, to answer questions, to meet with my surgeon, etc.  I felt no pain whatsoever physically though as I was on morphine drip almost the entire time.  And I had a ton of visitors.  So many that my then Director of Sales, Roger Hess,  asked the sales team and other employees to cease with the visits as my body needed rest to heal…I also received so many cards and flowers and magazines and gifts!  I had never felt so much love in all of my life.  I was overwhelmed by the acts of kindness from my family members, my friends, my clients, my church family as well as my work family.

The window sill of my private room with a view.  Filled with bouquets of flowers and single flowers.

Life was good until I found out I could not leave the hospital as scheduled on Wednesday morning until I learned to walk.  I was in the hospital maybe a total of 2 days when they told me I needed to walk a few laps around my floor.  A this point I had not the energy nor the desire to walk.   I was having a hard enough time wrapping my head around the fact that I could not walk.  What motivated me though was the fact that if I walked I could go home so I started out slowly and somehow managed over the next few days, to walk again…

Walking again with help from one of the many Oncology nurses who quickly became my “friends” as well as the aid of my IV fluids machine

So I walk again slowly, gingerly, hesitatingly, but good enough to get out.  I also manage, with the help of anti-constipation pills, to ‘go again’ as the medications I was on were causing me a myriad of problems.

Being at home for the next 5 weeks was nice.  It was summer time so I could lounge outside on my lawn chair, play with my dogs, read lots of books and soak up the sun. I got a ton of phone calls, get well cards, packages and visitors (family, friends, clients, co-workers, church family) spreading cheer, bringing me hot and cold prepared dishes, healthy snacks, flowers, and all kinds of gifts.  I even received a healing blanket and special prayers from Deacon Annie  and other friends from my church who came to my house one afternoon to pray over me.

Lots of fruit baskets too!

So many flowers, cards and gifts I could not eat off of my table!

My very own healing blanket

I was surprised at how little I could do the first few weeks at home.  I had stairs in my house so I would climb them on all 4s if I had to get something from upstairs.  Plus I could barely drive so I would rely on Jonie B to take me to doctor’s appointments and my sister Casandra to help me with picking up meds, buying groceries and small items until I felt comfortable enough and was cleared to get back behind the wheel.

Jonie B

As the weeks went my body began to heal very quickly.  I was told the recovery time from one major surgery alone was 4 to 6 weeks and  here I was recovering from two major surgeries in what came to be just one 5 week span of time.  When I was at the hospital Dr. Schlessel told me that in all of the 30 years he had been performing colorectal surgeries, he had never seen anyone heal as fast as I did.  He looked at me as if I was a miracle and I was his poster child for colorectal cancer.

I went back to work on Monday, September 12th, 2011.  Ironically the birth date of my late mother Jean…I actually looked forward to going back to work because at this point I was looking for some type of normalcy in my life and I also missed my co-workers.  My first day back was awesome because they decorated my cube and threw a huge Welcome Back breakfast for me complete with dairy-free milk and food.

Back to work!

Also, I did not have to worry about lunches for a while as 3 of my co-workers, Michele, Kayte and Jocelyn, were alternately cooking healthy, clean dishes for me.

At the end of my first week back to work I had my first client function to attend.  The annual Easter Seals Lobster Bake at Lighthouse Park which I attended with our then My TV 9 star, Brittany Decker.

Me and Brittany

Me on the carousel at Lighthouse Park

Going back to work also meant that my body had healed sufficiently enough to bring me closer to my next challenge: chemotherapy.  But first I had to go back to the hospital for surgery.  I returned to Smilow for same day surgery the end of my second week back to work to have a portable catheter (or port o’ cat) inserted on the left side of my chest.  Dr. Schlessel recommended I get this done so that way when I got my chemotherapy  treatments and regular blood work, I wouldn’t have to worry about being constantly pinned and needled like a sewing cushion.  It still hurt though even with the use of the port o’ cat as he had me scheduled for 12 chemotherapy treatments every other week for 6 months.  I would go into what was then The Father McGivney Center for Cancer Care at St. Raphael’s Hospital on a Tuesday of the first week, be hooked up to an IV fluids machine and intravenously fed various cancer treatments for a few hours. (I had initially asked my Oncologist Dr. Tara if these cancer treatments would take my hair out and he told me that typically colon cancer treatments did not have those side effects which I was very happy to hear).   Then the Oncology nurses (who, by the way, were all wonderful!) would unhook me from the IV fluids machine so that the remainder of the cancer treatments would now be fed to me via my port o’ cat which connected to my ‘chemo to go’  unit which was small enough to fit into a fanny pack.   I was able to go back to work and would wear this ‘mobile’ unit in a fanny pack for the next 2 days (48 hours) until the beeps signaled it was time to go back to the hospital.  The ‘forced fed’ chemo completely killed my appetite for food and drink as everything tasted like tin plus the unit made it hard for me to sleep as I could only lay on one side all night as I was afraid of rolling over on top of it….  Also I could never take showers, only baths, and had to be very careful not to get the machine wet during the ‘on weeks.’   Back at the hospital on a Thursday afternoon, the oncology nurses would unhook me from the mobile unit and I would be free of any more infusions for a week and a half but then it started all over again…Since the treatments were cumulative, each month I began to get weaker and weaker and have less and less energy.  My Oncologist, Dr. Harold Tara, was excellent throughout the whole ordeal.  He came highly recommended from my surgeon Dr. Schlessel who felt he would suit my personality.  He was right.  Dr. Tara was a hoot!   He made me laugh when he could clearly see that the physical as well as emotional effects of chemo were starting to wear me down.  Not to mention I was cold all the time, in particular my hands, as neuropathy had set in,  so one of my co-workers took it upon herself to buy me my first pair of fingerless gloves.  From there I received fashionable fingerless gloves from many caring family members and friends (smile).

I was able to work the entire time I was treating only by the grace of God,  as in my career I need to meet with prospective as well as regular clients face to face which is hard to do when you are on a ‘chemo week’ and  starting to get ‘chemo fogged brain’ because of it.  I kept my game face on and made the best of it…

Here’s a pix of me with an old friend at a client function successfully hiding my fanny pack on my left hand shoulder

Life had certainly thrown me lemons but unbeknownst to me, my News 8 co-workers had taken notice of what one of them called my ‘grace under pressure’ moment and all decided to vote for me for the upcoming News 8 and Lin TV Circle of Excellence program.  This is a program that Lin TV has in place at all of its TV stations around the country to recognize 2 individuals per station who exemplify Lin’s idea of what a model employee should be.  I was consequently voted in (along with my good friend Gil Simmons)  as a News 8 and Lin TV Employee of the year!  So what had started off as a not so good year, turned into a positive:   The Grand prize was an all expense paid trip for 2 to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico to an all-inclusive spa resort!  I received the good news in December of 2011 at our annual company Christmas party.  My sister Casandra was my “date” for the night and it was fitting that she was there to witness me receiving this ‘gift’ from my co-workers as she was who I decided to bring with me.

Coming back to my table after receiving the good news!

Still pinching myself as I read the special letter

Deciding, on the spot, that I will invite my sister Casandra to be my guest to the upcoming March of 2012 COE Mexican spa vacation!

We actually went on the COE trip in late March of 2012.  By then I had completed all 12 of my treatments so I was thin as a rail and susceptible to catching any and all types of germs but I was determined to have a good time.  Mexico is always a good time but this resort was extra special as it was a spa hotel resort.  Upon arrival, I immediately signed up for 2 different sessions:  a hair wash & set and a full body Chocolate massage.  The full body Chocolate massage was a heavenly experience.  I also enjoyed our beautiful room which included a Jacuzzi tub.  And I enjoyed the nearby lovely beach, the multiple pools which were spectacular, and the nights out at a la carte restaurants featuring ethnic cuisine.  They made sure that all of our needs were met and then some.  Our last night there was the actual Circle Of Excellence awards ceremony which was truly special.  I will never forget this trip…

COE Awards Night

Wonderful night

Good time with Gil and his beautiful wife Liz

So all in all, although this has been a bumpy ride, I believe it was a ride I was destined to take.  I learned so much more about my own life and the people I choose to have in it.  I became closer to some family members because of what I went through, I also re-learned the true meaning of compassion.  I directly saw how people really feel about me by their acts of kindness.   The old saying that you really do not know who your friends are until you are laid up in the hospital was absolutely true in my case.  And I do believe that life is a gift.  I know this for a fact as I would not be alive today were it not for God’s Good Grace and Mercy on me.  Amen.