When certain things happen in your life, your previous priorities go out the window.  In early June, we were to fly down to Fort Worth, Texas, for the annual reunion  of the Retired Army Judge Advocates.  We had been to 22 reunions in a row.  Canceled!  In the middle of June, we were heading back home to Carole’s high school reunion.  Canceled!  None of that seemed important.

On the 29th of May, 2012, Carole went in for a somewhat routing CAT scan of her lungs and GI tract.  We were subsequently notified that a small nodule was discovered on her pancreas.  A small nodule on her pancreas.  That’s an attention getter.  Carole’s younger brother, Bob, had died of pancreatic cancer.  We were now on a roller coaster racing up and down.  Two days later, Carole’s GI doctor, Dr. McBride, had set up an MRI for that day.  He then called us later that night to let us know that there was a small tumor and it needed to be addressed.

He told us that a Dr. John L. Cameron at Johns Hopkins Hospital was probably the best at the type of surgery that Carole would need.  He didn’t think he could get Dr. Cameron to handle Carole’s case, but if he could get Carole into the Johns Hopkins system, then Dr. Cameron would be in some oversight roll.  Dr. McBride told us he would call Dr. Cameron’s office the next day and see what he could do.

In the two days between the CAT scan and the MRI, I had been searching the internet on pancreatic cancer surgery.  Any number of times, I would end up on a Johns Hopkins website.  I knew of Dr. Cameron before Dr. McBride mentioned his name.  I also had heard of the Whipple Procedure operation.  They call it the Whipple Procedure after a doctor who improved the procedure and because no one could pronounce a pancreaticoduodenectomy!

Dr. McBride called us very excited the next morning (June 1).  Dr. Cameron had agreed to take Carole on as a patient.  We were equally excited.  The roller coster was climbing again.  That same day, we contacted Bonnie, Dr. Cameron’s administrative assistant and set up an appointment at Johns Hopkins with Dr. Cameron for Wednesday, June 6.  That date was our 53d wedding anniversary, but we were right where we needed to be.

On that Wednesday, we made our first trip to Johns Hopkins.  I plugged the address into my car navigation system and it took us on a very strange route to the Outpatient Clinic.  Then, after taking us on this circuitous route, it dropped us off two blocks North of our destination; an area where you would not want to have car trouble late at night.  I had previously studied maps of the area and got us to our destination.

Dr. Cameron was everything we hoped for and he explained to Carole that she had an Islet Cell tumor (pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor) near the head of the pancreas (on the Uncinate – Hey, look it up, I ain’t teaching no course here) and it needed to come out.  She needed a Whipple Procedure operation.  We were to call Bonnie and set up a date for the operation.  Dr. Cameron also said that if we wanted to go to the reunion we should go.  We had already decided not to go, but it pleased us that he believed that we could go to the reunion and still have time for a successful operation.

Carole and Bonnie set up the operation for Monday, June 18, within three weeks of when we found the tumor.  Carole had to get pulmonary and cardiology clearance for the operation.  Fortunately, she recently had a clearance from her Pulmonologist and her cardiologist had recently given her an EKG and an eco cardiogram.  The only remaining test she needed for the clearance was a stress test.  With the great help of her cardiologist, Dr. Stoebner, at DeWitt Hospital, Fort Belvoir, the nuclear stress test was set up for Tuesday, June 12.  This would give us a chance to send the results up to Johns Hopkins before the Friday, June 15 pre-operation meeting.

Early Tuesday morning, we went to DeWitt Hospital and Carole’s nuclear stress test went smoothly.  In the afternoon, however, we received a dreaded phone call that the result had shown something that might be blockage.  They would need to perform a heart cathorization to determine the extent of the blockage.  AND, if the blockage were over 50%, they would have to put a stent in.  AND, if they put in a stent, she couldn’t have surgery for 30 days!  The roller coaster was racing down hill and completely out of control.

So the next morning at 7:00 AM, we were back at DeWitt waiting for Carole’s next procedure.  The heart catherization showed no blockage!  All the doctors at DeWitt were exceedingly helpful.  We were back on track.

The Friday pre-operation meeting went smoothly.  We used that trip to Baltimore to set up housing for me for the while that Carole was in the hospital.  Johns Hopkins has a family residence called Hackerman-Patz located right across the street from the Weinberg Building where Carole would have her surgery.  In fact, the two buildings are connected by a sky walk.  The morning of the operation, I put Carole in a wheel chair and we used the sky walk to travel to the surgery reception center.

She had to be there at 5:00 AM.  The processing took about forty-five minutes and eventually they took Carole back for her preparation.  They brought me in a few minutes before they would wheel her into surgery.  I kissed her and told her that if she had bought me any golf clubs as a surprise birthday present, this was the time to tell me where she had hidden them.

Johns Hopkins has a policy of keeping the family of the patient informed as to the status of the operation.  I was informed that the operation began at 8:20.  Dr. Cameron had told us that the operation would take approximately five and a half hours.  Every two hours, someone would contact me and tell me that the operation was proceeding well.  That was appreciated.  After five hours, at 1:20 PM, Dr. Cameron found me and told me that Carole had done well and that I could see her at about 4:00.  It was closer to 5:00 and she looked like she had just lost a heavy weight fight.  Her eyes were puffy, plus, she had a ventilator coming out of her mouth and a drainage tube coming out of her nose.  I felt so sorry for her.  I came back later and the ventilator was gone.

The next morning, the nose drainage tube was gone.  This was progress at the most basic level.  She spent two days in the intensive care unit and during that time, they had her up and walking around the ward.  Dr. Cameron and his entourage visited Carole twice a day for the nine days she was hospitalized.  On Friday, June 22, Dr. Cameron mentioned on the way out, “Oh yes, your lab reports all came back negative and there will be no need for further treatment.”  No need for chemotherapy, no need for radiation, no need for nothing!  Now, all we had to do was survive the operation.  An operation where all kinds of things were removed (part of the pancreas, the duodenum, part of the intestines, the gallbladder, some lymph glands, some of the bile ducts and a portion of her stomach) and then what was left was resectioned back together.  Now do you understand nine days in the hospital?  Do you also understand why we were gleeful when we found out that Dr. Cameron, the best in the business, had agreed to operate on Carole?  Humpty Dumpty could have used Dr. Cameron.

We came home on Tuesday, June 26, and I became Dr. Mom.  It makes me appreciate women when I have to do the routine things they do every day.  I was and still am exhausted.  Carole came home with one drainage tube which I dutifully emptied three to four times a day, c
arefully recording the number of milliliter in the collection bulb and the color of the substance.  I came up with some new descriptive colors, like “strong tea” and “grapefruit juice.”

Every Friday, we trek up to Baltimore to get Carole checked out.  On Friday, July 6, they took Carole off of her pain medication.  That was easy for them.  They said no more Oxycodone and have a safe trip home.  The pain came back in spades.  I can’t believe how the codeine had masked Carole’s pain.  I believe it now.  Then, we had a little accident when the drainage tube fell out.  Oops!  It had pretty much run it course, but I felt pretty foolish calling up Bonnie and saying, “Oops.”

Last Friday, Dr. Devi, Dr Cameron’s assistant removed the last of the red, inch and a half long retention sutures.  For the last week, they had been doing more bad that good and we are now trying to recover the skin that was rubbed off.  So no bikini for Carole.  No great loss.  Her not wearing a bikini has long surpassed Cal Ripkin’s consecutive game record.  The problem is only a nuisance and not a threat.  And, because they felt sorry for the discomfort caused, they gave her a few more happy pills.

By the time I get this published, both of our daughters, Becky and Missy, will have visited and helped out.  Life is starting to return to normal.  Things that everyone takes for granted are starting to happen, like Carole rolling from her one side to the other in bed.  We feel like we still have a mile to go and we are doing it an inch at a time.  But, we are definitely moving, and what is known as a silent killer was discovered in time and removed.  Removing the tumor was a five star event.  Now, we are starting to focus on a Crystal Cruise of the British Isles in late August!

Written by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com