So I guess I should start by saying before I got cancer I was a healthy person. So being admitted to the hospital was weird especially because I knew something was really wrong, but I felt a strange sense of peace. I was anemic at this point and had to be put on IV fluids. I don’t like needles! So I tried to argue with the nurse and told her I don’t want an IV, as if that was an option at this point. So she brought in a specialist in placing IV’s who told me that her husband was also terrified of needles and promised I wouldn’t feel a thing. I let her do it and she kept her promise, I didn’t feel anything. I also needed to have my stomach drained because the mass that had been growing there caused fluid to develop in my abdomen. Warning this is gross!

Before you have a procedure like an MRI or a biopsy or really anything where you have to be sedated you’re not allowed to eat. So it is my second day in the hospital and I still haven’t been able to eat or drink anything, ice chips will become your saving grace during these times. Day 2, I am taken into an operating room and am put under what they call conscious sedation. Basically that means although you aren’t supposed to feel anything you’re awake and can see it. These types of drugs are administered through an IV and typically you get a little gas through an oxygen mask. So I’m in an operating room laying on the table and can’t speak or move. I can see the nurse come over with what looked like a 12 inch needle and a tube, I can feel something go into my abdomen. Not pain but pressure, a few minutes later he walks away with a large container, imagine a juice pitcher, full of dark colored fluid, told you this was gross. At this point I lose consciousness, I was also having a biopsy on the tumor in my abdomen. I’m assuming that the needle was probably for the biopsy and the tube was used to drain the fluid. Either way gross!

I wake up as I’m going down the hall back to my room. I felt a little better because all of the fluid that had been building was putting pressure on my stomach. I get back to my room, it’s a nice room for a hospital. I’m on the corner 12 stories up, with a view of the city of Seattle, it’s a large room and I don’t have to share it with anyone. A nurse comes in to check on me and informs me that I can now eat something and hands me a menu. Hospital food is normally not very good but when you haven’t eaten in 2 days it’s a 5 star dining experience. I order a greek plate, which has hummus and pita bread and olives and celery sticks and cucumber and yogurt dip. I was able to eat about 2 pieces of pita bread and a couple olives. My relationship with vomiting became a normal part of life for the next year and a half. We’ll get to that later….

I am a rebellious person and although I wasn’t supposed to I needed a shower and thought I might feel better afterwards. Taking a shower attached to an IV is uncomfortable at best, I managed to wash up and made the mistake of trying to wash my hair which was still long, down to my lower back. Being anemic means your body is struggling to function normally, so when I got out of the shower I couldn’t get warm, my boyfriend at the time finally arrived around 9:30 pm, late as always. But I convinced him to let me sleep on the guest cot with him instead of in my hospital bed because I needed his body heat to stay warm. I slept like crap, I still couldn’t get warm and at this point in my journey I was still very reluctant to call the nurses for anything, especially when I had gone against their advice and taken a shower. I was also in pain but didn’t want to tell anyone out of fear it would spark more intrusive procedures. The tumor in my abdomen was at least the size of a grapefruit. I woke up the following morning and climbed back into my hospital bed, the nurse came in to check my vitals and said a doctor would be coming in to talk to me later in the day.

Around 10:30 in the morning a man walks in, he’s wearing a Christmas sweater with a unicorn on it and unicorn socks. He sits down and introduces himself as John Pagel. He’s the head oncologist in the blood cancers and hematologic disorders department of the hospital. He says “I have good news, you don’t have ovarian cancer, you have non hodgkins lymphoma and it’s treatable.” I felt a little relief and reassured by his style choice, no one trying to prove anything would dress like that….