I knew something was wrong, In the back of my mind, I could tell after 38 years of marriage, that something wasn't right. I worried about some kind of skin cancer. I knew that can sneak up on a person and be deadly. He had always loved working out in the yard and shed the shirt as soon as the sun was warm enough. His skin was so tanned, his tan lines never really go away. Our generation knows about a Coppertone Tan, but his came without help. And of course, our generation also spent hours in the sun without protection of sunscreen because it hadn't been invented until we became adults. So in August of 2011, I dragged us both to the dermatologist only to find neither of us had anything to be concerned about. He measured a sunspot on my cheek for future reference, but indicated in the past they did something about this kind of sunspot but have learned these days it is best to leave them alone.
But that's me....the freckle queen. My dark skinned, beautifully tanned husband had no skin problems to be concerned about.
Little did we know by that time, he was all ready in stage 4.
September came and he was complaining of heartburn, or acid reflux more and more. He mentioned that on occasion, food would feel funny going down, like he'd taken too big of a bite and went down "crosswise." I don't know if he ever told the doctor this, but he just sent him home with instructions to take Prilosec. I also noticed he had a general blah kind of feeling. But he's not one to sit still and kept up his normal routine, for the most part.
October came and the heartburn was getting worse. Off to the doctor he goes, and this time the doctor upped the Prilosec to twice a day. They had me do that for about a week a while ago when I suddenly developed digestive troubles from taking ibuprofen for arthritis. It worked like a charm. But the double Prilosec didn't really make much difference.
Then he started losing his appetite and along with that, weight. The occasional blah feeling seemed to grow to more and more often until there wasn't a break from it. He developed a pain under his ribs and couldn't eat much. By late October, he would cut a hamburger in half and eat the other half for lunch the next day.
He called the doctor and asked to move up an appointment, only to find out that they were booked. So he asked to be put on the list for a fill in for a cancellation, should one arise. Luckily, he got an appointment on November1st. I decided to go with him to that appointment. Ganging up on the doctor, I thought, might make them realize this is more than eating too much fast food.
Halloween day came. Mondays he worked his normal job and then was called in to help with a job at our son's business so by the time I got home from work he was all ready gone. I called to see what was up and he told me he was going to be home in a couple hours. I could tell he wasn't feeling well and a short time later, he pulled in the driveway. Admitting defeat...it's a rare day that he misses any work.
The next day was his appointment. He had a visit with the PA there, a fellow who seemed to be very caring and spent a good amount of time going over things. I asked if they had done a blood test on his liver functions, and voiced out loud that I worried about pancreatic cancer. The blood was drawn.
No comments:
Post a Comment