Valentines Day 2007

The worst valentines day of my life.

I will never forget Valentines Day 2007. It was a Wednesday and possibly one of the most painful days of my life. This was the day that the doctors decided to put in the stints. As I have mentioned before my tumor crushed my ureters because I went misdiagnosed for such a long time. Ureter’s connect the kidney to the bladder and allows the fluid to go from the kidney to the bladder. Because my tumor crushed my ureter none of the fluid in the kidney was allowed to pass to my bladder. This meant all the fluid backed up in my kidneys causing hydronephrosis, swelling of the kidneys. My left kidney did more than just swell, it ripped open.

The kidney heals itself so that is why the nephrostomy tubes were placed. My fluid from my kidney was re-directed to the bags instead of my bladder so that my kidney could heal. The doctors also needed to place stints in the ureters that were damaged by the tumor. If the stints were not placed the damage would only get worse with scar tissue and eventually close completely. If I ever wanted to live without bags collecting my waste the stints needed to be placed.

The stints hadn’t been placed right away because there were so many issues that needed to be dealt with first. It so happened that Valentines day 2007 was the first day they felt I would be able to undergo this procedure. Before I went under I distinctly remember one of my doctors say, “Happy Valentines Day Meaghan”. That is the last thing I remember before slipping off into a drug induced sleep.

Holly-Mother-Of-God!! That is what I remember when I woke up. All I could do was scream the pain was so horrific. If I close my eyes I can still see the poor man across from me in the recovery room. He was eating one of those hospital sandwiches in a box. There I was directly across from him on my hands and knees screaming bloody murder! My blood pressure went up to 200/150, my machines were beeping out of control and I was half dressed screaming.

What happened you might ask? Well apparently there was a slight chance my body would react poorly to the stints. The radiation, the damage from being misdiagnosed and the stints all combined to create a painful reaction. I have never been pain free since. Those stints remain and will indefinitely. The pain they create also remains and varies in degree. There are times, days/weeks/months, where the pain is as bad as that moment when I woke up. There are other times when the pain is much less or only slightly tolerable. What I can tell you is that there isn’t one minute that goes by that I am not conscious of the pain.

Valentines day 2007 is a day I will never forget. Sometimes I think about before I had cancer and the many Valentine’s days I complained about. I was single, my boyfriend didn’t get me what I wanted, my date didn’t go well etc…I can’t tell you how many times I had said, “This Valentines Day sucked” Little did I know those days were perfectly fine. Too many people spend too much time complaining about things that aren’t so bad. So next Valentines Day when you find yourself unsatisfied just think, at least im not getting stints as my Valentines Day present.