Grateful to have this beautiful man of mine home, healing, healthy, and on his way back to a full recovery.

We’ve been especially quiet about this, but now that we’re really finally out of the woods, the last year has been a health rollercoaster for my husband, Chris.

It all started with a hernia injury the year before. Unfortunately, he had already suffered an umbilical hernia a few years earlier that he had to have surgery to repair, so he knew exactly what this inguinal hernia was when he felt it. Chris has always been very proactive about his health; exercising practically daily, eating clean, and getting regular check ups, and bloodwork. (Contrary to what most people assume, it was actually his idea for us to commit to going vegan permanently 5 years ago, not mine!) So naturally putting his health first, he elected for another hernia surgery to repair it. About a month before his scheduled surgery, he caught pneumonia that you may have seen mentioned in my past posts. It was bilateral bacterial hospital spread pneumonia, one of the worst types of pneumonia you can get, and it infected both of his lungs. He fortunately didn’t need to stay hospitalized for it, but it did get scary close with alarmingly high fevers, difficulty breathing, low oxygen, and needing a range of very strong antibiotics and cortisone injection. Of course we clearly had to postpone his surgery while it took his otherwise healthy body the full 3 months to recover from it.

Once he finally got past that case of pneumonia, we rescheduled his hernia repair surgery again. The day of surgery started out great, we got there well on time and they had him ready, and prepped nice and early. I stayed there the entire time waiting, getting regular updates from the hospital. About an hour into his procedure, his surgeon called me, but unlike the last time we were there, he asked me where I was, and said he would come out and talk to me in person. That already caused my anxiety to spike. I met his surgeon in the waiting room where he asked me to sit down, he said Chris was recovering from surgery and I would be able to see him soon, but that he was not able to complete the hernia repair. When he opened up Chris’ abdomen, he found an excessive amount of fluid (1.7 liters of ascites) that shouldn’t be there, and tumor growths that had spread “everywhere” throughout Chris’ peritoneum, the layer of tissue that lines and surrounds the abdominal organs. He explained that at that point he didn’t feel safe proceeding and took multiple biopsies instead before closing Chris up. He was trying to be gentle about it, but he was Chris’ surgeon before so I had met him multiple times before, and this was notably different. His expression was like he had seen the worst, and was horrified telling me this news, he looked pained for us. He apologized for not being able to complete the surgery but told me to try not to worry yet until he heard back from pathology, and asked me to wait a little longer there in the waiting room, and that a nurse would come find me to bring me to where Chris was waking up from anesthesia. He asked me not to google anything. My stomach was in knots, and my heart was racing.

We’ve learned over the years that cancer scares are unfortunately common. I had one myself the year prior, where my primary doctor found a lump in one of my breasts. With an unfortunate family history of multiple breast cancers, and losing one of my cousins to it, it was a nerve-racking month long ordeal. I had to urgently find somewhere available to schedule me for my first mammogram, which was years earlier than I expected I would ever need to, and an ultrasound to confirm the lump was nothing, and that I was thankfully okay. What Chris was going through felt so very different though. It was surreal, like we were on an episode of Greys Anatomy; the only time I had heard of a surgeon stopping mid-surgery to close the person back up again was on that show when they found an aggressive cancer that had spread too far. At that point I obviously did exactly what he said not to do, and googled it, and of course my mind only spiraled more.

Peritoneal tumors and ascites fluid are already horrifying advanced stage signs of cancer each on their own, together their search results are advanced and terminal, with the outlooks reading extremely grim, poor, incurable, and life expectancies terrifyingly short < 2-8 months. When the nurse brought me back to see Chris, his surgeon joined us and explained the same thing he had prior to me but to both of us in more detail, and also showed us both photos of what he found when he opened Chris’ abdomen. My heart sank to the pit of my stomach, we were seeing this with our own eyes, it was everywhere.

Since Chris’ operation was on a Friday, we wouldn’t hear results back until later the following week, and it felt like the longest week of my life. I would cry every morning waking up, burst into tears constantly throughout the day, and cried going to sleep every night. If you’ve followed me for a reasonable amount of time, it’s obvious that I have always been one to gush over my husband. After all, I started this blog right after we got married and had just returned back from our honeymoon, so my entire blog hobby turned career has been the duration of our marriage, 14 years this year. I love this man so much, our love is like nothing I’ve ever experienced or seen in my life before. I can honestly say in the 18 years we’ve been together, he has never made me feel insecure about myself, our relationship, my body or appearance. He’s never once physically hurt me, or made me feel like I wasn’t enough. He’s always made me feel so loved, and appreciated. Nearly two decades of him being impossibly good to me. I already cherished waking up to him every morning, spending every day with him, and going to sleep cuddled up to him each night. I’ve loved every moment of this life with him, well before any of this happened; while I’m normally an optimistic person, knowing it all could be so fleeting, in mere months, was incredibly harrowing. I might have cried more that week than I have during our entire relationship combined, and it was at the dooming thought of losing him, if anything only another testament to how amazing he is. I cried on the drive to the dentist that following week, because the idea of having to drive to errands like the dentist all alone in the near future made me so immensely sad… And then I cried even more about how selfishly I was thinking, centering myself, while he was the one literally, physically, going through this nightmare.

While I was at that dentist getting a crown, Chris heard back from his surgeon that the first set of biopsies came back benign! It felt like a miracle, his surgeon was shocked given what we all clearly saw. We had to wait for the remaining biopsies to confirm though, and since it was such an unusual situation, he asked Chris to get CT scans with contrast for an alternate view and still consult with oncology. That week also happened to be the US & Canadian Pathology Conference, and it was being held right nearby in DTLA. His surgeon let us know he was presenting Chris’ case there for more input. The CT contrast scan came back showing the same in Chris’ abdomen, plus a notable nodule in his lung. Because of the unique situation, the Oncologist asked him to go back in for a PET scan this time. That scan ended up showing activity in that lung nodule as well as activity in his lymph nodes. The remaining biopsies from the prior surgery later came back benign, it was a needed brief relief and we were cautiously optimistic, but since the PET scan after showed unusual activity in areas of his lungs and lymph nodes, we were back on the emotional rollercoaster of it might still be a serious cancer but in a different area instead, so Chris would have to go from meeting with Oncology to meeting with Head of Thoracic for yet another CT scan, another surgery, and another set of biopsies, but in his lungs and lymph nodes this time instead. Because all of these different types of medical appointments are usually booked further out and involve scheduling with so many different people, this ordeal was all spread over the course of many months, where we had to hold our breaths and wait for answers in between, all the while, his original un-repaired hernia was still causing him daily pain. Thankfully, that surgery went smoothly and the biopsy results later also came back benign. An extremely rare case of peritoneal sarcoidosis mimicking peritoneal carcinomatosis, an inflammatory reaction possibly related to that original pneumonia infection Chris had. So rare his skilled medical team only found a few cases to reference, and they were from other countries outside of the US. Fortunately and most importantly though, it should be completely treatable with medication.

Yesterday, Chris was able to finally go back in for his hernia repair surgery again (his third surgery in six months), and that operation was thankfully successful this time! The poor guy did end up having two inguinal hernias though, on both sides, so he needed a double repair performed during the same major surgery. Despite that, this end result was the best case scenario, better than any of the medical professionals involved originally expected. I am so so grateful to have this beautiful man of mine home, healing, healthy, and on his way back to a full recovery. I wouldn’t wish this experience on anyone, but I do wish for the same type of miracle for anyone else having to go through anything similar. It feels like we literally hit the lottery of life, and we are so insanely fortunate, and thankful.

I can’t help but prefer to usually only share the positive things publicly but like the old saying goes, everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle, and I know my lovey-dovey mushy posts lately aren’t anything new to my blog readers given the history of my blog, this last year has been especially arduous, making me even more nostalgic about our amazing journey this far, what the future holds, and my love for this guy. Although we were very lucky, it is all still another life reality check that it could be anything that takes any one of us away from each other, at any given time, life is so very short, and so incredibly precious. Love, and love hard.

Xox,
An