Another Face in the Crowd: Life in the Face of Cancer - vol 4

This volume is probably the hardest one for me to write. Talking about cancer and its impact on my life is relatively easy, but what happened to me after my initial surgery was, to be completely honest, an absolute nightmare. There has never been a time in my life where I legitimately thought I was going to die. Going into that first surgery to remove the tumor had me scared, true, but my level of fear that I would "die on the table" was pretty low. It was mostly just nerves. I remember driving up to Columbus the morning of the tumor removal surgery. My fingers kept tapping and tapping on the door handle. My foot bounced up and down too. All I could think about was, "what if..."

What if I didn't make it? Or what if things were much worse once they got in there? What if, what if, what if...over and over again.

But it all went as expected and I woke up with no real issues. I spent the night in the hospital and was released with post-treatment instructions on what to do to recover.

The horror that I am talking about happened on May 6th when something inside me burst. I remember it so clearly too, which is interesting only because my post-radiation brain forgets a whole crap ton of stuff - much more than usual. I was sitting on my couch, watching TV, and then I began coughing. It wasn't even that big of a coughing fit. I cough on and off all the time so I didn't think much of it. Then all at once, everything changed. A rushing, whoosh sound filled my ears and before I knew it, blood was gushing out of my nose. More blood than I'd ever had to deal with in my entire life.

I got up and ran to the bathroom, holding my hand to my nose in effort to staunch the bleeding. It didn't help. It kept coming and coming. In seconds, my bathroom looked as if I'd murdered someone in it. Blood was everywhere.

And I do mean everywhere.

Even in my haste to get to the bathroom, and through all the terror, I had the presence of mind to call 911. This was the first and only time I've ever had to call them. The dispatcher on the other end walked me through everything, telling me what I had to do to get the bleeding to stop. Then I took my phone, left the bathroom, and went to the living room and just sat down in the middle of my living room floor. One thought that went through my mind before I did still scares the complete crap out of me to this day.

I am going to die. This is it. I'm not going to live past this moment.

And I believed it too. Truly and with almost everything inside me. I am sure there are tons of stories where someone had that same thought, but this story doesn't belong to one of those people. This happened to me. And I don't think I'd ever been that scared in my life, not even when the doctor's first told me that amputation was the most viable solution to my crushed foot. This trumped that and easily.

So I sat there on the floor, the shirt I was wearing literally soaked with blood and waited. By this time, I'd finally managed to get the bleeding to stop, for the most part. But I was weak. Very weak. And woozy. I couldn't stand back up so instead, I continued to sit there. The paramedics/EMTs (I'm not really sure which one to use - I do know they are different from each other but I didn't have the presence of mind to ask) finally arrived. I remembered I could see them, just a bit, through the curtains.

I honestly can't get that image out of my head, either.

They were joking with each other. Laughing too. They strolled so casually up to my door, like they didn't have a care in the world. Me? I continued to just sit there, scared out of my mind as I watched them laughing and having a good 'ol time. It felt so unreal. Two minutes ago, I literally thought I was a dead man, and these people trained to save lives were laughing like it was just another day at the office.

I don't think I'm angry with them. Or maybe I am. I honesty am not sure which I feel more. But what I will say, once my door opened and they saw the state I was in, they jumped into action like nobody's business. They got me on a gurney and into the ambulance within minutes.

I just can't get that image out of my head. Of them laughing and joking while I was covered in my own blood.

There's a bit more to this story. Most of the next part, however, takes place in the ER. So I'll leave this volume here and with this note, nothing makes you appreciate your life more than thinking you are about to die.