I decided to start this blog to chronicle this crazy journey that began on January 10, 2024. As a precursor, let me introduce myself. I am currently 62 years old, my 63rd birthday is in 12 days. I have been with my husband since January 14, 1984 after meeting him by chance at the Melody Lounge in New Brunswick, NJ. A typical Saturday night of boozing down near Rutgers University. I was not a college student, and he had already graduated from Montclair University. I, on the other hand, had left home one week following high school graduation, obtained a secretary apprentice job at Brown Brothers Harriman on Wall Street during the day and worked nights and weekends at Friendly’s Restaurant as a waitress. I had left home because all I wanted was to get out. It wasn’t that my parents were awful, we lived an incredibly middle class lifestyle. A beautiful 4 bedroom house with a built in pool; in a great school district, but my house never felt like a “home”. I had 3 older brothers and I was the “baby”. My mother was not very maternal, especially when it came to me. She was a typical “boy” Mom, loved having sons, especially my oldest brother. Having another female around was not her cup of tea. It was my father who wanted another child, a girl. He was an only child whose Mother passed away at the age of 29 following appendix surgery in 1939. My Dad was just 9 years old. The rest of his adolescence was spent wanting desperately to get away from his father and stepmother. So, at the ripe old age of 17, he met my mother, who had just turned 18. This was his chance to get out. They waited 3 months for my father to turn 18 and eloped from the Bronx to Maryland by taking a bus. At that time, in 1948, in New York, you either had to be 21 or you needed your parents permission to get married. My father was Italian, my mother Irish, and while they lived only a few short blocks from each other, they never met. It was the typical, you don’t mess with the “others”. Following their elopement, they came back to New York where my Dad was promptly disowned by his Italian family for marrying the Irish girl (a/k/a “Mic”). Luckily for my parents, my mother’s Irish parents fell in love with my Dad and they moved in with them on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. Two years later, my oldest brother was born (1950); followed by my second brother (1954); my youngest rother (1958) and me in 1961.

Fast forward to 1984, January 14th, I met my husband. He came from a typical middle class family as well, however, his parents had divorced. He had finished a History degree at Montclair State University but at the time we met, he was working nights at a factory. To this day, I have no idea what he even did there. Anyway, we met that night and have been together ever since. Looking back, it’s so strange, when compared with today, we had no cell phones, had to wait to hear from someone on your landline, no email, amazing how far we have come! Two years later in 1986 we were married; 1989 our son was born and 1992 our daughter. I have always felt incredibly blessed. While we have never been “rich”, we struggled for many years living paycheck to paycheck like most young families. My husband went back to school after losing an IT job at bank, got his teaching degree in History and became a high school History teacher and more importantly, a soccer coach, which was always his biggest dream. For me, I ended up in the legal field starting out as a legal assistant and working my way up to a Senior Paralegal. I really enjoyed my work and was very good at it. I loved training new paralegals that were hired. I worked in the plaintiff personal injury field for over 30 years and ended my career the last 5 years working in National Security which was incredibly interesting.

So, getting back to January 10, 2024. The year started off so strong, on January 3, 2024, my son and daughter in law welcomed our first grandchild, a daughter. We were thrilled. As my husband had already retired in June 2022, it was my goal to retire sometime within 2024, either mid or end. But I guess the world had other plans for me! The night of January 10, my husband had made a delicious meal, rigatoni with meat sauce, yummy…..well sometime late in the evening I started to feel sick to my stomach, figured I had eaten way too much (which I had). I threw up and thought nothing of it, until I wouldn’t stop throwing up. All night. At that point, it wasn’t food, but bile which is so gross….I called my daughter, who is a RN and the next day she popped over. I had a slight fever, chills, it seemed as though it was the norovirus that had been going around. I knew at least 2 people through work that had similar symptoms. My daughter insisted that I make an appointment with a primary care physician. Full disclosure, I hadn’t seen a doctor in probably 20 years. I’m the kind of person that feels “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. Plus, in all honesty, I was never sick, maybe a cold here or there, but never anything that required a doctor. So I call a doctor in our new insurance plan and the first available appointment was April 5, 2024. I said sure, no worries.

Fast forward one month to February 9, 2024, a similar experience after eating a meal, not as bad as the first, but it got me a little nervous. At this point, however, hubby and I are due to meet our granddaughter for the first time, we were set to fly down to North Carolina in 5 days. I told my daughter, ok, when I get back, I will try and get in sooner to see that doctor. Down in North Carolina, we meet our beautiful granddaughter and we are over the moon! Few days go by, everything is good, I’m watching what I’m eating, not overeating, etc. and things seem fine. On the last full day, however, my son had made croissants filled with chocolate from Trader Joes. Delicious! Of course, I ate an entire one and within about 20 minutes the pain in my stomach was palpable. For some reason I had completely forgotten that my son’s best friend’s father just happens to be a Gastroenterologist! I don’t know why I didn’t remember that. My son immediately texts his best friend, who in turns texts Dad, Dad says ok, when you’re back in NJ come and see me. Four days later I am in his office. His father is a well known Gastroenterologist in the area, used to head the team at a local hospital, now has his own practice and surgery center.

February 23, 2024 – I see the doctor for the first time. He is wonderful, patient, listens to me and my symptoms and comes up with a plan. Blood work and an ultrasound were ordered initially.

February 26, 2024 – Blood work – shows elevated liver enzymes, red blood cells and platelets.

February 27, 2024 – Ultrasound shows “gallbladder filled with gallstones”. That was the actual diagnosis “filled with”. Made sense, my symptoms did line up with a bad gallbladder.

Due to the elevated liver enzymes, however, he further ordered an endoscopy and colonoscopy. Both tests were negative for any disease. Lastly he ordered an MRI.

The MRI revealed a 5.5 cm mass on the tail of my pancreas. It did not appear to be malignant, however, he wanted me to go to a specialist in pancreas surgery. There are not many physicians who do this type of surgery, a distal pancreatectomy. He did know a doctor at Memorial Sloane Kettering in New York. After dealing with insurance, etc., I saw him on March 25, 2024. After review of my scans and reports, he ordered a CT scan. On April 12, 2024, CT scan showed nothing unusual other than the cyst and we scheduled surgery for May 29. It was his belief that the cyst was benign (which surprisingly, many of them are).

May 29, 2024 – surgery was performed. A distal pancreatectomy, spleenectomy and removal of my gallbladder. Reading online, I was scared out of my mind that the surgery would be debilitating. Most people took 6-8 weeks to recover. I thought ok, well I retired on May 23, 2024, 6 days prior to the surgery and I would have the summer to recover. I know my family, husband, daughter and son were so nervous thinking that I would have a rough time. My daughter is a post-operative RN at a surgery center. She sees people everyday following surgery, I think she was thought I would be a mess. Anyway, fast forward to day of surgery, we stayed the night before in New York, walked over to the hospital at 10:00 a.m., surgery started at 12:15 p.m., ending right around 3:30 p.m. Initial feeling was crappy, I was just in a ton of pain and disoriented from the anesthesia. Husband and daughter came in to see me and they kept me overnight for observation before finding me a room at approximately 4:30 a.m. next day.

Surgeon came in next day, May 30, 2024, everything went really well he said. Still believing, based upon seeing the mass, that it was benign or pre-cancerous. He and the team encouraged me to get up and start walking around. I knew I wanted to get home as soon as possible. So walk I did! Hurt like hell first couple of times getting up from a sitting position, but my daughter had gotten me a small abdomen pillow utilized by patients after abdominal surgery. Worked like a charm. By Friday, May 31, I was walking 6 or 7 times per day. I basically said to the team, I want to go home tomorrow, June 1 and they said ok.

June 1, home at last, I was walking, eating, drinking, everything was so much better than I thought it would go based upon some of the posts I had read online. I didn’t have any drains, I did have five small laparoscopic incisions and one 3 inch mid-port incision just under my breast bone. That was the one that hurt but doctor’s utilize that as a “hand port”. They need to see the different organs, etc. while laparoscopically they can see with cameras, a visual is so important. Basically I felt great and by Tuesday of the next week, June 4, I was walking about 4 times per day, close to 6000 steps and feeling wonderful.

June 6 – the pathology came back and unfortunately, one of the 23 lymph nodes had cancer cells in it. I was floored. I was so sure that my journey had come to an end. I had done so well surgically, how could this be?

June 7 – I saw my surgeon and he seemed just as confused and angry as we were. He couldn’t believe how well I was doing, he and his nurse were truly impressed. So he said, look, you will have to have adjuvant chemotherapy for at least 6 months…..

This is where the real journey begins…….