Two Degrees in One Weekend

Most graduations happen in June.  Not for this girl, though.  During this past sweltering weekend in early July, I graduated not once, but twice.  Furthermore, one degree only took me about 2 weeks to earn.

Let me explain.  About two weeks ago, I was sleeping as well as any mom of young children who actually manages to go through to do lists in her sleep when Wil shook me awake.  It was about 1 in the morning, and he told me he’d been throwing up for close to 3 hours straight.  Annoyed to be awakened from my slumber (and realizing I’d forgot where I was in my to do list and I’d have to start all over again when I fell back asleep), I tried to figure out what on Earth Wil wanted me to do about it.  In fact, I believe I transmitted that thought when I grumpily said, “What do you want me to do?  Hold your hair back for you while you puke?”  Wil wanted to go to the emergency room, so I reminded him of our two children who were fast asleep and not old enough to be left alone to nobody but the cats to care for them.  So, Wil took a cab to the ER, and I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night worrying about him.

Wil got home from the ER at 4:30 and slept like a baby while the kids and I woke up, did morning stuff and I drove them to school and camp and then went to work on a total of 3 hours of sleep.  While I tried to caffeinate enough to remember how to count (job requirement for a data analyst), I looked up Wil’s symptoms.  I called him and said that I thought he had gall stones.  According to Wil I was wrong.  That’s not what the doctor said.  Now, the doctor had no clue what was wrong, but it couldn’t be gall stones.

A few days later, Wil had pizza at a kid’s birthday party, and I’ll spare you the gross details, but we’ll just say he got sick again.  I told Wil that getting sick after eating poorly was a sure fire sign of gallstones.  Nope, couldn’t be according to Wil and his doctor.  This went on for over a week and a half.  Wil would eat crap, throw it up, I’d admonish him and hand him my same diagnosis.  I told him he had to start eating healthy like me.  He scoffed at the idea and even told me that one time the problem was that he just drank too much water.  Yeah, that makes you puke up everything that isn’t nailed down.  Happens to me all the time…

This past Thursday Wil got sick again, so he finally went to another doctor who did an ultrasound of his stomach (did they think he was pregnant?  Well, that would at least explain the vomiting…).  On Friday, the doctor called Wil with the results, which were that he had a dilated pancreatic duct.  We had no idea what that meant, so we googled it, and the only thing that came up over and over were two horrible words: “Pancreatic cancer.”  I told Wil that we wanted to talk to the doctor NOW, and apparently Wil told him that and may have described my personality when I turn into “The Wrath of Ali”, because a New York City doctor actually told us we could come in anytime to discuss.

We were there within 30 minutes (and a quick thank you to my most wonderful employers ever who let me leave with just a hug and well wishes for my family rather than concerns about when I’d get my work done), and the doctor gave us a lot of “well, it could be this, it could be that, blah blah blah”.  I asked about gall stones, and he said he didn’t think so.  He sent Wil off for an MRI, and promised he’d call us that day with results. 

Of course, he didn’t.  Saturday morning I was supposed to volunteer at the NYC Triathlon race in order to gain guaranteed entry for next year, having lost out in the last two lotteries for it.  I had a feeling I shouldn’t go and told Wil that.  He said he felt fine, and wanted me to go, so I did with a gnawing in my stomach.

Lesson learned, always follow your gut (especially when your husband’s is hurting so much).  ¾ of the way through my shift, I got a text from Wil that he was in a lot of pain and really needed to go back to the hospital.  I left and got home so quickly that I think I altered the space-time continuum.  I had also managed to call my mom, pack up the kids, and drive them over to her.  I slowed the car down enough to pitch them out to their grandma so I could take Wil to the hospital.

Wil spent the day and night in the ER where we got to watch not one, but two exceptionally intoxicated people do things like threaten security guards and smoke in the bathroom right next to an oxygen tank.  They ran more tests on Wil, and guess what?  HE HAS GALLSTONES.  So, a data analyst who got a C in high school biology and whose closest experience to practicing medicine is putting a bandaid on a cut and then giving it a kiss got the diagnosis RIGHT.  As I left the hospital just before midnight, I joked with Wil that I was going to see if I could find a 24 hour framing store so I could my new medical degree framed on the way home.

So, that’s the story of my first degree I earned this weekend, but what about the second?  Well, I can tell that story a lot faster, though in my opinion it’s much better.  For two weeks I watched my husband, lover and best friend be sick as a dog.  I saw the legs of his 6’4” frame hanging off the end of an ER room gurney for hours and saw an IV coming out of his arm.  I’ve left him at the hospital two nights in a row, once to come home to a house devoid of all other humans, and again tonight with two little kids who are worried about their dad.  I’ve kept a stiff upper left for my kids and told them how Daddy is fine and is going to come home and feel so much better.  I’ve spent a day thinking my 40 year old husband had pancreatic cancer and wondering if I should sell the house after he dies to run away from the pain, or if I should do my best to keep it so my kids can remember their dad for as long as possible.   And through it all, I ate well and exercised as best I could.  I missed a workout on the 3 hour sleep day, and this morning I cut my scheduled run from 12 miles to 5 so I could get to the hospital early so that Wil wouldn’t have to be alone too long.  But otherwise I have stuck to my routine.  I’ve eaten well, with no binging from the hospital vending machines.  I did buy a cookie from an Au Bon Pain, but after one bite thought to myself, “What am I doing?” and threw the rest away.  After four years of teaching myself to eat properly and exercise, my stress eating has turned from a box of Chips Ahoy crumbled over a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream to one bite of one cookie.  I have officially graduated from the School of Fat.

Wil will come home tomorrow or the day after, and hopefully our lives will return to normal.  But guess what?  Life will come by again and knock us in the teeth like it has these last few days.  And it’ll have a good outcome or it won’t.  That’s just how it goes.  But, I’ve learned to control what I can, and just hold on tight to the things I can’t.  I just hope my wall is big enough for me to hang all my new degrees.