On The Mend {Recovering from Surgery}

The past few months I’ve been dealing with something that I never expected in my twenties – a cancer scare.

I had surgery yesterday to remove a small tumour on the middle toe of my right foot and thankfully everything went well. I didn’t want to worry anyone until I had a better idea what I was facing. They are confident that it is a benign tumour and I’ll get the biopsy results in the next couple of weeks.

It all started about a year ago. I was painting my toes and found a small bump on my toe.  It felt almost like the bone had been broken a little bit and mended back together a little crooked on the top. There isn’t much that you can do for a broken toe and it wasn’t bothering me so I left it and forgot about it. Then this past fall it started to really bug me and hurt depending on what shoes I wore.

In November I was at a regular doctor’s appointment about something else and mentioned it in passing. My family doctor thought it might be a bone spur, so she sent me in for an x-ray, which came up with something but they weren’t sure what, so a CT scan followed. From there I was referred to an orthopaedic specialist who said that it could be one of two things, including a tumour. I went into the holidays knowing that there was a chance that I had cancer and that I would be having an MRI before New Years to get a better look at it.

The next Saturday morning I got an urgent call from my family doctor to come see her immediately. When Garrett and I got there she said that the radiologists’ report came back suggesting that it could be a rare type of bone cancer that is usually found in women in their twenties and that I was being referred to the Sarcoma Unit at Mount Sinai in Toronto.

It was an agonizing week leading up to that appointment. By this point the bump had started to grow and was putting pressure on the tendons in my foot. I couldn’t walk the dogs, could barely drive to work without pain and had to stop running and biking at the gym. I called the hospital every day to see if there were any cancellations and put everything on stand by in case I needed to leave at a moment’s notice. When I got there, they started off by going through the worst case scenarios for this type of bone cancer – most definitely surgery, possibly chemo and the chance that part of my foot would be amputated. The next two hours of waiting to see the surgeon was painstaking. What would I be walking out of here with?

When the surgeon finally came in the room, he had a big smile on his face and said that he had some promising news. He didn’t believe that I had the rare bone cancer that they’d previously thought, but rather an even more rare benign tumour called Nora’s Lesion (or BPOP). They would be able to remove it with surgery, leaving my toe intact, and they would still be doing a biopsy of the tumour after it’s removed just to be sure that it wasn’t anything else. It felt like a huge weight came off my shoulders in that moment.

Next came the four week wait for surgery. My activity level dropped as I stopped walking on my foot and limited how far I would drive. I could hardly wait to get this thing out!

With nothing else to do but wait, I took the time to get myself as prepared as possible. I am potentially off for the next two weeks, depending on how my recovery goes and I wanted to be as prepared as I could be. I filled our freezer with lots of homemade food so that I wouldn’t have to cook for at least a whole week. I worked long hours to catch up on my full time and part time jobs so I could take the time off without worry. I visited family as much as I could. I started swimming lanes again (even just for 20 minutes) to stay somewhat active. Keeping myself busy seemed like the best thing to do, because as soon as I slowed down I thought about all the “ifs” and “whats” that fill your head before something like this. As the surgery date got closer I felt like my mind was in a fog.

Yesterday I headed down to the hospital with my mom and mother-in-law. It was just a day surgery so I was in at 10am and out by 3pm. The only job I have for the next few days is to keep my foot bandaged and propped up, and keep the good drugs coming and drink lots of water. I just hope that everything goes well and I can recover quickly, because I am so ready to get active again. Not being able to do everything that I love and move around as I usually do has been a real eyeopener to how others live. I’ll never take my mobility or good health for granted again.

My posting might be light for the next few days while I take the time to recover. I hope this explains why I haven’t been blogging as much as usual the last couple of months. I like to keep this blog a happy place where I can share and celebrate all the good things going on, but it’s been increasing hard to write during this time. I was torn about even writing this post, but I realize that maybe there is someone else out there who has something that has been bothering them that they haven’t had checked out. If you do, please call your doctor up and book an appointment. Don’t rely on google for your diagnosis!

I better get back to resting. I’ve got two little doggies who are happily taking advantage of all the couch time on the sofa bed with me right now. Please send some good vibes my way. It’s greatly appreciated!…and any movie suggestions too!