Intermission: Surgery

Late November 2004, during Thanksgiving break, is when all the craziness went down. Earlier in the year my pediatrician had discovered a lump in my right arm. What we assumed was some sort of muscle turned out to be a tumor that was wrapped 7/8ths of the way around my bone. This was called an osteo-chondroma. What worried my doctor the most was when he first x-rayed it and thought it was an osteo-sarcoma, meaning it was cancerous. That initial diagnosis was not told to me until later years, but I knew this lump in my arm was pretty serious. 

In one of my most memorable spiritual experiences, I was given priesthood blessings—one by my dad and his friend and one by Jerry and Brother Dustin—that told me I would be healthy. Weeks later my doctor did more tests and discovered it was an osteo-chondroma, meaning the tumor was benign. It was a mass of tissue but nothing more. He scheduled me to have surgery during Thanksgiving break to remove the tumor.

So I went in for surgery on a Monday. I wasn't allowed to eat anything that day, so I remember my mom waking me up late Sunday night to eat some food. On Monday morning they rolled me on my hospital bed into an operating room, put a mask over my face, and told me to count backwards from ten. I made it to nine.

I woke up later in a recovery room, with a massively swollen right arm covered with bandages and tubes. I felt groggy and couldn't open my eyes or speak for a long time, even though I could hear my parents talking to me and asking how I felt. 

I was supposed to go home the next day, but I kept fainting whenever I stood up and I felt extremely sick. I couldn't sit up on my own because my arm felt heavy and painful in a way I had never experienced before. It was uncomfortable. Also my entire arm was so swollen that I couldn't close my right hand, my fingers and palm were so enormous. I also had a tube in the top of my arm draining all the excess junk that I don't even want to think about, which they couldn't remove yet. So I ended up going home on Wednesday.

I was in seventh grade at the time, a brand-new middle-schooler. For few months after my surgery I couldn't be in PE class (just fine with me!) because, well, I had had major surgery and my arm was in a sling. So instead I was recruited as a Teacher's Aide for one of the school's English teachers. I stamped homework and alphabetized and filed, but mostly I just sat in the corner and read books. It was fantastic.

Eventually I got out of my sling and my wound got all healed up, leaving me with a long, jagged scar that my mom insists I should say is from a shark attack. I haven't used that one yet.

So many people in my family, ward, and community brought me beautiful gifts and sent their loving thoughts and kind words to me throughout my ordeal. Never have I felt more love from everyone around me. People are good and kind, and I am so grateful that I was surrounded by the best during this trial.

And so it goes.

Love, Me