In March of 2022, I was working as the Acting Captain at my fire station. I had decided to make some homemade cookies for my crew. I enjoy baking, so I thought it would be nice. I may have eaten some of the batter and… well… at least a few of the cookies. (It’s no wonder that I was at my heaviest weight at that time in my life.) The crew enjoyed the cookies and after cleaning up, I went to bed for a hopeful restful night at the station.
About 6 a.m., I woke up with a cramping pain in my lower right abdomen. It felt like I just needed to go to the bathroom, but I could not go at all. I had taken overtime for the next day and was thankfully assigned to drive the Water Tanker. It’s generally a pretty easy assignment. I am one to stay busy around the station all day. However, my abdomen was just not easing off. I kept thinking to myself, “I should not eat sugar. You know it causes inflammation. I probably have leaky gut or something like that.” It finally eased off some by that evening.
The next day was Sunday. My husband and youngest daughter were on their way back home from picking up a new truck in another state. I went with my other two kids to church. I was able to eat a little bit of breakfast and a little bit of lunch. However, the pain returned. So, I did not eat anymore. By that afternoon, I began to have a small amount of rectal bleeding. I waited until my husband arrived home and I said goodnight prayers with my little one before I finally headed up to the hospital to get it checked out.
By the time I arrived, my stomach was truly bothering me. While checking in, I had to excuse myself to go to the bathroom. I guess my body had enough of holding in and decided to let it out like a full-fledged war in that bathroom. I filled the toilet twice with blood and then began vomiting as well. It was not a pretty sight. I could not leave it that way. So, I began to clean it the best that I could. I suppose they became concerned because they came knocking on the door to see if I was okay. I must not have looked very good when I came out because they went to get me a wheelchair and hurried me to triage. I believe my blood pressure was 70/50. They started double IVs on me and got me straight to the back. It was later that night that the doctor told me the scans showed a tumor completely blocking my ascending colon. My intestines were also very inflammed.
So, thanks to the “Blessed Cookies” who caused me to become so inflammed that the tumor completely blocked my bowels. This led me to the discovery of colon cancer and my journey in battling this disease. Had I not made the cookies, who knows how much longer the cancer would have had time to progress inside of me.
One more note on the subject: I thought that I did not need to get a colonoscopy until the age of 50 years old. I soon found out that they lowered the age to 45 years old due to the increased incidence at lower ages. I wish that I would have known that at 45 years old so that I could have removed the polyps growing in me before they turned to cancer.
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Thank goodness you made the cookies! They truly were a blessing. What kind of cookies did you make? The way you write is captivating…
I made peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies. Both from scratch.