Glenn's battle with stage 4 colon cancer
(Muldrow, OK, USA)
My husband and I met in November 2003. He was very outgoing, funny, and just overly ambitious. We had a beautiful baby girl in August 2004. Glenn was an amazing man! Never complained, went to work everyday. In May of 2006, Glenn started having pain in his upper abdomen. We made several Doctor's appointments. Got diagnosed with everything from ulcers to Hplyoria. Finally they made an appointment with the surgeon for the colonoscopy. As I waited in the surgery waiting room, this short female doctor came out and called his name. I stood up as she approached me, she said that everything went good but he did have a tumor in his colon. She went on to tell me that she had done a biopsy and we would have the results soon. Well that was the beginning of a long and hard battle. The fight for his life began that very day.
June 21, 2006, Glenn had an appointment to get the results of the biopsy. We go in and set down waiting on the dr. to come in the room. I was not ready for the news she was about to give us. I expected her to tell us it was cancer because she was pretty sure of that in the beginning. Well she comes in and she has a set of scan images in her hand and I will never forget her words. Glenn you have cancer, but it isn't your colon I am worried about. She said it is your Liver,it has spread to about two-thirds of your liver. I remember Glenn asking, Am I going to die? She just looked at him and said it don't look good. When we left there they had put him on pain medicine and sent him home to die. The following morning hospice was at the door. I didn't realized until this point,"Oh my God, He is dying." I was scared to death, here I set with 4 beautiful kids and a wonderful husband. And it just seemed like life just stopped right in it's tracks. We had decided to make an appointment with an oncologist the following day. Glenn and I went to see him and he review the scans and the test results. He told us, that it wasn't a matter of if; it was when. Glenn and I both was scared to death. We had to decide whether to start the chemo or give up. And giving up was just not an option for me. They said with the chemo they could get him two and half years. Which from a couple of months sounded pretty good to me. They scheduled the surgery to put in the medi-port. That was the weekend of July 4, 2006.
We started chemo just shortly after that. Sitting in the doctors office hours at a time 3 weeks a month for almost 2 and a half years. And finally the tumors had shrunk enough that they thought surgery might be a possibility. We went through 27 surgeries after that and in October of 2009 they sent him home once again with hospice. He was tired and had fought so hard, he just couldn't take no more. I sat with him at home until December 24, 2009. Done everything I could for him until I just couldn't do it by myself anymore. He went into the palliative care unit at the hospital Christmas Eve. That was very hard for me, by this time he was just not his self. Very medicated, and hallucinating it was just to much for a wife to handle. Glenn was 39, and I was just 31. Not where I seen myself at this age. Glenn passed away January 13, 2010, at 2:00 a.m. And this is Glenn's story. Cancer does not discriminate against age!
