What’s Up with this Stomach Pain?

This post is a continuation of ” This all Really Started 10 Years ago I Believe”, so be be sure to read up that one before continuing.

As I was saying in late summer 2019 I started to get some mild stomach pains off and on. I was very busy at work and going through a tough time about then and thought maybe this was just stress related. My diet was not the best at that time and the amount of time I spent at work didn’t leave much time for exercise. For about two months the pain came and went, sometimes I experienced some pretty severe bloating and when I had a beer and certain other foods I would “flush”. I figured some of this was just coming based on my age at 47, I’d joke it’s just manopause. I went to my family Doctor to see what she thought, it made sense that she thought maybe I had developed a food allergy and to try taking diary and wheat out of my diet for a couple weeks, then slowly reintroduce those foods and see how I felt. Initially I thought that helped and some of the very painful bloating seemed to subside, but that only lasted a couple weeks.

In late September I again went to bed with a sore gut and when I woke the pain was too much. Now I’m one to never miss work, so when I had to text my boss in the morning to say I wasn’t coming in, something is wrong! I walked the three blocks to the hospital to get checked out. After the regular wait and giving blood and urine samples, a nurse came and told me the doctor was a little concerned about the results and ordered me a CT scan, one again my favourite.

After an hour he came to get me, ” I need to see you Stephen, come sit in the office.” I knew right there that this was much more serious then a stomach ache and painful bloating. He went on to show me the results of the CT and that the mass, I had basically forgotten about had now almost doubled in size compared to 8 or so years ago. He went on to explain it could be some kind of growth and gave me a medical term I can’t remember, and that he thought this is what it was. The other possibility he said was, “Cancer”. Which either one it would be I was referred to a general surgeon in order to start with further testing to see exactly what was growing in me.

Now that I look back at the first time I heard my name connected to the term “Cancer” I was pretty certain that there was no way that I could actually have it. During this small time in my life it went on as normal and the pain actually went away for most part. I continued to work while I waited for a phone call from the referral, think it would be a while and it was no big deal what I had wrong with me. To my surprise with call came within two weeks and with an appointment in a day and a variety of tests and scans that my hand cramped while I took the message. When I hung up the phone that day, my gut hurt again, but not from pain. I knew now that this was a lot more serious then I could imagine…