Meghan’s Journey: The Story of Meghan Redenbach: The Teenage Girl Who Showed a Community How to “Man Up” in the Face of Cancer (4 page)

Finally it was 4:30. She must have been watching the clock like I was, because she walked in as soon as it hit 4:30, and we were all on our way to the CAT scan room. Mom had to go to the bathroom, and the nurse left my dad and me in front of the room and said, “The technician will be right out, and I will be right back; I just have to go fill out some paper work.”

I looked at my dad, and I could tell something was really bugging him. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I…” His lip started to tremble, and tears were welling up in his eyes, “I can’t stand seeing you in pain; I just can’t stand it. If I could I would take it from you.” He put his hand on mine, and squeezed it. I had only seen my dad cry one other time in my life, and it was at his dad’s funeral. I didn’t really know what to do, so I thought about what he said for a second and squeezed his hand back. His face was buried in his hands.

“Dad,” I said quietly, “we’re going to be okay. Whatever this is we’re going to be okay. You taught me to be strong through everything.” I started to tear up a little bit. “You aren’t allowed to cry. There will be no crying at all for any of us. I promise we’re going to be okay. Now ‘man up’, would you?” I threw that in there to try and show him that I was still the goof he knew me as. He hugged me and kissed my forehead. I love when my dad gives me hugs. His big arms wrapped around me just makes me feel safe, and for the second he was hugging me I didn’t feel the pain.

“I love you,” he said wiping his tears.

“I love you, too, Dad.”

The door to the room opened, and this older man came out. I would say he was in his forties. He had black and grey hair, and he had glasses and a beard. His smile was huge and he seemed really friendly. He said, “Hello, I am going to be doing your CAT scan today, and you can call me Blue.” His voice was loud and friendly.

I went into the room, and since it was Children’s Hospital, they had to make it kid-friendly so the kids aren’t so scared. There were monkeys and flying kites on the walls, with birds and butterflies. The ceiling had clouds and the sun painted on it. It was really cheerful; that’s all I have to say. The monkeys were even painted on the machine. I got up on the table, and Blue told me that this was only going to take about twenty-five minutes.

As I was getting the test done, I was thinking about all the other kids that were lying on this table before me. Then I thought, “What if a kid is terrified of monkeys?” I envisioned that in my head. I mean, the people try to make it kid-friendly, and then the kids freak out because they don’t like monkeys! I laughed silently, and laughing hurt my stomach badly, especially because it was a silent laugh it made me flex my muscles in there more. The pain rushed through me, and that made me curl my body a little bit.

Then the technician came on his speaker and said, “Try to stay still please. We’re almost done.”

I tried the best I could, and finally we were done. I came out in my wheelchair and my parents and the nurse were waiting for me. We were on our way back to our room to wait for the results. It was around 6:00 p.m. when the results came in.

“Okay, we’ve got the results from the CAT scan,” the nurse said as she was flipping through her papers. “It says here we need to get more tests done.” She kept reading silently through her papers.

“I am not drinking anymore apple juice,” I said quickly. The nurse laughed. I didn’t think it was funny. I was not kidding in the least bit. I think she understood that though.

Pam was very nice. She came in to check on us numerous times, but kindness didn’t take my pain away. She was telling us about getting an ultrasound. She said this was a quick and easy test. So far, they said all the tests were quick and easy, and here we were at 6:00 and really hadn’t achieved anything to help the pain.

We found ourselves on the way to the ultrasound room. This room was surprisingly very tiny, especially with all the people that kept filing in. It was my mom, dad, the head radiologist, the technician, two surgeons, and me of course. The radiologist, technician, and surgeons were all different races, so they all had different accents. All of them were talking at the same time in front of us, discussing possible things, and it was confusing. They were using big medical words and terms. The room started to get hotter and hotter with all these people. Then everyone but the technician and my parents left. I could hear the radiologist and surgeons talking outside the room. My heart started to pound a little bit more, and I started to get tense. They all came back in the room and began looking at the screen of my ultrasound. It was silent, and it was about five minutes before anyone said anything. The radiologist was doing the test now.

He looked up at the surgeons and technician. “Where is her ovary?” Then the technician took the wand thing and moved it all across my abdomen.

“I’m not sure,” she said slowly.

“I think this is it.” The technician didn’t seem too positive. At that moment I knew something was wrong. I just knew it. It was just the feeling I got at that exact moment, and everything seemed to just stop.

The professionals were still talking in front of us. We still weren’t clear on what was going on, but I think we got the message that it wasn’t good. Finally, we were sent back to our room. They told us they were going to have some other people take a look at the test and see what needed to be done. My parents and I were just waiting again.

I was still in so much pain, and all this was so confusing. The only other time I had been in the hospital was for my sprained thumb from playing Twister. It was nothing like this. It was just so, so nerve-racking. The chief surgeon came into our room and explained what they found.

“As you may have heard, we were having a hard time finding Meghan’s right ovary. There seems to be something blocking it, or on it, that is not allowing us to see it clearly.” The doctor seemed very calm and it made me feel a little relaxed…until his next words came, “We are going to have to do emergency surgery, and we will not know what it is until we actually see what exactly we are working with.”

As my parents went back and forth with the doctor and asking questions, I was just worried about sports. Playing sports is my life; I couldn’t imagine missing out on my sports. I had just finished club volleyball tryouts the day before. As I was thinking about sports, I didn’t realize that the doctor asked if I had any questions.

“When will I be able to play sports again?” I asked without hesitation.

“Well, you’re young, and young teenagers like you heal pretty quickly, so I would say about a month, maybe.”

“Okay,” I said. A whole month, I thought that will be perfect, because practices start in about a month. It will all work out even if I miss a couple of practices; I’m sure the coach will understand.

“Any other questions?” The doctor looked at us and nobody said anything. “Okay, well we will go get the O.R. setup and take you up to surgery.”

It was only about fifteen minutes before Pam came in and said it was time to go up. I wasn’t really nervous, but part of me was nervous, not for me but for my parents. They just had to sign some papers and they were extremely stressed out.

It was 7:30 at night when the anesthesiologist gave me this drug and told me I wouldn’t remember a thing from the waiting room to the O.R. The stuff definitely worked, because I don’t remember anything. I was in surgery for an hour and a half. After the surgery I was in the recovery room still completely knocked out while the doctor talked to my parents. He told them that they had to remove my right ovary, because there was some type of tumor intertwined with it. He also said that there was some type of fluid in my stomach, because the tumor had ruptured. The doctor said that I must have been in a lot of pain. I would have to stay in the hospital for up to five days, and we would receive test results in about three to seven days; we would then find out what type of tumor it was. I was in the recovery room until about 10:00 that night; after that I was sent up to my room. I had a rough night of sleep, and so did both my mom and dad I’m sure.

When I woke up my incision was so sore, but this pain was nothing compared to before the surgery. I would take this pain over the other pain any day. I had a lot of visitors. My grandma came up and so did many other family members and friends. They brought beautiful flowers and gifts. I slept most of the day though.

Before I knew it, it was the third day in the hospital. I felt a lot better, and I actually got up and walked around the floor I was on. I even met the girl in the room that was next door to me and learned that she went to a neighboring school. She and her mom were very sweet. It was nice to meet someone new, and we talked about the sporting events between our schools and people we both knew. She had her appendix removed, because hers had ruptured.

Dad, Mom, and I played some games to pass the time, but I was still sleeping constantly. I got taken off pain killers, so that helped with the sleeping thing. This was also the day we were expecting the test results back from the surgery. It was about noon; my mom and dad were quiet and reading the newspaper. I know they were thinking I was sleeping, but I wasn’t. It was so silent I heard the footsteps of my oncologist. She wore these shoes with a type of heels that were just recognizable to me. My parents didn’t seem to notice, because they didn’t even move. Then, there was a knock at the door. It sounded so loud in the silence. It seemed to echo throughout the room, and my parents both put their papers down, looked at each other and said simultaneously, “come in.”