Between the winter carnival, band practice and hockey games, one could say our schedule was already full.    Jim and I are avid Minnesota Wild hockey fans and we had decided to purchase a 2017 - 2018 season ticket package with our neighbors that included three home games in February. For Christmas, Jim and I bought each other Minnesota Wild jerseys and Jim gave me the Mikael Granlund jersey. Granlund’s number is my birth year and I also rooted for him because Jim seemed to like to trash-talk him. Even though I think Jim really liked him as a player, Granlund was my underdog.    

February 11th, I went to my first doctor appointment to get some answers, which lead to blood tests, an ultrasound, an MRI, a CT scan all happening within a two-week period of time. Our follow up consultation appointments with local specialists left us confused.  Why have they set an oncologist appointment for me?  I am thinking:  Why am I going to an oncologist when I just have a tumor that needs to be removed?  We determined later that it was a scheduling error that my husband and I met with the surgeon first.  

About five minutes into our consultation with the local surgeon, he tells me to go home and get my affairs in order.  After the words have left his mouth, he is met with the realization that he is the first one to confront us with the gravity of my situation. He exits the exam room quickly and my tears are starting to flow, while I lay my head on Jim’s shoulder. The surgeon returns to the office after what seemed like twenty minutes. At this point, Jim and I ask him about surgical options. He explains to us the Whipple surgery where part of the pancreas is removed.  He explained that pancreas tumors are mostly found to be cancerous and therefore, the medical industry treats it as cancerous before a biopsy is performed.  I am told that the reason I am itching is that the tumor is blocking the bile duct coming off the pancreas, so the plan is to have a stent inserted in the bile duct the same day as the outpatient Endoscopy procedure.

The night before I check into the hospital for these procedures, we watched the MN Wild play the St. Louis Blues at the Xcel Center wearing our official Minnesota Wild jerseys.  With the planned events of the next day weighing heavy on our minds, the game was a good way to relax. As our journey through pancreas cancer progressed, watching hockey became a favorite distraction from the seriousness of my condition.

Through the month of January and into February, our band had been rehearsing for the Battle of the Blues Bands, a local competition on March 1st at Famous Dave’s in the Uptown area of Minneapolis.  We chose ten songs from our existing set list and also decided to learn and cover the Leann Rimes version of 16 Tons.  What a great sound that song has.  I love her vocals.  There are several key changes in this version and a few of us were unsure about how it would turn out, but it was coming together nicely.  We needed a set list, along with a script in between songs that would fill a half hour of the overall event.  If we won, we would be featured at the Mears Park Blues Festival in St. Paul and would be an opening band for headliner blues acts the following summer.   Shortly after I started going through procedures, Jim and I announced to the band that we would have to cancel our entry in the competition.  As it would turn out, the day of the competition was the day that I received my cancer diagnosis.