Beneficiary credits WRNMMC staff with saving his life

Photo By Megan Garcia | Charles Bogino takes a selfie with Army Dr. (Lt. Col.) Matthew Hueman, the chief of surgical oncology at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Bogino credits Hueman and his medical team for saving his life after Bogino was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2014. (Courtesy photo)  

BETHESDA, MD, UNITED STATES

02.22.2017

Story by Megan Garcia 

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

In the fall of 2013, Charles Bogino was suffering from a sinus infection that he couldn’t shake. According to Bogino, he had been ignoring his health altogether. Between practicing law and other obligations, he hadn’t really been paying much attention to it. As the infection got worse and worse, he finally made the decision to see his primary care physician at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. During his visit, his physician instructed him to get some lab work done to get a better understanding of Bogino’s health. The very next day, his physician contacted him with some startling news.
“He called me and starts yelling at me saying, ‘Your liver enzymes are through the roof. I want you to go have a CAT scan, and do me a favor. Change your diet,’” he said.
Bogino laughed as he recalled the phone call, which ultimately, unbeknownst to him, would spark a series of events he said has given him a greater appreciation for the staff and medical professionals at Walter Reed Bethesda. To this day, he credits them for saving his life.
In October of that year, he went in for the CT scan, which resulted in additional blood work that was completed before Veterans Day. He knew by this time something was wrong, and based on previous findings, there was a possibility he could have cancer.
“I knew the hospital was going to be closed that Monday, and I was getting my blood drawn on a Friday, and I’m like I can’t wait three days. I got to know,” Bogino said.
However, to his surprise, the very next day he received a call from his doctor, but he missed it. He received a text from that same doctor the following morning.
“This is the thing. He was very responsive. He knew how upset and worried I was,” Bogino said.
The doctor informed Bogino that he needed to follow-up with gastroenterology immediately, but Bogino waited for three months before doing so.
“I was being stupid,” Bogino said. “I didn’t want to know. I also couldn’t believe that it was remotely possible that I had something like this. Nobody in my family has even had cancer.”
On Feb. 3, 2014, after receiving an endoscopy, his fears were confirmed.
“That’s when the doctor told me. He said, ‘You’ve got a tumor on your pancreas,’” Bogino said.
“I was totally zoning because I’m thinking to myself…I couldn’t even really process what he was saying,” he added. “It’s one of those moments where you don’t feel like you’re really hearing what you’re hearing. And when I was kind of able to ask a question I said, so you’re telling me I have pancreatic cancer?”
The doctor could not confirm whether or not the tumor was cancerous at that moment, but he advised him to get a pancreatoduodenectomy or Whipple surgery, which involved removing his gallbladder, a portion of his pancreas, a portion of his stomach and the first part of his small intestine. The procedure would take about 12 hours. It took Bogino a week before he made the decision to move forward with the surgery.
“I weighed this,” Bogino said, who was 54 years old at the time. “Should I have the surgery or not? It’s a big surgery and a lot to put someone through. Only about 15 to 20 percent of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer are eligible for the surgery I had. So if you’re diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and somebody says, ‘You know what? You can have surgery that could help or perhaps even work you toward a cure,’ you’re lucky. So when you are talking about doctors who can do the Whipple, and you have about two or three here that can do it, you don’t get much more skilled than that in my book.”
He underwent surgery April 24, 2014, but experienced complications during his recovery.
“This is where they saved my life,” he said. “I woke up in the middle of the night, about 2 o’ clock in the morning, and I was lying in a pool of blood. The nurses came in, and they were all around me, and they took me down for a CAT scan right away, but they didn’t see an active bleed, so they put me in the ICU because they had to try and figure out where the bleeding was coming from, so they did an endoscopy. They did a colonoscopy. They were trying hard to figure out what was happening.”
Three days later, he started bleeding again.
“Again, they were on me immediately,” Bogino said. “I felt like I was in that show ‘ER’. Everybody was around me, and then I look up at the end of the bed, and there’s Dr. [(Lt. Col.) Matthew] Hueman, my surgeon. Now this is midnight on a Friday night. I would have better things to do than to sit around and wait for my pager to go off to say your patient is bleeding to death.”
Bogino’s wife and daughter were called, and when they arrived, they were greeted immediately with support.
“That’s when a Naval lieutenant commander, [who was a] Baptist chaplain came, and he stayed with them all night long,” said Bogino. “I’m telling you. All night long. Meanwhile, I had already had interactions with Brother David and Father O’Brien. They were great. I spoke with a female Rabbi. She was great. I mean anyone I had interactions with were great. I met every denomonation here, and I had prayers from everybody.”
He was sent to the intervention radiology where they performed a procedure to stop the bleeding by coiling it off using surgical coils.
“The nurses there were superb,” Bogino said. “If they didn’t have experience with this type of procedure, they learned quickly. They knew what they were doing, and they knew generally what to look for.”
Almost three years later, Bogino maintains he never doubted any of the people who played a role in his care.
“I had complete faith in everyone involved,” he said. “From the gastroenterologist, who identified my cancer early on; to the surgical oncologist, who got rid of it; to the intervention radiologist, who were instrumental in stopping my bleeding; to the vascular surgeons, who came up with the real approach to keeping my bleeding controlled; to the pastoral care I got from the chaplains here; and of course there’s an administrative staff here that makes everything work. I couldn’t say one person was better than the other when it came to my care because they all stood out. They saved my life. I can’t say that enough.”

• Date Taken: 02.22.2017
• Date Posted: 02.22.2017 16:07
• Story ID: 224350
• Location: BETHESDA, MD, US
• Hometown: NEWBURGH, NY, US