Day 8

Monday, October 18, 2010

I went to go get my normal chemo today. For the past few days the nurses have been concerned about the fact that my incision (from the port surgery) isn't healing up properly. They have been fearing infection for a few days, but through just about every nurse in the Oncology Department checking me out with my shirt off, they had collectively decided that it was a surface infection - nothing to worry about.

On Friday (Day 7) I had gone home and cleaned the affected area and treated it with triple antibiotic ointment. In the eyes of the untrained medical professional (myself) it was looking pretty good.

It wasn't until today when the nurse pulled the dressing off and looked at it, she had the first glint of what I saw as worry. She drew another nurse into the cubicle to take a look. This nurse's name was Nina, she'd taken care of me all last week. She bit the corner of her lip in concern and said that it wasn't looking too good. They squeezed the incision to see if there was anything that would come out, nothing did. As a precautionary measure, they put a hold on my Chemotherapy for today and called for labs.

The nurse drew blood from my port, then they had another nurse come from a different Department of the hospital to draw blood from another part of my body. This is called a Blood Panel, I think, I can't really remember because my head reeling by this point. Basically, they wanted to draw from two different places to have a variety of results.

They called a surgeon from the office of the Doctor that put my port in, so he could come in and look at the incision to give the nurses some insight. However, this Doctor was in the Operating Room and it took about an hour for him to finish. So there I sat. Shirtless. For an hour.

When he came in he told me that there appeared to be tissue break down around the incision. This means that the incision should have closed, like it normally does, and fuse together -- but it didn't. For reasons unknown it didn't heal together and it opened back up, except only half of it opened back up, the middle of the incision is fine. I'll illustrate it with equal signs, hyphens and X's. The X's represent where it's closed, hyphens represent where it's healing and the equal sign represents where it's opened, the aforementioned case:

======XXXXxx-----

Since the incision is like a pocket where they slip the port into, this is how the incision literally looks, almost to scale, maybe a little longer. As you can see, the healing is rather odd. The surgeon thinks the best thing to do now is to remove the port and put a new one in the other side. In fact, you know Doctors: they don't think, they know!

I guess this is a good thing that they're decisive, but it doesn't leave much room for hope. Seeing as this means that tomorrow (Tuesday, October 19, 2010) I have an appointment to have the surgical doctor (Dr. Quaid) who put this in, take it out. Well, the Surgeon that looked at me today told Dr. Quaid he should be prepared to take it out tomorrow, but that he could decide for himself. Then he gave me a slight, smug micro-expression. I can pretty much bank on the fact I'm getting it out tomorrow. I asked the "good" Doctor what his return policy was on 10 day old merchandise. Seeing as how this little gizmo is not cheap. He gave a scripted, diplomatic answer of, "We provide the services, it's not really about purchasing them or returning them." Makes sense I guess, but his follow up question was if I would be paying out of pocket. When I said yes, he didn't seem empathetic. He mentioned the financial aid that was available, and didn't say much else. Poor people must make him uncomfortable.

On Wednesday, October 20, 2010 I am scheduled for surgery to get another port put in. On the following day I have an appointment scheduled with my Oncologist Dr. Brown, whose name I see all the time, but I haven't seen her for a couple weeks. It will be good to ask some questions.

I'm really not thrilled about the news, as you can probably tell by my chiding and sarcastic tone in my post. I guess the truth is I don't want to lose momentum and I feel like this hiccup will contribute to a huge loss of it.

It's kinda funny that cancer is self-sustaining to the point where it actually runs out of inhabitable room, yet the patients themselves have to dig deep inside (as well as drawing on support from others) to find what sustains them through the process of killing it.

Friday, October 8, 2010

I woke up at 7:10 this morning for my surgery. We had to be at the Hospital at 8:00. We got registered for the surgery, then played the waiting game. Finally the nurse came back and got me for my weight. After that they brought me into the pre-op room and gave me a bag for my clothes and other belongings.

After getting situated I laid in the bed and this really funny nurse came in and introduced himself as being the teller of bad jokes. (i.e. what do you call a bear with no teeth? .......... a gummy bear!) Needless to say he lived up to his introduction. He shook my hand, then grabbed the tips of my fingers, then when I put my hand back at my side he coaxed me to "finish it!" so we pounded knuckles. I have got to say that's the first time i've received "knucks" in

a Hospital!

He prepared to give me my IV so i did my usual and looked away. He gave me a local, then put the IV in and asked if i was okay. I told him I was, i just didn't like to watch. He responded with, "me neither, I like to close my eyes!" The man got jokes, I tell ya what!

He told me he'd see me in recovery and another nurse would look after me. When she walked in it was a very familiar face. I had seen her just two weeks previously before my Orchiectomy surgery! I said, "yooou look familiar!" and she told me how she bragged about me to other nurses for the past two weeks about how i just had a great attitude, and was at a rea

lly good place mentally during that surgery. I thought that was cool.

Eventually I had to go to the bathroom, so a nurse helped me down the hall, and of course as luck would have it, the Anesthesiologist tried to come visit my little room while I was gone. My Mom recounted the details when i came back. After i got re-situated she came in a short while later. She explained the anesthetic and how the meds i take make me more tolerant to it. So she'll have to give me more. She also explained they would give me a breathing tube, so i might wake up with a sore throat.

A really nice nurse wheeled me into the Operating Room and I started to get a little nervous. It always kinda gives me the willies to see how laid back the surgeon and surgeon's assistants are when you first get wheeled in. They were chatting about the Iron Man competition in Kona, Hawaii. Then the lady at "The Long Table of Sharp Pointy Objects" asked the guy who wheeled me in, "what's missing in here today?" and he said, "music!" so she asked me my favorite band. I was a little busy being transferred over to the Operating Table and getting my gown untied to answer. She asked again later though and I told her.

They set me all up then they p

ut the oxygen mask on my face and the Anesthesiologist hooked something up to the IV. She told me that most people feel a sting that goes away right away -- within thirty seconds -- and that i'd feel the wetness that i felt last time. Then, I started to feel really tired but kept my eyes open, the large Operating Room lights started focusing and unfocusing and my eyes were involuntarily listing lazily from side to side.

The next thing I remember is waking up in the recovery room with a killer sore throat. They had one of those oxygen nose things on me and it felt insanely uncomfortable to my still heavily sedated self. Instinctually I trie

d to pull it off, but the nurses stopped me. When I wake up in the morning usually I rub my eyes a lot to get the sleep out of em, it also seems to help me feel more awake. I tried that and the nurses batted my hand away again, thinking I was going for my new nose-piece. I told them I wanted to rub my eyes -- no relief. It was a deep feeling, clear in the middle of my head, rubbing my eyes wasn't going to help.

As soon as I could I asked for ice chips, cuz the thing that hurt the most was my throat! They told me it'd go away in about a day. I started feeling more awake, I joked with the nurse. She kind of looked at me like "is h

e serious?" They must get a lot of boring people in recovery or she must have thought i was talking nonsense because I was still high off Anesthesia. It may have been nonsense. I remember it being about my robe, but I can't remember it all. I just remember her laughing. In my state it was not a good idea to keep making jokes, but i made another one. It was about wearing so many clothes into the hospital i had to have two bags. I remember feeling disappointed to hear her say, "oh was it cold outside?"

They forgot to take an X-Ray to make sure that the Catheter feeding the vein was in the right spot, while I was in the OR. So they did it there.

They wheeled me into the next room which is basically the wait to be released. They were waiting for the phone call from radiology to confirm it was in the right spot. While we waited my mom took a picture of me. I sat there with my ice chips, with no modesty, looking stoned out of my mind because the sun was shinning in through the window i was facing, but life is good!

No more IVs!

Finally the nurse caring for me went on a calling spree and tracked down radiology and asked them herself if my results were back yet. They were and I was fee to go.

A really close friend of mine named Craig recently had collar bone surgery, so I can imagine that he looked something like me in this picture after he got out.

I got home and felt pretty good. I just feel like I have a sore neck, like I slept on it wrong. Other than that, i feel pretty good. The Doctor said no spiking of any Volleyballs for a while. Darn, that was on my to-do list!

I start Chemotherapy on Monday and my wonderful friend Dibe is going to be picking me up at 6:30 in the morning so we can make it there by 7. Then the 4 hour treatment, but hey... no IV! Plus she's an EMT so she knows medical speak and will be able to help me out with all the stuff they tell me.