Finally feeling more or less like myself. Minus various kinds of pain and distress, and the trailing end of a post-surgical Dilaudid haze, but still, I’ve made the mental transition from “sick dude” to “Jay”. Still pretty hard hit, though.
I did have hopes of trailing off the Dilaudid today — I’m taking it very moderately now, as I taper down. But I woke up in too much surgical pain to ignore, so I suspect I’ll be using it for a few more days. (The good part, of course, is that I slept through the night in the first place without being awoken by the pain.) For obvious reasons I can’t drive until I’ve been off the Dilaudid for a few days, and that places a lot of limits on my activities.
I always seem to forget how extreme the surgery experience is. This is probably a natural process to protect my sanity. Still, I should not feel so surprised at how rough the process is. Not to mention the recovery.
Each procedure is different, as well. In the case of the liver resectioning I have just undergone, there’s surgical pain from the entry wounds, there’s site pain from the liver itself, and there’s lower GI pain from the very difficult restart process. The various drugs don’t address each issue equally, and to some degree I don’t want to completely suppress the sensations. They’re important feedback. But meanwhile, ouch. Ouch ouch ouch.
Anyway, having finally returned home again yesterday afternoon, H— came over with food and a DVD. At my urging, calendula_witch took a break from Cancerland and headed for the hills. I ate my usual handful of stuff, after which H— the_child and I watched Panique au village [ imdb ].
It was one of the weirdest films I’ve ever seen, and that’s going some given my film viewing habits. I don’t know if the movie would have made more sense or less sense without the Dilaudid, but it was a heck of a lot of fun.
Also, viz yesterday’s comment about wearing purple:
Today I lay low. Most processes will be in neutral while I try to re-enter my normal life. Have not yet really processed the news about not needing chemo, frankly, as post-op has been so overwhelming. Plenty to gnaw on there, and rejoicing yet to come.
The Stag: 1938 — Shorpy with a photo of historic Omaha. My usual hotel there is a tad nicer.
Pornography in hospitals — This is both serious and hilarious. Not exactly worksafe, though it is covering medical and social issues rather than prurience.
Post-operative recovery is not going well. I’m headed back over to OHSU now to be re-admitted for tonight. Next steps unknown. More when I know it, either from me or from calendula_witch.
I love this cartoon Plunderpuss did of me arguing with my liver.
That’s what I’ll look like when I’m an old man yelling at kids to get off my lawn.
Long, strange dreams last night amid some actual sleep. I was touring Australia, Land of the Slow, with James Gurney and a documentary film maker. We all had room temperature IQs in my dream.
Still not nearly on balance here. Post-op recovery has been intensely complicated by a very slow, very rough GI restart. So slow and rough that we almost went into the Emergency Room yesterday afternoon.
That distress is overwhelming other issues such as actual post-op pain, and significantly retarding my progress.
There was some advancement last night, thanks to Heroic Measures, but I still feel pretty damned awful. We shall see what the day brings. Once I can think straight and bck off a bit the pain pills, I’ll catch up to both surgery blogging and New Zealand/Australia blogging.
Kafka’s Last Trial — Because truth really is stranger than fiction. Bonus note: I never have grokked the whole “burn all my papers when I die thing.” It strikes me as a particularly self-indulgent form of melodrama. Obviously I’m missing the point. (Via Scrivener’s Error.)
Brain Coprocessors — The need for operating systems to help brains and machines work together.
Stuxnet malware is ‘weapon’ out to destroy … Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant? — The Stuxnet malware has infiltrated industrial computer systems worldwide. Now, cyber security sleuths say it’s a search-and-destroy weapon meant to hit a single target. One expert suggests it may be after Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant.
Texas school madness, and a potential cure — The lunatics running the textbook business on behalf of conservative America discover a pro-Islamic bias. Yes, the same people who try to wedge the Bible into science textbooks, want to teach creationism, want to downplay evolution, want to eradicate the Big Bang, and want to downplay the Constitutional clause establishing separation of Church and State, are worried about someone trying to force their religion into the textbooks.
Some very big news last night. No chemo forthcoming after all. I’m blitzed right now: taking oral Dilaudid post-operatively, seriously insomniac, and on day eight of a lower GI shutdown. My ability to assemble a cogent commentary, let alone the relevant thank yous to one and all, is well beyond my current grasp.
Nonetheless, well…
This is huge.
Cancer is much, much bigger than me. It’s quite possibly the thing that will take my life some day. After all, something has to. But this cancer will not take me now, or soon. It’s much bigger than me and everyone around me, but we have beaten it. As we would have beaten it even if I’d been locked into the chemo chair for another six months.
In the mean time, I have this liver surgery to get over. It’s simultaneously the most and least complex of my cancer surgeries, depending on how I choose to look at all this. I need to stabilize my sleep. I need to get my lower GI restarted or I risk being back in the hospital soon. I have lots of things to talk about here on the blog, a book or two to get back to writing. And, well, life.
In this life, the cancer gods have let me walk free a while longer. Excuse me while I go laugh in the sunlight with calendula_witch, the_child and everyone who loves me.
My liver biopsy was clean — An amazing round of comments from you guys. Thank you, everyone. This is a hard road, and the journey is by no means over, but it just got a lot shorter and easier.
deus ex cerebrum — Science In My Fiction on the roots and roles of religion.
Divided Minds, Specious Souls — The experience of a unified mind and the possibility of an everlasting soul are connected. And there is scant evidence to support the existence of either.
Palin and Foreign Policy — Conservative commentator Daniel Larison on the questionable foreign policy insights of the woman who can see Russia.
?otD: Do you know why sometimes you get frightened?
9/23/2010
Writing time yesterday: n/a (post-op haze)
Body movement: Brief suburban walking (post-op haze)
Hours slept: 3.0 (interrupted)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a (forgot)
Yesterday’s chemo/postiop stress index: 6/10 (post-op pain, fatigue, peripheral neuropathy)
Currently reading: Deceiver by C.J. Cherryh
