[cancer] Liver biopsy was clean
Surgeon just phoned. Liver biopsy was clean. No metastatic disease. No chemo.
Oh, my, the tears.
Posted: 6:55 pm Wed September 22 2010 | Comments(65) |
[cancer] Post op, but not post enough op yet
Still firmly in the grip of the post-op transition. Slept zero hours the last two nights, specifically meaning late-night REM sleep, though quite a few hours of resting, dozing, and lurching through a hypnagogic state. Still on liquid foods, with no unassisted lower GI activity since last Thursday. Painkillers make my brain fuzzy. Watch this space for more details as I come down a bit further. And yes, still no confirmed pathology report.
Posted: 5:49 am Wed September 22 2010 | Comments(3) |
[photos] Your Wednesday moment of zen
Your Wednesday moment of zen.
the_child at age 9 with a Multnomah County sheriff’s deputy, when she and I worked as election observers so she could understand more about the mechanics of voting. Portland, OR © 2006, 2010, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Posted: 5:44 am Wed September 22 2010 | Comments(1) |
[links] Link salad feigns sleep
A review of The New Space Opera 2 — With a serious lack of love for my short story therein, “To Raise a Mutiny Betwixt Yourselves”.
Writing: Find the Time or Don’t — John Scalzi on finding time to write, with a kind shout-out to me. Me a few years ago (pre-cancer) on the same topic.
seanan_mcguire sends me a gift — Now I can play with my own organ!
Liberace Museum is closing its doors — Sadly, time marches on for all of us.
Get Fuzzy on the death of the dinosaurs — Hahahahaha.
Pencil Point Sculpture — Amazingly cool and subtle art.
Vintage and Modern Concept Buses — Mmm. Now there’s some Detroit iron. (Via Dark Roasted Blend.)
?otD: What’s the hardest thing you ever gave up?
9/22/2010
Writing time yesterday: n/a (post-op haze)
Body movement: Brief suburban walking (post-op haze)
Hours slept: 0.0 (hypnogogic state)
This morning’s weigh-in: 243.2
Yesterday’s chemo/post-op stress index: 5/10 (post-op pain, fatigue, peripheral neuropathy)
Currently reading: Deceiver by C.J. Cherryh
Posted: 5:40 am Wed September 22 2010 | Comments(0) |
[cancer] Home from the hospital
Home from the hospital, pretty whacked out on painkillers at the moment. More from me later when time and mental acuity permit.
For now, I leave you with this one Important Safety Tip: Do not under any circumstances get the dry heaves whilst enjoying fresh abdominal sutures. Just sayin’.
Remember, here at this blog we try out new life experiences so you don’t have to!
And it’s good to be back.
Posted: 11:42 am Tue September 21 2010 | Comments(10) |
Signal Boost
Shannon here, posting for Jay. I’ll just copy what’s on my LJ:
Just talked to the surgeon a few minutes ago…he said the surgery went “perfectly.” They were able to do it laparoscopically, as planned, and with a smallish incision at that. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
jaylake‘s recovery should be pretty good; he might even go home Sunday, not Monday, depending on how he feels and eats and all that.
But the BEST news is that the surgeon does NOT think the lesion looks like cancer. Now, this is not at all definitive–we have to wait for the pathology report, mid-next-week, but in his opinion, this is not a met.
::insert weepy relief and joy and hope and, yet, caution here::
Now making all the phone calls and texts and posting on all the blogs and getting the word out and all that….
Jay’s in recovery, and will probably be there another hour and a half or so, then he’ll move to ICU and we’ll be able to see him.
Oh whew, and wow, and, oh, to dare to hope?….???
Posted: 3:09 pm Thu September 16 2010 | Comments(35) |
[cancer] Off into the deep dark
We’re about to head to the hospital for the liver surgery. See y’all on the other side.
Posted: 4:57 am Thu September 16 2010 | Comments(3) |
[cancer] Surgery details
Spent the afternoon at OHSU. As calendula_witch explains, we now have a schedule for tomorrow. I’m to be at surgical admitting at 6 am. Surgery is scheduled for 7:30 am. It ought to last three to four hours. I’ll then spend a few hours in recovery before being transferred to ICU for overnight.
Friday I should be transferred to a regular bed, and I’ll be able to have visitors. If things go well, I’ll be discharged Monday. I will be interested in visitors once I’m out of ICU. Watch this space or calendula_witch’s blog for details.
Meanwhile, tonight I have a colonic purge and a liquid diet. Because I know how to party.
Posted: 7:13 pm Wed September 15 2010 | Comments(10) |
[culture] Scenes from an oncology unit
Gentleman with a booming voice is having a loud, lengthy conversation next to us in the surgical oncology waiting room. After a few passive-aggressive dirty looks from me and calendula_witch, I finally go up to the receptionist and ask if this is a cell-phone free zone as most waiting rooms at OHSU are. He’s unsure, and clearly doesn’t want to be drawn in. I return to my seat and the woman with the loud talker looks at me in disgust and says sarcastically, “Really?”
Me: “Yes. This is a pretty quiet place, and his voice carries. It’s quite disruptive.”
Her: “Well, he was having a problem at work.”
Me: “Yes, I know. I heard all of it. But there’s an area down by the elevator lobby for cell phones.”
Her: “He’s quite ill, you know.” (This she tells me in an oncology unit. Ahem.)
Me: “What do you think I’m doing here?”
It’s that weird po-mo etiquette that says objecting to someone’s intrusive cell phone conversation is the height of rudeness, but doesn’t see the intrusive conversation as a problem. She was most put out at my objection.
(The guy was quite apologetic and very nice about it, btw.)
Posted: 6:59 pm Wed September 15 2010 | Comments(3) |
[cancer] Heading back under the knife
Tomorrow is my liver resectioning surgery date. Third major surgery in three years, all to address primary colon cancer and subsequent metastases of same. I am not sure if I’ll have a chance to blog tomorrow morning, and I certainly won’t be blogging for a while after surgery, so y’all play nice while I’m gone. calendula_witch will have status updates on her blog, and possibly here as well. For those in Portland, I’ll be at OHSU, probably through Monday, and generally welcome visitors when I’m stuck in the hospital.
Our antipodeal vacation did a wondrous job of keeping my mind off this, but it pretty much all came crashing back yesterday. Had a lovely dinner last night with family and friends. Sadly, that seems to be an annual tradition. Managed something of a slow-motion meltdown afterwards when I was alone with calendula_witch. She was quite the loving pillar of support.
The Fear sucks.
As I’ve mentioned previously, I am quite overwhelmed by the experience of major surgery. I know just enough about anaesthesia to very, very afraid of it. I hate the epidural with a passion though I recognize its effectiveness. The discomforts of recovery, most especially including the catheter, distress me. All the lost time leaves a strange lacuna in my memory, both the black hole of anaesthesia and the strange dream state of post-operative medication.
All of which is to say, I’ve weathered tougher surgeries than tomorrow’s, and I’ll pass through tomorrow’s just fine. Whatever I think of the toll it takes. The hardest part will be waiting for the pathology report. That’s what will confirm the commitment to another six-month round of chemo. Or, slightly possibly, not.
So a lot at stake today. We’ll be at the hospital most of this afternoon doing pre-op consultations of various sorts. I’ll try to do a summary blog report tonight of whatever there is to be reported. After that, le deluge.
Posted: 5:21 am Wed September 15 2010 | Comments(9) |