A long day

I'm posting today from Lacks. Cancer Center, 4th floor. I was going to wait until I heard something from Dr. Shabahang but I think he must have had a long day. I was his first surgery of the day and evidently it went long. I imagine I'll get the full story first thing in the morning.

But I did hear a few unconfirmed details. There is good news and bad news but the good is much better then the bad.

First the bad. The infected lymph nodes in my chest turned out to cancer. Sounds pretty bad, right? Well the good news is that it is a different cancer. I know that still sounds bad but apparently it my be early stage lymphatic cancer (which they chopped out while they were in there). So the really good news is that it is also possible that the infected lymph nodes that are near the esophagus tumor may also be early stage lymphatic cancer and NOT metastasized esophagus cancer. There is some possibility that this makes the original tumor stage 2, and not stage 3. That would be great news indeed! Again, this is unconfirmed, second-hand information and I'll need another surgery to get at those lymph nodes (sooner rather than later) but it would notch up my prospects significantly. Stay tuned!

Because this morning's surgery changed from biopsy to cancer eradication, I was awakened at 1:00pm instead of 9:00 am. I was pretty groggy and confused as were my waiting loved ones. I just remember thinking that all the staff bustling about in the post anesthesia recovery room were blonde women with pony tails and I was very short of breath, tangled in wires, tubes & cables and very sore. There was also an x-ray taken right from the gurney. I barely remember the ride up to my very sweet room at Lacks.

I am brand new at this surgery and over-night stay busines (TMI warning- skip to next paragraph) and had to learn out how a catheter works. I had to ask the nurse how to pee.

I also had one of those buttons that allows you to self-administer pain relief. I had an IV in each arm (a redundancy required for robot surgery because if one goes bad... you got a robot up inside of you that takes some time to extract). I was hitting on that thing every 10 minutes because my chest hurt so bad. I could not get comfortable. I kept adjusting the bed, my gown, and my position in the bed to find a way to contort into a sleeping configuration. Finally in a lucid moment I remembered that the pain killer was not coming through my arms but through my spinal column. Sure enough, all that medicine was not going to the place that hurt. It was not the incisions that ached it was my shoulder muscles. Apparently they do robot surgery with your arms contorted and bound up above your head. The procedure had gone way long and the pain I was experiencing was radiating from my stretched out shoulder muscles. Once we figured that out they put a mild pain reliever in my IV bag and I felt great!

The message on the message board in my room stated that today's goal was to sit up and "dangle at bedside". This was referring to my legs in case you were wondering. I made that goal in spades. I stood up and then sat down in a chair for a couple of hours!

Now that I have finished eating my first meal in 24 hours consisting of of strawberry gelatin and chicken broth, I'm getting a little Benedryl in my IV for dessert. It is supposed to sooth this insane itching on my belly and my back. An added benefit is that I'm feeling a bit sleepy. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!