Monday Night Cancer Club is a Daily Kos group focused on dealing with cancer, primarily for cancer survivors and caregivers, though clinicians, researchers, and others with a special interest are also welcome. Volunteer diarists post Monday evenings between 8-9 PM ET on topics related to living with cancer, which is very broadly defined to include physical, spiritual, emotional and cognitive aspects. Mindful of the controversies endemic to cancer prevention and treatment, we ask that both diarists and commenters keep an open mind regarding strategies for surviving cancer, whether based in traditional, Eastern, Western, allopathic or other medical practices. This is a club no one wants to join, in truth, and compassion will help us make it through the challenge together.
Oh boy do we have detours.
WOW!!!
Surgery has been cancelled until further notice. It never happened on July 24th. On Thursday, July 19th, I was seen by anesthesiology staff and cleared for surgery by them. The next morning I started running a slight fever and had some occasional coughing. By Sunday I was running a fever that hovered around 101. Also on Sunday evening my wife flew in from Arkansas. Our daughter picked her up at the airport instead of me (first time I missed picking her up from the airport in 29 years). That very fact set off alarm bells immediately. Did I EVER catch hell from wifey. Wow was I EVER tongue lashed for being sick and not telling her. (my ears are STILL sore a month later, just don't tell her I said so....puhlease!!!!..... shhhhhhhhhh).
So on Monday July 23rd I got a chest x-ray, saw my surgeon, and based on the results of the x-ray and the clinical examination, surgery was cancelled. I had a significant pneumonia in my right lung (the cancer-free lung). On Thursday July 26th, I was seen again by my surgeon in follow-up and it was determined that I needed to be admitted into the hospital and given IV antibiotics. So I had enough time to go home, get my travel toiletries and go to the hospital for admission.
On Sunday July 29th, my wife flew back to Arkansas so she could get back to work and preserve her remaining leave time from her work. She needs to be here with me my when I do have surgery. On Monday July 30th, I was released from the hospital and a friend of mine brought me home. When I left the hospital I had an oxygen making machine waiting for me in my living room along with a couple of bottles of oxygen to go with the bottle I had brought home from the hospital. Talk about a life detours eh?
As always, more below the squigglie thingie!
AS I said up above, I was released from the hospital on Monday July 30th. I have been home now for a while but I still need to use 2 liters/minute Oxygen here at home. A very sobering experience for me. This event demonstrated to me exactly how much my immune system was compromised by the chemotherapy and the used to treat my cancer as well as this pneumonia infection. Talk about an eye opener, WOW! My appetite is good and slowly I am gaining strength and my health is returning. I can say with full confidence that my new best friend is my incentive spirometer as I try to rebuild my lung capacity; slowly each and every day. I am still in follow-up for this pneumonia so no surgery for me for a while still. I am aiming to be ready to go under the knife by early October. Hopefully, we can get there. My short term goal is to get off of all of my supplemental Oxygen needs soon. Then I will seriously re-condition my body and get ready for surgery. Now if only my body and lungs will cooperate laughs
Additional Details From BEFORE This Pneumonia Detour
On June 5th I had my last dosage of Gemzar. AMEN. I was relieved that this phase of treatment had come to an end. Time to turn the page, close this chapter and focus on the light ahead of me in this "tunnel of adventure" I am traveling down. We know that the light ahead for me is likely not to be a train, but there is still a long way to travel before we know exactly what it will be. We all have learned that wacked-out cellular functions (AKA Cancer) are like that. Neoplasms just "do their thing". If the chemistry is a close match (lethal to the cancer that is), the neoplasm goes away.
On the morning of June 26th when I had another PET SCAN performed. I received the results a few days later and they were better than I could have hoped for. My oncologist characterizes it well: "Good report. Chemo has shrunk the cancer considerably". The radiologist gave me some real "meat" to savor: 1.) "The hypermetabolic left upper lobe mass which was seen on the patient's previous PET study of 03/08/12 and was due to squamous cell cancer, is now barely visualized after chemotherapy". 2.) "No evidence of metastatic disease. the hypermetabolic AP window lymph node which was seen on the patient's prior PET study and was contiguous with the pulmonary mass is no longer identified after treatment".
I discussed all of these findings with my surgeon and we both agreed that although this cancer has had it's butt kicked by chemo we need to "git it" while it's down and punch drunk goofy before it has time to recover and get stronger. So we planned to "gitt'er done" on Tuesday July 24th. (we all know now THAT never happened)
That is the analytical, just the facts story of this adventure. Being a student of science I find it easy to separate the facts of my medical condition from me. Weird and unsettling for many members of my family how I am able to do that, but it is who I am and how I see things. One of my 3 siblings especially, has not seen this side of me too often in our lives and he is slightly unsettled by it. It is my turn to be the analytical one in our relationship instead of him.
Lessons Learned
I have spent my quiet times reflecting on my life and what these past 6 months mean to me. First, as I have already said, I feel that I am TRULY blessed. Amazingly blessed.
Why I don't know for sure, but since all of this began in March I have only had to take off from work about 40 hours total (up until I got sick as a dog from pneumonia that is). That fact alone is a great indicator of just how blessed I have been. I know that I have many wonderful friends and a very powerfully spiritual family to go along with all of this.
What I have learned from this serious of detour, is that we all need to continuously process events that "throw us off our game plan"; that when events outside of our control (catching pneumonia in my instance) intrude, it takes us a while for anyone to both emotionally and intellectually fully understand, accept and even correctly identify the significance of the event and how it fits into that "game plan" we had before "all this happened". For many of us a part of that processing we all do is to first get the facts straight in our minds (the first part of this diary is my attempt at doing so for me).
But some of the more important lessons for me are that I do have real and significant limitations that have been imposed on me by illness (both my cancer and the pneumonia); that recovery happens only with hard work and being a good patient and lastly, that family and friends are really wonderful to have surrounding you all the time especially when you are in crisis.
Lastly, when you are handed a barrel of lemons (instead of the usual bag) it just means that now you can make lemonade for more people than EVER could have imagined. winks