Finally it can be told!
Shortly before the Ride, on May 21st, I was called in for a colonoscopy at Kaiser which revealed a cancerous mass. A consultation followed with the surgeon. Dr. Dixon saw no reason I couldn’t go on the Ride (he said his wife had ridden last year) and would schedule surgery after my return. A CT scan also showed the tumor was contained and hadn’t spread. For myself I had no symptoms or any sense of being sick or weak or disabled or special in any way There seemed to be no need to tell anyone except family and a few close friends; in fact it seemed only slightly ironic to be doing the AIDS Ride as a “cancer patient.”
Pre-operative checkup brought up my road rash from my crash, but it appeared to be well-enough healed not to be a problem. The operation went smoothly, I believe (of course I remember nothing of the procedure, only being asked my name and what they were going to do before I lost consciousness—they kept asking me my name for days!) I had somewhat underestimated the extent of the surgery; not just the lump, but my entire ascending colon was removed, but of course if you think about it there wouldn’t have been much sense in reattaching the leftover parts. And Dr. Dixon was able to operate laparoscopically, making only a few tiny incisions. Into the bargain I got a small hernia repaired. I was to be in the hospital maybe a couple of nights while my incisions began to heal and my colon learned to function again. I had visitors and no pain (thanks to a morphine drip I could regulate) and felt drowsy but clear and rational, though I later heard I had been largely incoherent.
In the second night I was unexpectedly moved downstairs into the Transitional Care Unit and there was this trio of nurses trying to roll me on a bed to the elevator and down to Radiation for a CT scan. We never actually crashed into a wall, but they seemed mostly concerned to bring along all the monitors and equipment and hardly seemed to notice me, and I just had to submit to all of it. Of course I was forbidden to stand up or move myself. Turned out there was a blood clot in my lung, a pulmonary embolism which had developed in spite of extensive precautions; they had detected it by monitoring the drop in my blood oxygen; the danger was that it could travel from my lung to my heart and then through the arteries to my brain or worse. So I was suddenly in Hell, in the TCU, on oxygen, with intravenous blood thinners, a nasal tube down my throat (clearing the fluids from my stomach and small intestine was supposed to help my colon recover) and no food and no more morphine, just Vicodin which seemed to give me bad dreams. And the worst was I was unable to sleep; I could close my eyes and relax, but could not manage to drift off, and could only witness time passing, second by second through endless hours of the night. It was like this for five nights (in the first two I was also finding terrible spaces deep within which I struggled to escape: I really doubted if I could survive another night like that). In time the bad dreams (if not the sleep rhythms) improved—Brahms concertos on the IPod my daughter brought me helped a lot—and I believe I must have managed to doze considerably during the days. And the nursing staff seemed to get better as well: care givers who cared, who would talk to me and tell me what was going on and seemed to be glad that I was feeling better. Eventually someone came to insert a PIC line (only one person in the hospital has the qualifications to do it) so they could feed me intravenously. I hadn’t had anything to eat in five days! And almost as soon they removed the nasal tube and my stomach was ready to start on liquids again and then semi-solid food which I found largely unpalatable (Diana brought me won ton from outside). By this time I was ready to get up and take long walks, at first dragging the IV stand and an oxygen bottle, then more freely as more and more equipment was unhooked. They finally released me on Sunday afternoon, after a 10-day stay.
Initial results are excellent: Dr. Dixon removed the whole mass (he said it had grown into the colon wall) and the labs showed the lymph nodes cancer free. I’ll be checking with Oncology in time to see if any follow-up (radiation or chemo) is necessary. I’m enormously impressed with the Kaiser system: I talked with one stupid doctor and another who just seemed to be shining me on, but the rest of the surgical team were great: efficient, responsive, informative. They were on top of the cancer and all over the embolism. The nursing staff, again with a few exceptions (and part of my negative judgment is colored by my bad mood, no doubt) were outstanding. I don’t think I could have been in better hands.
I’ve lost twenty pounds—not the recommended weight-loss program—and can’t wait to see how that helps my climbing! Unfortunately it seems to be mainly muscle mass: my arms and legs, which I’ve been building up for all these years, are skinny again. And I’m going to be on anti-coagulation drugs for several more months, and the doctors think I should stay off the bike because of the danger of a crash. So it’ll be awhile.
Diana decided to postpone her knee replacement until I was safely home again, assuming she could be rescheduled immediately, and found she won’t be able have it done now this summer. If they had only told her. . . But it looks as if she can hold out until November now (she can take pain killers again) and use Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays to get back on her feet.
Yes, there are even a couple of fotos, made with the cell-fone. For now everything is well.
Looking pretty sick Flowers from the ALC Office
