It’s already 2009 (I think the first time I’ve actually had to write the new number!) and I haven’t been keeping up the blogging. I want to try to summarize the rest of our year and bring it up to date, and I’ll be posting some pages below (in the proper sequence) as I get around to it and as memory serves. These include our trip to Arizona and Utah and the Grand Canyon in March (pushed out of the way by cycling matters) and our trip to Maine in September for Tom’s and Jill’s wedding at Edgehill. Starting here with a surgical update.
While I was having colon surgery in June, a small lesion was also discovered by accident in my right lung together with my pulmonary embolism, and we’d been keeping an eye on it through the fall. We finally managed to biopsy it in December, and it turned out “consistent with” colon (not lung) cancer, which was good news: it’s a lot less aggressive, though its spread is of course a concern. After some consultations we decided to go ahead with thoracic surgery, on December 17th; my surgeons and the oncologists thought there was a good chance to “get” it once and for all, since apparently it hadn’t appeared anywhere else. The operation went very well; I was in the hospital only two nights and went home feeling very strong, though I do find myself wanting to nap a lot. My rib, where he cut it, is still uncomfortably sore (and the December chill makes it all feel even worse).
Diana meanwhile, who had to postpone her knee replacement while I was in the hospital, finally had her surgery in early November and has also made a really strong recovery. It turned out she only required a partial (“unicompartmental”), and that has been much easier to deal with. Her surgeon, Dr. Burri, was so pleased with his part that he entered it into her medical record. She did real well with her rehab exercises, mostly to strengthen the muscles, until they kicked her out of p.t. She’s slacked off some since then. But she’s been helping walk the dog around the block, doesn’t need the cane (or the disabled placard) any more, has been cleared to ride her bike, and is basically without pain. And has returned to Kindergarten as planned. We need to get her to the gym on a regular schedule and get serious about losing weight, which will help make the knee last. And she’s already made a tentative appointment to have the other (left) knee done in June.
I had my post-op checkup this week with Dr. Patel, and everything is looking good. In fact he made me feel like a celebrity, as an outstanding patient! I guess they are glad when you make them look good, and it is good to be able to share in the satisfaction, especially when one is the canvas, so to speak. He took less of my lung than I expected, had a chance to feel around, and apparently “got” everything, including another growth which he said was “nothing.” Pathology indicates it was indeed (most likely—you never seem to get 100% sure out of them!) colon, not lung, cancer. I saw Oncology today. They think it advisable to put me through a six-month course of chemo, just to make sure nothing remains. My best chance for an actual cure, although they have nothing concrete, only statistics, to go on. I’m hoping to put the whole thing behind me in 2009.
Counting my cataract surgery last December, this makes four times under the knife between us in a single year. I certainly didn’t intend to turn my body over to medical science in this way (Diana’s procedure was more elective), and we don’t recommend surgery as a steady diet. But Kaiser has been outstanding and I/we are astonished at and thankful for the skill, the expertise, the knowledge which have been available to us. And the care and caring of the nursing and supporting staff. And for medical insurance which has paid for almost all of it. (Of course, if one adds up all the premiums over thirty and more years, Kaiser still comes out ahead, but I’m sure they don’t count it that way). One can only imagine the horrors of being un insured these days, and it is obvious that affordable health coverage for everyone has got to be one of our most important national priorities. We need to keep pressure on the new Administration and Congress until we all have it.
