Cancer

My Mom died of cancer. My sister-in-law died of cancer. So have many other of my relatives and friends. My best Facebook friend has been struggling with a very serious case of cancer for a long time. I recently googled how many people get cancer. Google says about 1/2 of the women and 1/3 of the men.

Three years ago, they discovered I had a huge tumor in my lower-right abdomen. They were going to have to take it out to know for sure whether it was cancer. (Turns out it was.) And to take it out, they had to remove one of my kidneys, which was no longer functioning because the tumor had completely enveloped it. The tumor weighed 13 1/2 pounds. They had to cut a pretty big hole in my diaphragm to get it out.

From first discovering that I had a tumor, to the surgery, was just 3 weeks. It was not enough time for me to become really traumatized. But in the three years after the operation I have become traumatized. I have not been the same, physically or mentally, since then.

 

And now my doctor wants me to have a colonoscopy, because my latest annual stool test shows a possibility of cancer. (That's right: you can have an annual stool test instead of a colonoscopy every five years. I have a feeling most men don't know that.)

 

I haven't scheduled the colonoscopy yet. I realize I'm behaving irrationally by not scheduling it. My doctor, my general practitioner, who is very intelligent and extremely competent, and in whom I have a very high level of trust, says she's like to see me have the procedure -- "the dreaded procedure," as they called it on "Seinfeld" -- in the next 6 months. If I don't have the procedure, and if I do have cancer, she says, it could take up to 10 years for other symptoms of the cancer to show.

So if I've seemed sort of grumpy lately, that may have been part of the reason.

 

How the Bursting-Into-Color Thing Has Been Going So Far

See my previous post for what I mean by bursting into color.

So far it's mostly been a bunch of big talk. I haven't completely healed yet from the operation. Pretty much the only exercise which is allowed is walking, and I'm not allowed too walk to far from home base, on the off chance that I collapse. But Boy, a couple of weeks from now, (insert more big talk)!

I think I've been spending more time in front of the computer since disconnecting my TV.

Several different people seem to agree that I'm losing weight. In addition to the walking I'm trying to eat less overall, with more veggies and all of that totally annoying crap.

Today, a woman who'd turned me down flat when I asked her out before the surgery -- but had been polite enough to add "--but I'm totally flattered!" -- said that I looked really good. She meant: compared to just days after the surgery, when she had seen me. It was only later that it occurred to me that it was possible that her remark could also possibly be construed as encouragement to ask her out again.

I'm really bad at this subtextual thing that many of you humans often do. I'm also bad at figuring out which of you is more liable to do it. That's autism for you.

I may have been standing up taller than usual lately. That's possible.

I feel much, much better than I did a week ago, when I was wondering exactly how long I was going to be in constant pain. The answer was: about that long. Now instead of the pain, there's a tightness in my lower abdomen most of the time. Sort of like having gas, but not having gas.

Helath-care professionals have been visiting me in my home. They're all really nice. One of them is helping me to install a shower head in my tub. With the shower head, I will be able to sit on the tub bench also provided by them, and spray myself. That will be awesome.

Bursting into Color

Ever since I realized I needed major surgery (I had a tumorous kidney removed on August 1, pathology showed that the tumor was stage 1a cancer originating in the kidney, all indications are that post-op I am cancer-free), I've been telling myself that, if I get the chance, I will change my life. I've been trying to do that.

Decades ago, I was reading a film review, and the reviewer -- it wasn't Pauline Kael, I'm pretty sure, but with my memory, hey, maybe it was -- said that this director -- I don't remember which director exactly, sorry -- specialized in movies about (I'm reconstructing the quote from memory so chances it's not word-for-word accurate) "grey people who suddenly burst into full color." My determination is to burst into full color.

Some of you who've known me for a while may think I'm already pretty colorful, but I assure you, you ain't not yet to have seen nothin yet before this thing here.

You heard me.

Part of the planned burst into color will be sharing more -- much more -- about myself. The way I'm doing in this post. The way I've asked for help after coming back home from hospital to my home all alone, asking neighbors for help even though I barely knew them and was terrified.

As another colorful fellow once remarked, "I don't know what you expect staring into the TV set." You and your TV set are your own business, and I'm not here to criticize the two of you. But I was a major couch potato before the surgery, and now I've turned off my TV, and how has it been? It's been very difficult so far, thank you, but that's in part because my mobility is severely limited and will continue to be for a few more weeks. But I can still step outside, and watch sparrows and doves and cardinals and robins and squirrels including some black squirrels and chipmunks and wild rabbits from right outside my house.

There are other things to look at besides TV, is what I'm saying. I've done this no-TV thing before with good results.

I can try to make more eye contact with people. This is risky for me, a 57-year-old autistic person not used to normal levels of eye contact, because it can lead directly to overpowering emotions. But that's okay. Bursting into color can be risky. Bursting into color is supposed to involve strong emotions.

I'm not going to get louder and more obnoxious and pushy and unpleasant, in case you were picturing that. The goal is precisely the opposite: to become much more pleasant. To become good for something.

I don't have a lot of concrete details yet. I have a lot of general things in mind, like writing even better than I already do, and dancing, and losing lots weight by means of taking lots of long walks (5 to 45 miles or so. That would be 45 or so in one day.) I'm picturing myself with longer hair, even if it is turning greyer and greyer.

And these colorful changes may or may not include public office, but I don't see how politics can be avoided altogether, and if Donald Trump can be President, I certainly can be too.

I'm Cancer -Free

Three weeks ago today, I learned that the doctors were concerned that the tumor in my right kidney was cancer, and that they wanted to operate as soon as possible. Today is twelve days after that operation, and I learned that I am now cancer-free. The tumor they took out of me was huge, much bigger than the actual kidney, but examination after it was removed shows that it originated in the kidney. It was cancer, stage 1B, and there are no signs that it spread to other areas.

Three weeks. Not enough time for me to learn as much about cancer as millions of people know. In three weeks, I was in and out of the University of Michigan hospital (main branch, adjacent to the university and to downtown Ann Arbor) three times: once for the surgery, once because I took the wrong medication, and one more time, just to the ER and out again a couple of hours later, with a broken toe.

How did I break my toe? I don't know. Presumably the pain from the incisions in my abdomen kept me from realizing that anything had happened to my toe, until I looked down and suddenly the four smaller toes on my left foot were black and blue all over. That was one week ago today. Now, the toes on both feet look pretty much the same, and the pain from the incisions has faded enough that I notice a slight pain in the middle toe of my left foot.

I feel like I cheated death. I feel like I cheated cancer. I don't feel like a cancer veteran at all, not after all of the people I've known who've lived with cancer for years and decades.

I feel like I've been given another chance at life. I want to live more completely. I've lived more completely at times before. Most notably in the late summer of 1990 in Bonn. I know how to do it.

How? You may be wondering. A moment at a time, is how.

Just three weeks. You better believe I know I'm freakin' lucky.

Post-Post-Op

I had a slight setback, but I'm good now, and I'm full of a hunger to live -- to really, really live.

Shortly after finishing my most recent blog post, Post-Op, I collapsed at home. My brother was visiting, he called 911. I went back into the hospital then, Saturday afternoon, and got back home again today, Monday morning. It was only a temporary setback. My overall progress is very good.

Friday night, I had made the wrong choice in pain meds, taking an NSAID, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. Now I know: I should never take an NSAID again, ever. I should never take a medication without first being sure that it is not an NSAID. At first, the NSAID gave me great pain relief; but by Saturday afternoon, it had caused my blood pressure to plummet, which caused me to collapse.

I'm all better now: the NSAID has been completely flushed out of my system, my kidney function has been returned to normal. My pain level drops noticeably daily. The doctors tell me to walk. I'm walking more than they've asked me to, and they're good with that too, and working hard is speeding my recovery.

On the coming Friday, August 10, I have an appointment with my general practitioner. Monday, August 13, a week from today, I have an appointment with the urologist who performed the surgery. Either on the 10th or the 13th, I will find out more about what the chances are that I am now completely cancer-free.

My brother and I have interacted more with each in the past 48 hours than in the past 5 years before that. He and I have really drifted apart, but it seems that both of us want to change that.

Even before my recent stays in the hospital -- ever since first watching Zoolander a few months ago, in fact -- I've been working on singing the song "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother." So far, I haven't been able to sing it all the way through without breaking into full-on body-shaking sobs. Here's my advice: if you and a loved one have drifted apart, don't wait for something as drastic as the threat of cancer to make you try to patch things up.

surjree 4 munkee

On July 13, 2 weeks ago, I went to the emergency room with an unknown ailment. 3 Days later, July 16, I was released, still sick, the cause unknown. Finally, yesterday, July 25, I felt 100% again. I feel very healthy right now, very strong and vital, the way people sometimes feel after recovering from an illness.

However, in the hospital, while trying to figure out what was making me feel sick, one of the tests they did found something completely unrelated: a CT scan of my abdomen revealed a tumor in my right kidney. In fact, my right kidney is now more tumor than kidney. The tumor shows all of the signs of being cancer.

The good news is, there is no sign of cancer anywhere else in my body. On August 1st, I will go back to the hospital for surgery, to have the kidney removed. The hope is that once the kidney is removed, I will be completely cancer-free.

Still, I am under no illusion about the fact that I may die soon: the surgery will be pretty major, with all of the risks of any major surgery. And maybe the cancer has already spread beyond my kidney.

But, to my surprise, I'm not afraid of dying. I had often pictured being confronted with a potentially fatal medical condition, and the thought had always frightened me. Now that I actually know that I have cancer and am going to have a kidney removed, I'm not afraid. I'm going to do the best I can to follow all of the medical advice, and hope for a complete recovery and a long life after that, but if things don't turn out that way, well then, they don't.

Again, let me emphasize: the hope -- no, the expectation is that this surgery will leave me cancer-free. Also, the surgeon, when he and I looked at the CT scan together, said that my left kidney is "perfect. This is exactly what we want to see." His exact words. So, you know, things could be a lot worse.

I'm expected to stay one or two nights in the hospital after the surgery. When I'm back home, Meals on Wheels will look in on me. I just got off the phone with the insurance company, arranging transportation to and from the hospital. I think I got all the details pretty much handled. I'm ready to go and do this thing and get it over with. The main thing that's bothering me now is them telling me that after surgery, I'm not supposed to lift 10 pounds for 6 weeks.

I may be a Great Big Fat Guy -- in fact, there's no maybe about it -- but a lot of that fat is muscle, and I tend to absentmindedly pick up objects weighing 100 pounds or more, carrying them around and stacking and un-stacking them and so forth, without really thinking about it, the way that some people stretch and yawn. The thought of 6 weeks without doing even 1 rep of 1/10 of that is disturbing.

Imagine if your doctor told you that you were going to have to go for 6 weeks without stretching and yawning.

Oh well. I gotta do what I gotta do cause that's what I'm gonna do cause I gotta and I yam what I yam. If I don't make it through the surgery, go out and stomp the living crap out of the Republicans in the November mid-terms in my name. Avenge me! #HugeBlueTsunami If I do come through the surgery just fine, which is very likely, of course, I may have some interesting things to tell you about surgery.