The C Word

 Today marks 1 week that I have been home.  Since Monday I have been dealing with the fact that my incision leaks.  This is not a problem, but it is really annoying.   Last night a friend of ours, who used to be a nurse (Renee Soulsman) came over and gave Deb and I some things to try.   The main one was focused on getting me better sleeps.  She suggested that on my bed, I should lay down a garbage bag, covered by a beach towel, and on top of that my absorbent towel.  As a dressing to my stomach, she suggested a larger, thicker, more absorbent pad.  Deb went to the store and found these.  So last night, I built my little sandwich of pads, bags, and towels, then went to sleep.   Well, it worked.   By having all those layers, I could relax and sleep and not worry that I was going to leak and destroy the bedding.  I was able to solidly fall asleep and slept 2 ½ hours, until I had to get up and pee.   B...

  Busy day today. I developed a leak from my suture site. It is happening right around my belly button.     It was producing a lot of fluid. I called down to Moffitt, and they said I should come down. Deb drove me down here and now I have a bag attached to me that is collecting the fluid. Good news is we were 10 minutes away from Portillo’s, so that is where we are for lunch

 Decided to try seeing the actual time I was doing stuff Slept 8pm-10pm  Up 10-midnight  Slept 12-3  Up 3-5 Toss/turn 5-7:30 Chair 730-9 (breakfast) Walk 9-915 Nap(ish) guest bedroom 915-1030 Doug & Denise 11-1 (8 oz Tuna, wheat toast, crackers, dip, chocolate chip cookie) Rest 1-3. talk to Larry 2-230 Masked Singer Linda and Sheri 3-42 Walk 420-445 Masked Singer 445-515 Pizza 515-530 Rest/snooze 530-7 Walk 7-715  TV 715-815 Pie 815-830 Pain pill 830

  I had a full first day home. Got up and ate some breakfast. Moved around the house a little bit. Chuck came by and kept me entertained for about an hour. Did a walk around the neighborhood for about 10 minutes.     Took a nap in the guest bedroom. Had some yummy chicken that was brought over by Karen Roy. She also brought me some silly putty, slinky, and a book on animals. It is totally a gift package that my sisters would’ve got me.     I did another walk early in the evening and Tim and Chris, Jeff and Cheryl, Steve and Becky and their friends came out to encourage me. It is so amazing the support I am receiving from my neighborhood. Tonight Gina and David came over and we talked for a while, and played spades.

  I came home today. The CT scan showed nothing abnormal in the liver. The ultrasound showed nothing like blood clots in the legs. I am only on 500 mg of Tylenol for pain medicine. I have to give myself a daily shot of a blood thinner to help prevent blood clots. I took an hour long nap when we first got home, then I ate some dinner, then I took another short nap. Deb went out and there was a driveway party, so she came back and got me, and paraded me around in the golf cart like the pope. 30 or more people came up to me to say how amazing I looked and to wish me a speedy recovery.     Right now I am in the recliner, with a cat sleeping on me and I’m gonna take a nap. I am just so overwhelmed with happiness to be home, and to be starting phase 2 of the recovery.

  The last 14 hours has been a change. I am extremely exhausted. Can’t seem to stay awake for more than a half hour at a time. Last night/this morning I was running a fever. So they changed my IV and did some new bloodwork. They are checking to make sure I don’t have an infection. They did a CT scan, they saw fluid around the liver, which is to be expected. But they were going to wait for radiology to read it and confirm the findings. I just ate breakfast, scrambled eggs and sausage and 2 skim milk. Hopefully I still should be able to come home today. This is kind of what I was expecting from surgery. I just feel like I got hit by a truck.

  They took the catheter out at 12:15. I ate lunch at 12:45. I was able to eat one and a half grilled cheese and about half of my order of french fries. I still have the main drain in from the surgery scar, it is looking like I will be going home with that, because it is still producing a lot of liquid.     The nurse said that we won’t know for sure if I’m going home tomorrow until I pass some checks tomorrow. Hopefully I might be able to get out of here by noon, but I really won’t know until the morning. Deb is here now, we went for a walk, now I’m gonna take a nap.

  I did four walks on Tuesday and Wednesday. Had lots of visitors to see me. That really lifted my spirits.  The doctor just came in this morning and said that they were going to take out the epidural, give me a diarrhetic, lessen my fluids, give me some oral pain medication. They are still shooting for me to go home on Friday. She did say that she wants to start me on solid foods. She also emphasize that I need to keep doing my breathing treatments, so I’ve set an alarm for every hour to do them. I think I’m going to get up and do a walk now. I am So excited to think that I may be headed home some time tomorrow.

  I was able to sleep a lot last night. I fell asleep at 8 o’clock, even though they kept coming in throughout the night I was able to quickly fall back asleep. I got out of bed at 6:30 this morning and have been sitting in the chair. They gave me a stool softener and a suppository, they would like me to have a bowel movement. So far that hasn’t happened. They switched me from clear liquids to pudding.. I am still in no pain, that is truly amazing. They said they will probably take the epidural out sometime tomorrow. Hopefully I should be able to go home Friday or Saturday. I don’t know any other orders that I have to do when I get home. they have not told me if I will be going home with pain meds or with a drain. Thank you to everybody who commented on Facebook, and all those who took pink Monday pictures. It really brightened my spirits.

 Sorry, if this seems rambling, I just wanted to let everybody know that I am doing awesome I can’t thank all of you enough for all of the love and support. Seeing all the pink shirts yesterday was amazing the fact that there were 60-70 of you out there to see me off on Sunday left me with nothing but positive thoughts coming into surgery. Surgery took longer than expected because I have a tough liver, so I think that stressed my wife and my sisters out. But the doctor did say that he got everything. I was able to sleep on and off last night, but they were coming in every hour to do some thing, so it was just a series of little naps. This morning the surgeon came by told me that he was able to get the entire mass out with good margins, that means that they were good cells around the mass that he was able to take to make sure that he didn’t miss anything that was creeping out He did see cirrhosis on the liver that was a surprise to him, but he thinks it’s relatively early and does n...

Just got back from my cruise on Carnival Celebration.   The ship was amazing.  There were so many places to hang out and there was always something going on.  There were tons of places to eat.  There were multiple trivia sessions every day.  They had 4 funny comedians on during the week.  The shows were liked/loved by almost everyone.  (I was the ALMOST that did NOT like some of the shows).  Our 3 ports were Amber Cove, San Juan, and St Thomas.     In Amber Cove, all I did was get off the ship to have my picture taken by the Amber Cove sign.   There really is not much to do there.    I did not even get off the ship in San Juan.   We used it as a day to explore the ship when no-one else was around.    In St Thomas, we took a ferry over to St John.   We went to Trunk Bay, which was amazingly beautiful.   There was a lot more wind than normal there, so the snorkeling was not as good as it ...

  Colonoscopy complete.    Last hurdle jumped over.   They only found 1 polyp today, so no complications.   I was slightly fearful that they would find something and that would lead to a lot of other tests.   Thankfully, she found nothing alarming.    I am all set for my surgery now. Alan comes this week and I will be playing a LOT of golf (27 holes a day).   Since I figure it may not be until June or July that I get to play again. Both of my sisters are coming out for the surgery.   I need to see both of the before and especially   AFTER the   surgery. Full steam ahead for my March 12 th – 19 th cruise.   That will be a great week of fun. Then March 20th.  Step 1 in the new fight.

Here is what the PET scan results showed. Abdomen/pelvis: A mass in the posterior right hepatic lobe (image 134) has SUV maximum 16.2. There is a small focus of heterogeneous uptake in the lateral left hepatic lobe (image 141) SUV maximum 5.1 compared to "normal" liver SUV maximum 4.8. There is diffuse uptake in the gastric antrum and duodenal sweep (image 151) SUV maximum 7.6. There is no focal abnormal prostate gland uptake. Avid There is a small focus in the left posterior prostate gland (image 247) SUV maximum 4.1 and a focus in the right posterior prostate gland SUV maximum 4.7. Impression: 1. There is a hypermetabolic posterior right hepatic lobe mass and indeterminate focal uptake lateral left hepatic lobe. 2. There are small avid posterior prostate gland foci x2. Follow-up and/or further evaluation are recommended. 3. Diffuse gastric antrum and duodenal sweep uptake may be physiologic or related to inflammation. Clinical correlation is recommende...