NPO After Midnight

Tomorrow is looking like a busy day. Nothing to eat after midnight tonight, leave before dawn to be able to get to the doctor's office by 7 in the morning. First part of the CT scan starts at 9, bone scan at 11, back to finish the CT scan at 2 in the afternoon, back to the doctor's office at 3, and then a 2 hour drive home. I should have something more to be able to tell people when I get home. My mobile is a "dumb phone" so no tweets or posts until I get back late tomorrow.

I had a small incident last night, doing okay now though. I was getting a glass of water before bed and noticed a smear of red on the kitchen floor. It looked like strawberry jelly or something. It didn't really register with me mentally, I was kind of tired and I just thought "Huh...I wonder what that is?" I went into the TV room, sat down in my chair, and noticed a big dark spot on my house slipper. Again, it didn't register. I wondered what I might have stepped in or spilled that might have made the spot. Kicking my slippers off I found my right foot was covered in a LOT of blood. That got my attention. I'm not sure exactly what or how it happened, but I discovered a small cut between my toes. As my dad would say, I was bleeding like a stuck pig. I have some diabetic nerve damage in my feet, so I don't always feel stuff like that. Add to that the fact that I'm on blood thinners, so cuts tend to bleed more than normal. A piece of sterile gauze and some adhesive tape helped to stanch the flow and this morning all was fine.  It was a bit of a scare at the time though.

Hello Kidney

Another Office Visit

Just a quick note regarding today's office visit with the lung cancer surgeon. Exactly what I expected, which was nothing of consequence. Get my medical history, take my vitals, short chat with the doctor which amounted to "we need to wait until we get the test results," and out the door.  He was rather upbeat about the whole thing which encouraged me a little more. Needing to find out if this is a single tumor or one of several. I've had quite a few chest x-rays over the last couple of years and none of them showed anything, so I'm hoping that this is the only one (except for the one on my kidney of course). CT scan and full-body bone scans are coming up Monday and I meet with the kidney cancer surgeon that afternoon, so I'm expecting the pace to pick up soon. Once again, thanks to everyone who has been praying for me. The cards are encouraging as well. I love you guys!

Kick Cancer's Ass

Meeting with the lung cancer surgeon tomorrow. Don't know what's going to happen for certain, but I'm suspecting it'll be just a preliminary evaluation meeting and maybe a slight chance that a biopsy might be taken. He'll probably want to wait until the CT and bone scans are done next Monday.

I've been sort of mulling over what might be down the road in the future. One thing I haven't thought much about is money. Yeah, I have health insurance, but I think it only pays about 80% after my deductible is met. With major surgery and the possibility of chemo and/or radiation therapy down the road, things could get pretty expensive quickly.

I've been following the blogs and Twitter accounts of several folks who are fighting cancer and some of them are doing some aggressive fundraising things of various sorts.  In the back of my head I've been kicking around the idea of silicone bracelets with something like "Kick Cancer's Ass" printed on them. I don't know...just thinking out loud.

Samoas to the Rescue!

I don’t remember how long it’s been since the Girl Scouts were selling cookies, but it’s been a while. We were approached after morning church services today and advised that there were still a couple of boxes of unclaimed cookies that my daughter-in-law had ordered way back when. No problem, we made arrangements to pick them up at evening services. I thought to myself “I hope they’re not Samoas. I hate Samoas.”

Just before leaving for the evening service, I checked my glucose level and noted that it was unusually high…so I gave myself a shot of insulin, a bit higher than my usual dose.

We arrived at church and got the cookies, Samoas, of course. Following the worship service, we had a special showing of a movie that was based on a book that had been written by one of our church members so we stayed later than usual. About fifteen minutes into the movie I started sweating and feeling light-headed, a sure sign that my glucose level is going low. I had apparently given myself too much insulin. So…about 10 stale Samoas later, I started feeling somewhat better. I’m not sure how low it went, but two hours later when I got home it was only 101 which is base-line normal. After that many cookies, it would usually be way over 200. I’m guessing it was probably down into the low 50’s.

Normally I would not have had something handy with enough carbs to bring my glucose level back up so quickly. Some folks might say “coincidence,” but I don’t look at it like that. God knew I would need something and made provisions for it to be there when I needed it. 

But why Samoas, God? Ick!

Be Prepared

I spent much of this afternoon getting some things ready ahead of time for our church bulletin. I normally crank out a puzzle for every issue the night before I print them, but there's a pretty good chance I might not be able to do that for a while. I also schedule people to serve during worship services, so that needs to be done ahead of time as well.

I've got the people scheduling completed all the way to the end of the year, but the puzzles are going much slower. I'm only five weeks ahead right now. I figure I need to create twenty-four more puzzles to stretch to the new year. That's going to take a while since each puzzle takes about an hour to create.

There are so many other things I need to think about as well. We tend to forget that nobody lives forever and let important stuff slide. There are things that my family needs to know if I'm no longer around. I'm not planning to go any time soon, but the chances that happening have certainly increased. And its as good a time as any to start gathering all those important papers, deeds, vehicle titles, insurance policies, etc., together in one place. I hope I can find them all.

Another thing I need to look for is the paperwork for the riding lawnmower I purchased earlier this year. We've only cut the grass three times this year and suddenly the blade won't engage. The drive belt has probably slipped off a pulley. Not a big deal, but something like that shouldn't have happened this quickly. Not a good omen for this mower's future. It's starting to look like I made a wise choice in purchasing a service contract for it. If I recall correctly, there was a lemon clause in it. Four major service calls and they have to swap you for a new mower. I hope it doesn't come to that.

As for my health, I'm still feeling pretty good physically. My vitals (BP, pulse, O2 saturation, etc.) are all doing better than usual. The only thing that has been way out of normal range is my glucose level...but that almost always runs high. I need to be more proactive about that. It all boils down to too many carbs. Mentally, I'm sort of on autopilot. One day at a time, one foot in front of the other, trying not to be too grumpy.

Nine days until I see the lung guy.

Stupid cancer.

Seeing the Lung Guy

I received a fat envelope in the mail today from the doctor I've been referred to about the mass on my lung. Enclosed was a note about an appointment that has been scheduled for me and another set of medical history forms to fill out. The appointment is 5 days before I'm scheduled to have the CT and bone scans done, so I'm not sure if that's good or not.  Guess I'll just have to wait and see. Oh, don't forget another 250 mile round trip to squeeze some more bucks out of my budget.

I wish doctors and hospitals could get together and standardize their medical history forms. This new one is ten pages of the same information I've already filled out at least 5 times already. Name, address, SSN, insurance info, medication list, diseases and symptoms, list of recent surgeries, et cetera, ad nauseum. Both of these doctors work out of the same hospital. This is time consuming and tedious stuff that could be made a lot simpler with some sort of universal form. I wouldn't mind filling out twenty pages if I only had to do it once.

Eleven days to go before this new appointment, sixteen days before the scans. Sooner or later somebody is going to give me some answers that don't include the words "I'm not completely certain, but..."  If they don't want a patient going postal on them, they had better shift into high gear after these upcoming appointments.

Screw Cancer

I Don't Understand

I got the impersonal e-mail from the imaging lab telling me I might have cancer the first week of April.  I waited two weeks to see the doctor. The doctor confirmed it might be cancer and said he was sending me to a kidney guy. I waited three weeks to see the new guy. He backed up what the first doctor told me and said I needed to have more tests done...in four weeks. What's with the waiting!?!? I really don't understand why every step of the process has to be three or four weeks away.

I'm following the twitter accounts of some other folks who are in the process of fighting cancers of various sorts. It's mainly to see what kind of things I might be dealing with in the future. I was reading the tweets from one lady dealing with aggressive breast cancer. She was diagnosed about the same time I got my news from the imaging lab. Her treatment started less than two weeks after the first hint of cancer and she is already dealing with her third round of chemotherapy. I don't understand why I'm having to wait. It's very frustrating.

As for me right now, I'm physically feeling okay. Still a few pains in the hip and such now and then, but nothing major. If I felt this good earlier I probably wouldn't have gone to the doctor about it. Mentally, I'm in a foggy gray funk. Not really depressed, but not especially joyful either. Just sort of putting one foot in front of the other and get through each day as best as I can. With no definitive diagnosis, I really don't know what to think. Like I wondered about in a previous post...do I have a good chance of living another 10 to 20 years or do I have 6 months at most? It's probably somewhere between those two extremes, but not having any inkling of how severe this thing is really pisses me off. I don't understand why there isn't some solid piece of information I can grab onto for some stability.

I want to thank everyone that has taken the time to say they're praying for me or have sent cards of encouragement. It means a lot. It helps me get through the day.

It's not fair!

It could be worse

The visit to the specialist went okay I suppose. There is a small chance that the two masses might be non-cancerous, but the likelihood of at least one of them being malignant is pretty high. They can't tell anything except the masses are there from the CT and MRI scans.

The kidney mass is external to the kidney, attached to it by a little stem. It should be easy to remove. Depending on if it's cancerous or not will determine whether part or all of the kidney comes out also.

The doctor appeared to be more concerned about the mass in my lung. It is only partially visible on the scans, so they don't know how big it actually is. A more comprehensive CT scan and a full body bone scan is now on tap for 4 weeks from now, along with a visit with a anesthesiologist.

Yeah, I said 4 weeks. More waiting and worrying. I was really exasperated that I'd have to wait that long until I saw a story online about a guy with stage 4 renal cancer that the VA won't even start talking to for 6 months. So I suppose it could be worse.

Also in the news, my wife suffered a perforated ulcer last year, a complication from her bariatric surgery.  She's scheduled for some sort of "scope" exam in two weeks to to see how it's healing. A possibility of surgery looming on the horizon there that might conflict with my kidney appointments. I guess we'll just have to deal with any conflicts as they pop up.

Having a chat

Tomorrow's the day. I'm understandably nervous about what I'm going to find out, the tension is growing. Prayers please!

I had a short chat with someone at church this morning who was diagnosed with myeloma a couple of years ago. He has had a significant recovery but is still not out of the woods yet. He gave me some very interesting thoughts to chew on regarding his spiritual and mental coping with the disease. I may need to reevaluate my attitude towards this thing. He also offered to loan me a book that helped him through, I'm looking forward to reading it.

♪♫ Tomorrow, tomorrow, the sun will come out tomorrow...

Reconnecting

I attended a little family reunion today. I got a chance to see some uncles, aunts and cousins that I haven't seen in a long time. I enjoyed talking with the cousins I played with on my grandparents farm so many years ago, thinking about the good ol' days. So many times we only see each other when someone has passed away, it was nice to get together on a happier occasion. We've all gotten older and some of us a little wiser, others not so much. Looking through stacks of old photographs of relatives, many, many happy memories. Good food, lots of smiles and laughter. I like that.

I suppose it's a bit morbid to think that this might have been the last time I see some of them on this side of the grass, but it was on my mind. Being the day before Mother's Day, I stopped by my Mom's grave to pay my respects. It's hard to express my feelings about that, I'm not sure myself exactly how I feel except to say there's a sadness that doesn't want to go away. I find myself thinking more and more about life and death lately and I'm a little uneasy about the prospects ahead, yet strangely I'm comfortable with it too.

Angels and Devils

Well, the day I meet with the kidney cancer doctor is getting closer. It's about three and a half days now. Still just sitting around not doing a whole lot of anything. Went down to my cardiologist's office today and got a printout of his patient records for me. It's mostly just office visit notes, nothing of any significant interest. I also dropped by the hospital imaging department and requested a few additional things that probably aren't critical. Their person that does that wasn't there today, I can probably pick up the disk some time tomorrow.

I'm also working on finding someone to take over doing a task I've been doing on a weekly basis for about 30 years now. Our weekly church bulletin has been a labor of love for nearly as long as I've been attending there. I hate to think I'll be giving it up completely, but I don't know what's down the road for me in the weeks ahead. It's best that somebody else knows how to keep it going.

I think the hardest thing right now is just not knowing the seriousness of this whole thing. I mean, I know there's a 8.5 cm mass on my kidney, so it IS serious. There's also a 4 cm mass in my lung. I'm thinking that means it's metastasized...also serious. Lymph nodes are to some extent enlarged; more evidence of metastasis. Based on my online searching for more information, I have the feeling that it's at stage 4. My searches also seem to indicate that the 5 year survival rate for stage 4 renal cell carcinoma is only 5 to 15%. That, in my opinion, sucks. Major suck. But, again, that's just my layman's opinion. I'm not a doctor, so in the back of my mind I'm hoping that I've been looking at this all wrong.

You've seen the old cartoons of someone torn between two decisions. An angel sitting on one shoulder and a devil on the other. Both are whispering in their ear. Right now the angel is whispering in one ear saying, "No problem. They'll cut this thing out and you'll be back to normal in a week." On the other shoulder, the little devil is saying, "Give it up, pal. They're gonna take a look inside and just sew you back up. You've got two or three weeks tops."

Waiting and not knowing is torture.

The Wet & Wild Weekend Begins

Our house was built in a time when outdoor toilets were normal. For that reason, the bathroom was added about 60 years later. I'm not saying he is incompetent, but the guy who plumbed it trained under Rube Goldberg. The main water supply line runs up the corner of the kitchen and across the ceiling. Pipes pop in and out of the walls and one just terminates with no destination. Two pipes for the upstairs bathroom run across the back wall at a 45 degree angle on their way up. So when the fresh water supply line for our toilet sprung a leak, I thought, "Here we go again..."  I spent a good 15 minutes last night with a metal rod and a hammer, tapping against the shutoff valve handle to get it to close. Truth. It's a PVC gate valve with flat ears on each side that is wedged between the water heater and the wall. The space is so cramped that you can't get enough leverage to turn it with your hand. Thus the rod and hammer treatment.

I spent the morning calling every plumber in the phone book. It's the weekend, so I didn't expect any enthusiastic responses. I wasn't disappointed. The first one can't make it until Tuesday. The next one sounded like he was still recuperating from last night's pub crawl and mumbled some incoherent stuff about not working weekends, but he'd call me right back. That was two hours ago. Most of the rest went to answering machines. In desperation I sent out a plea on Facebook for assistance...I don't plan to call the original plumber unless a sinkhole starts developing under the house.

The plumber in question is a local handyman.  He means well, and will eventually get whatever you ask him to repair working again, but not without some unusual quirks or related side effects. He does auto and lawn mower repair, carpentry, plumbing, and is willing to tackle just about anything you ask him to do. He just doesn't do it well. Jack of all trades, master of none. Need a ceiling fan installed? No problem. Just don't expect it not to wobble when you turn it on. Need a guest room added on? Sure. Just ignore that window on an inside wall. The main electric breaker box has labels that read something like "Oven, Water Heater, Rest of the house." The most commonly used phrase around here is "Here's what he fixed and here's what's still wrong with it..."

 Update: It appears that word got back to the handyman that I mentioned him in my blog and he was offended. I admit that I was rather harsh and I apologize for that. I actually appreciate the work he has done over the years. I exaggerated his lack expertise in the attempt to get a few laughs at his expense. I'm sorry for that.

Somebody Knew About It!

Okay, so I'm sitting around with nothing to do but think about this 8.5 cm mass growing in my belly, waiting to see the specialist in ten days. Naturally my thoughts turn to my past medical history; I've had several serious incidents over the past several years. Heart bypass, broken leg, appendectomy, heart ablation, blah, blah, blah...I could go on for quite a while longer. I've been poked, prodded, drugged, cut open, sewn shut, laparoscoped, wore a wound-vac for 4 months, scanned, x-rayed, you name it. It occurred to me that, with all of these different people looking around inside me for going on 14 years now, somebody should have spotted this thing a lot earlier.

The specialist requested the CT and MRI scan images and reports for my recent stuff and I have already obtained those for him. Yesterday afternoon, since I was in the neighborhood, I stopped by my family doctor's office and requested the official records for a couple of the older incidents that affected nearby areas of my body. Specifically, the appendectomy in 2012 and a gall bladder removal in 2013.

Expecting a long wait for a flunky to photocopy files for me, I was pleasantly surprised when the girl at the desk clicked a few keys on her computer and the printer spit out a pile of scanned documents. It took only a couple of minutes. Walking back to my car, I sat down and took a look at the stack of paperwork I had been handed.

On the top of the stack was a summary of the CT scan done for my appendectomy. First page, middle of the page, "an isodense right sided exophytic renal lesion arising from the inferior pole the right kidney measuring 4.8 cm..."  Nearly the exact language used in my most recent CT scan except it's now grown to 8.5 cm. Someone spotted this thing nearly two years ago when it was half the size it is now!

As I read through the document, it was referred to as a mass or a lesion, and on page 3 in the doctor's notes, he speculates it might be a hemorrhagic or proteinaceous cyst. No references that even hint it might be cancerous. Post operative notes fail to mention anything at all. Did he even look at it while he was rooting around in my guts? It doesn't appear so.

While I'm slightly encouraged by a lack of the "C" word in this earlier scan, I'm perturbed that nobody felt it was important enough to say "Hey, by the way, you've got a big growth on your kidney that might give you some trouble down the way."

The most recent scan specifically suggests cancer, so I'm not out of the woods but maybe there's an outside chance....

Who knows? Keep prayin' people, you do a world of good.

Mind Numbing Boredom

Sitting around the house waiting, can't concentrate on anything productive. I tried reading a book by one of my favorite authors but can't plow through more than a chapter or two. I'm reduced to playing mindless video games and taking long naps.

At least tomorrow I have a couple excuses to get out of the house. I need to drive my brother-in-law and my wife to their respective doctor's appointments. Just routine check-ups, nothing serious.

As for me, I'm feeling somewhat better. The doctor at urgent care diagnosed my ailment as sinusitis and prescribed a course of antihistamine and antibiotics.  Still have a lot of drainage and have been sneezing some, but I'm feeling about halfway normal now.

You'd figure that with this thing I'm going through I might have some deep, inspirational, thought-provoking things to say. Nope. Not yet, anyway. I'm just zoned out right now. As the post title indicates, my mind is numb.

It could be worse...

Achoo!

I haven't given up on this blog, I've just been sick for the last three days. I've picked up some sort of head cold that has me feeling pretty miserable. I'm planning to go to urgent care tomorrow morning to see if I can't whip this thing before I meet the cancer surgeon in two weeks.

Not much going on otherwise, just sitting around and waiting for May 12th to get here. I'll be back to blog some more after I start feeling a little better.

The Enemy Within

“Anger can be quite rewarding…at least for those of us who have the option of blasting our enemies to oblivion.”   
 - M.A. George, Relativity


I'm back from visiting the doctor that ordered the MRI I had done on Monday. While I was downtown I took the time to drop by the hospital imaging lab and picked up a disk with both the CT and MRI scan images on it along with the written reports. I'm not an expert on evaluating these things, but the doctors pointed out the major area of concern. I have now seen my enemy and am angry. Hopefully I will have the option of blasting it to oblivion. Only time will tell.

Running In Place

It looks like I'm in another "hurry up and wait" cycle. My appointment to meet with the specialist who (hopefully) is going to cut this thing out of me is still two and a half weeks away. If past experience with new doctors is any gauge of how the meeting will go, I expect to be herded around for another week of blood tests, urine tests, scans and probings before anything gets done.

I meet with the doctor who ordered the MRI this afternoon to find out the results. I also need to get copies of both the CT scan and the MRI from the hospital imaging lab to take with me to the specialist.

While I'm out today I also plan to get the oil changed on my car, pick up some antihistamine for my wife (she's caught a really bad cold), food for the new dog, and a few other incidentals. I also need to stop by a friend's house and do a little maintenance on his computer.

It sort of feels just a bit odd, doing mundane stuff like that. Life goes on even when something like cancer is feeding on you. I realize that's normal, but something in the back of my mind keeps whispering that the entire world needs to come to a screeching halt and pay attention to my problem. Not gonna happen, I know. Everyone has their own set of problems to deal with, I'm not the center of their universe. But every now and then I just want to stop and scream "UNFAIR!" as loudly as I can.

Well, I seem to be rambling...time to get ready to go see the doctor.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about...

Looking over my posts since I rebooted the blog, I notice that I failed to mention the first major event of my current health crisis...so I'll rectify that omission with this post.

Flashback to Sunday, March 23rd, a month ago. The CT scan that revealed my cancer was already scheduled due to other issues but hadn't been performed yet. I wasn't feeling too good that Sunday morning, I was moving a little slow. I was momentarily disoriented while walking down the aisle in the church auditorium, but steadied myself on a chair for a moment and the feeling passed quickly. I didn't think much about it. At the end of services my wife noticed I wasn't feeling well and asked if I was able to drive us home. "Of course!" I answered. Standing up, I immediately had a light-headed feeling rush over me and I started to reevaluate that statement. I remarked something to the nature of maybe somebody else needs to drive us home. I staggered around and a couple of other church members grabbed me by the arms and pretty much dragged me outside to a friend's car. By the time I got to the vehicle I agreed they needed to take me to the local ER.

The drive to the ER from the church building took somewhere around thirty minutes or so. I wasn't watching the clock, I was moaning, groaning, and dry heaving all the way. Pulling into the emergency entrance, they dragged me out of the car and threw me in a wheelchair. That's where my memory starts getting spotty. I remember laying on a really narrow bed with my right arm hanging down feeling like it was about to fall off but they wouldn't let me move it. I recall a lot of people around me and one guy pushing really hard on the right side of my neck and complaining about some problems he was having with whatever it was he was doing. There were some big electrode patches glued to my chest and I felt a few shocks from them. In my foggy half-awake state I said something a little fresh to one of the nurses also...she did look pretty.

While all of this was going on, I later discovered my frantic wife was meeting with a grief counselor. My heart rate was down to 27 BPM when they brought me in. Not sure about the other vitals, but I'm pretty sure they thought they might loose me.

I eventually woke up with a temporary pacemaker in my right neck and IV lines hanging out of my right arm and left shoulder.  Eventually I was told that the level of digoxin in my system was way too high and had caused the episode. Four days later my medications were adjusted and I was able to go home. Once home, I looked up the normal dosage for digoxin. My old prescription called for the maximum dosage of 500 mcg per day. I'm now down to just 125 mcg and only 5 days a week. Some of the other heart medications have been cut back as well and I'm doing a lot better, thank you.

My cardiologist recommended a pacemaker on my followup visit after my release from the hospital. That's on hold now while I deal with the cancer thing.

Just got a call while I was writing this post with the appointment for the out-of-town specialist for May 12. Let's get this show on the road, people! I don't want to wait another three weeks!!!!

Making Redactions

I went back through all of the old posts on this blog this afternoon and did a little creative editing. A couple of posts were deleted, but most of it was just getting rid of personal references such as names and places. It won't keep someone who is even the least bit determined from gathering personal info about me and my family, but it makes me a bit more comfortable about what I've been posting. As the old Dragnet TV show used to say, "The story you are about to see is true; the names have been changed to protect the innocent."

Just a couple of minor updates to mention tonight. The urologist confirmed that the kidney affected is my RIGHT one. The left kidney is fine. That sort of surprised me just a little since the pains I've been having in my back and hip are on the left side.

I'm supposed to get a call tomorrow with the appointment for the kidney specialist. He's out of town and is apparently one of the top people in the field in this area of the country. An expert at laparoscopic and robotic surgery and specializing in renal cancers. The hospital has a little video of him discussing his bio information, why he does what he does and some of his personal philosophy. Seems like a pleasant fellow who cares about his patients.

We adopted a dog a few days ago from someone who was unable to care for him. Unfortunately his name was the same as our cat. It was causing some confusion with two pets running around the house with the same name...which one are you talking about? So the dog has been hung with the name "Huhu" for the time being anyway. Why "Huhu" you ask? That's what our 2 year old grandson says a dog's bark sounds like.

Oops, there I go, putting out too much information again. I suppose in this case it probably won't matter too much. I can always come back and redact the dog's name later....

Healing The Masses

As I waited for my appointment with the urologist this morning, I noticed a Bible laying on the table. I picked it up and turned to a random passage in the New Testament.  It was the Book of Matthew, chapter 14.  My eyes quickly fell upon verse 14, "And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick." Some folks refer this as "Jesus healing the masses" although I haven't been able to find that exact phrase in the Bible. I had to smile as I thought to myself, "I've got a couple of masses right here that need healing, Jesus. One on my kidney and one in my lung."

The visit with the urologist confirmed that the CT scan shows what is probably renal cancer. He is sending me to a specialist, I'm waiting for a call with an appointment time...hopefully ASAP. I looked the new guy up online, it looks like he's one of the top men in his field, at least in this part of the country.

My research over the weekend tended to indicate that the survival rate for renal cancer that has started metastasis is only about 5-10%, but the doctor this morning seemed to think my chances were much better than that. In his words, "don't give up hope, this thing is survivable."

I broke the news to my church family a little while ago, a lot of faithful, praying people there. I love and appreciate every one of them.

Letting It Out

Okay, everyone in the family pretty much knows about my cancer now. I had hoped to have all the kids home for Easter to tell them at the same time, but that didn't happen. Each got told separately yesterday. My youngest son on the phone, my daughter when she got in from Columbus, and the older son when he dropped the grandkids off for us to watch them overnight. Dad was told a few days ago. The only one I haven't contacted is my sister, but I'm guessing she's already heard about it from Dad. I'll probably give her a call later today just to make sure about it though.

I'm not sure if I'm going to tell anyone else at church about it quite yet. The elders and pulpit minister know for sure, and maybe the associate minister. I think that's probably the only ones. I did ask for prayers on the church Facebook "prayer chain" page, but I wasn't specific as to the reason except for a "major crisis" sort of thing. I'm planning on letting folks know as soon as I get the "official" word from a doctor and know just how bad this thing is. While I'm about 99.9% sure it's extremely serious, I don't want to be shouting "wolf!" if it turns out to be some sort of anomaly.

In Other News...

I guess I should do a quick update on things that happened during the last two years to bring anyone interested up to date.

When we last left Grampy, his mother had just died and his son had been fired. Grampy was unemployed but recovering from a ruptured appendix and unable to receive unemployment benefits, and his wife was in the last stages of preparing for bariatric surgery....

1. Mom is still dead...obviously. I've pretty much adjusted to the trauma of missing her funeral, although it still bothers me from time to time.

2. My oldest son did find a job as a telephone tech support person for a major telecommunications company. The pay is better than his previous job but it's a long drive and they're pretty unforgiving when it comes to punctuality. His wife found work for the same employer but their work shifts are different, so it's one of those "ships that pass in the night" sort of situations at the moment.

3. I've recovered from the appendix surgery. It left a VERY large and unattractive scar, but otherwise I'm good with that...not counting my current crisis.

4. I exhausted all of my unemployment benefits but was able to start drawing early Social Security benefits, so it sort of balanced out. The money is still tight, but we're not starving.

5. The wife had her bariatric surgery. She's lost some weight and her diabetes has stabilized, which was what she had hoped for. She hasn't lost as much weight as she had expected and still needs insulin, so it wasn't a complete success. Another down side is that her ability to tolerate different foods is about nil. Two or three bites of most foods and she's done. More than that makes her want to throw up. Unfortunately she can tolerate things like cookies, ice cream and potato chips...which accounts for her not loosing as much weight as expected.

6. I signed up for bariatric surgery after the wife completed hers. The insurance company didn't balk at any of the doctor visits, tests, etc. until the last stage. I even had my gall bladder removed because they saw some "sludge" in it. I got all of my ducks in a row for nearly six months and the surgeon contacted my health insurance provider for approval on the surgery. Surprise! My insurance policy specifically denies all forms of weight loss surgery. What??? Yup, health insurance Nazi says "No weight loss for you!"

7. My daughter finally graduated college and got a good job working for the school in an area similar to what she was doing in the student work program. She's not 100% happy with the job, but tolerates it and is making reasonably good money.

8. I don't hear much from my youngest son, but he seems to be content and is working pretty much full time as is his wife.

9. I now have two grandchildren.

So that's pretty much all I can think of at the moment...back to the crisis at hand in my next post.

Spinning Wheels

Waiting for things to happen is the worst. It seems that everything about my latest crisis moves at a snail's pace.

I had an appointment with my cardiologist yesterday to talk about getting a pacemaker. The appointment was made before the CT scan results (cancer) were known. When I mentioned it, his jaw dropped and he said "Oh my God!"  Not the reaction you expect from someone who sees that kind of thing on a daily basis. It wasn't exactly comforting, although I do appreciate his apparent empathy. He usually has sort of a cold fish, clinical demeanor, so the exclamation was really surprising.

So, the pacemaker is off the table for at least six months. Apparently it would make any kind of radiation therapy more complex. Also he remarked that my heart rate seems to be doing better since they adjusted my medications. Yeah, sure, that's what he told me the last time he screwed around with them. I'm not that confident.

While I was there, I visited the CT lab where the test was done to try to resolve some discrepancies in the test results. There are two sections in the report. One mentions a mass on the LEFT kidney. The other section talks about the same mass, but says it is on the RIGHT kidney. So either the guy interpreting the scan doesn't know right from left, he's made an error, or both kidneys are endangered. Of course it was Good Friday and he was off work that day. They left a message for him to check his work. I'm not encouraged. If they're going to cut me open and take one of my kidneys out, I want them to be sure they're getting the correct one!

I still haven't mentioned my condition to my children yet. I sort of wanted to tell them all at the same time so I don't have to rehash all the details three different times, and since Easter is this weekend I had hoped they would all come home for the holiday...but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. One is running late and won't be here until late Saturday. Another has some sort of event he has to attend Saturday night and is working Sunday. The third hasn't responded to my phone call and is apparently not coming at all.

My appointment with the urologist is Monday. I'm guessing that's when I'll get the official word on exactly how serious this thing is. I'm bracing for really bad news in the hopes that it won't be as bad as I'm thinking it is. The facts I'm working with are:

1. The main mass is 8.5 centimeters in diameter. That's bigger than a large orange.
2. The other mass is 4 centimeters. A ping pong ball. Nothing to sneeze about.
3. I don't think benign tumors are metastatic.
4. I've been having symptoms for 5 years or longer and attributed them to muscular aches and pains.

So based on that evidence, I'm guessing it's pretty advanced and possibly a waste of time to operate. I'm hoping that's not the case, but it's what I'm getting ready to hear.

A New Crisis

Perhaps I'll start with a bit of ancient history. Back in the 1980's (that's ancient to some of you, right?) I used to work as a quality control technician for an asphalt paving company. My job was to assure that the asphalt we made met specification by testing samples of our product three or four times a day. I would take a large sample of the asphalt and break it down into it's component parts and analyze it's composition. To do this, you place the mix in a centrifuge, pour in some solvent, and spin out the asphalt cement (tar) until it's nothing but rocks. Then you cook the solvent saturated rocks until they're dry and run them through a series of graduated screens. Weighing the rocks on each screen and comparing the end result to the original weight of your sample will tell you whether or not it meets state and/or federal specifications.

I did  this for probably three or four years. The solvent was something called "Trichlorethelene." We called it "trichlor." It's a clear liquid that has a very strong chemical odor and evaporates about like rubbing alcohol. That's about all we knew about it for a long time. Then suddenly we were told to stop using trichlor and switch to a natural product made from orange peels called "Orange Sol." It seems that they discovered that the solvent we had been using like water...breathing in the vapor...washing our tools in...even using to clean our hands...causes renal cancer. Cancer of the kidney.

Flash forward thirty years. I've just discovered I may have renal cancer.  Coincidence? I'm thinking no. I'm pretty sure I have it, but I say "may have" because, as of this moment, I still haven't talked to a doctor about the test results that I unceremoniously received in an email. From the reading I've done on renal cancer in the last few days, I'm suspecting I'm at stage 3 or 4.

So that's why I've resurrected this blog. To tell my story, to rant, to blow off steam. To anyone who happens to stumble across it.

Mad As A Hornet

It's been slightly less than two years since I last posted. I haven't even looked at this blog in well over a year and upon my return I see that there are several broken images and who knows what other problems. Even my header image has disappeared. I'll see if I can get at least that fixed this evening. As for the missing images in previous posts, I don't think that's going to get fixed.

[EDIT: Ok, the old broken images are due to my deleting what I thought was an unused directory on my image server a couple of months ago. Sorry folks, the missing images are history and not coming back. Sigh.]

As in previous posts, my return has been precipitated by a crisis. You can tell from those older posts that this is a rant blog. I use it to blow off steam and just work out my frustrations. I've got a big one this time and I'm mad as a hornet. I feel violated beyond measure. I want to scream at the world, "UNFAIR!"

More in my next post, but to sum it up, I've just discovered...not gently...that I probably have renal cancer. I'm not mad about the cancer though, I'm mad about how I seem to have been placed on the back burner by all of the doctors and other medical professionals that I've been seeing for the past month and a half.

See the next post for more details...

Singing The Blues.

[Please note that there is an almost 2 year span between this post and the one above it.]
 
Gloom, despair and agony on me! 

Deep dark depression, excessive misery! 

If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.

Gloom, despair and agony on me!

It started out at the end of July. My mother's health has been slowly declining for four or five years. We all were expecting it, so it was no big surprise when she passed away. Thirty-six hours later I was in the hospital with a ruptured appendix. I missed my Mother's funeral. I'm too fat for laparoscopic surgery, so they had to split me open like a watermelon. I'm diabetic so we're looking at the wound to be fully healed by maybe Christmas. Since I can't work due to the surgery, I now don't qualify for the meager unemployment benefits I was receiving. We're down to our mutual retirement benefits, half of which are immediately sucked up by medical insurance.  The most recent blow was today, my son was fired by the same folks that fired me six months ago. They were accusing him of theft, so there's a possibility that might screw up any unemployment benefits he had coming.

Now I realize that things could be worse, but the last four weeks have been a steady stream of extremely bad karma. I'm ready for some good news...right now would be nice.

On the brighter side of life, my wife's heart cath went well last month. The doctor didn't find any major blockages. She has a psych exam scheduled for tomorrow. As we understand it, that's the last thing needed before they can proceed with plans for the bariatric surgery.

Stressed Out

The wife had a stress test about three weeks ago and hadn't heard from the doctor on the results yet, so she gave his office a call. He was on vacation and nobody in the office could read his writing on her chart. Finally she got a call back a couple of days ago. They think it says something about a heart cath, so they've scheduled her to see the doctor on Wednesday. Hopefully it won't be serious. She also has an appointment in Columbus on Tuesday (tomorrow) for the second followup on her vitrectomy. Hoping that the doctor will say it's okay to proceed with the cataract surgery.

The "new" car is doing great. I ran a check on the gas mileage and it looks like it's getting about seven or eight miles per gallon more than the truck did. Certainly a big savings. Now that I'm out of work, I'm driving less also, so it all amounts to a lot of money.

Speaking of vehicles, my oldest son's van broke down yesterday. Looks like Walmart may have messed up when they changed his oil and he ran it dry. He put more oil in it and nursed it home this evening, hoping it won't be serious. He's talking about trading it in.

My fan fiction is doing somewhat better, I've written seven chapters and have gained a small readership. I'm sort of suffering writer's block at the moment, not sure where to take the tale next and trying not to write myself into a corner. My wife finished her first tale and has started on a second, but is also stymied for where to go next after publishing only one chapter.

Rollin, rollin, rollin...

Well, it took two weeks, but we finally got the truck back from the shop. We're $500 poorer, but it doesn't squeek anymore.  We also traded in the Oldsmobile for a slightly newer Chevy Impala with only 78,000 miles on it. Drives like a dream compared to the truck.  We'll probably be using it as our main transportation.  The wife wants to call it "The Silver Pearl," but I'm more partial to "Vlad The Impala."

Had some problems with our bank account, went to pay the garage with a debit card and it was refused.  Had to use a different account.  We had paid for the new car on the same account and I assumed that the big check had flagged the account. Tried to buy some gas the next day, same thing, card refused.  Tried using an ATM, transaction cannot be processed.  Called the bank's customer service...computer required me to enter the card number and then hung up on me, saying the account was inactive and to contact my local branch.  Great...I was out of town. Had to wait until the next afternoon and make a special trip to the bank to get things straightened out.  It seems that I made an online purchase from Oklahoma a few days ago and the bank thought that looked suspicious, so they closed down my account. Everything seems to be back online now.

The wife has been writing some "fan fiction" over the last month or so and I've been doing her proofreading plus offering suggestions on livening up her dialogue a little bit.  She's been getting quite a few glowing reviews.  At her urging, I decided to try my own hand at some fan fiction and posted chapter one of a murder mystery (serious stuff, no fluff) this afternoon.  I was excited when I got an e-mail within about fifteen minutes of posting...until I realized it was from a sexual pervert. She's rolling on the floor laughing at me.  Sigh....

Hitchin' A Ride ♫

Well, haven't heard back from the garage yet, so I don't know how much the ball joint repair is going to set me back.  Doing without a vehicle is very frustrating. We have another vehicle, but it overheats.  It's okay for short trips, but you have to stop and let it cool down if you have to drive more than 10 miles or so...and carry several jugs of water or antifreeze with you to replenish the coolant. I had it looked at a couple of years ago and was told it had a leaky head gasket. Don't really think that's the problem. I've had it worked on several times, by the neighbor, but it still overheats. I tried starting it yesterday afternoon; the battery is dead. And it's parked a lonnnnnng way from an electrical outlet to plug it into a charger. I may tackle that dilemma this afternoon; I think I might have enough extension cords to plug together that might reach it. In the meantime I've been borrowing vehicles from friends and relatives or asking them to drive me various places.

Big Bang Theory

Well, nearly a month has passed us by since my last post. I guess it's time for an update on how things are going.  I'm still unemployed, only one response to my resumes so far...they weren't hiring.  If nothing turns up by November, I'm probably going to apply for early Social Security benefits and say goodbye to the rat race. After working my arse off for 46 years, I deserve a little retirement. 

The website has been on hold for a couple of weeks, the wife has discovered Fan Fiction and is in the process of spinning a tale about Sherlock Holmes (ala Benedict Cumberbatch). She's finished 5 chapters (about 2 chapters a week) and has gotten several very good reviews from her readers.  I've been proofreading for her and suggesting changes to her text to liven things up a bit. Things like adding a few descriptive adjectives, pointing out continuity problems, etc.. I'm impressed with her story, she's really a good writer. I guess 30 years of teaching reading to third graders might have helped somehow.

As I mentioned earlier, the wife had a major blowout of a blood vessel in her left eye just a couple of days before she was scheduled to have cataract surgery.  It didn't get any better after a couple of weeks so she had to have a vitrectomy done (sucking the vitreous out of her eye along with the blood and debris, replacing it with saline solution).  The cataract surgery is now on hold until that clears up.  Might be two or three months before it's back on the table.

As for her bariatric surgery, there has been some good news in that corner. Her insurance company has changed it's waiting time policy from six months to three months.  She's already been in the program three months now, so the doctor's office is preparing the paperwork to request authorization. It'll take a few weeks to get that all together, then a few more weeks for the insurance company to go over it all before approving. Hopefully sometime in July or thereabouts she'll be getting that done.

I got my foot tangled in the seat belt of my pickup truck about two weeks ago and fell over on my back onto a concrete parking lot.  Messed my back up quite a bit, making it hard to walk without extreme pain.  Have visited the chiropractor several times and am starting to feel better.

I barely avoided a catastrophe today. I had both front wheel assemblies on the pickup replaced by a "big brand" service center in Columbus last summer.  Ever since that, the front end has had a rubbing/squeeking/creaking sound in it. Hard to describe, best I can come up with would be like a large rusty hinge. I had it looked at a couple of times, but nobody could see anything wrong.  I noticed today that the sound was getting louder and thought to myself, "I should have that looked at."  I drove to the supermarket and picked up a few groceries and as I started to back out of the parking space, there was a loud BANG! and the driver's side front end shook a little bit. I braked immediately and got out to look at the front wheel. Didn't see anything, so I thought "the service station is less than a mile away, I need to take it down there now and get it looked at ASAP!"  I jumped back in and started to back out again, moved just a little bit and there was even louder BANG! This time the whole front driver's side shook and dropped several inches.  I got out and this time there was something obviously wrong.  The tire was tilted out at about a 30 degree angle and something attached to the frame was sitting on the ground.  As I have since been told, a ball joint failed. While it's a disaster and is certainly going to mess with my already tight budget to get this thing fixed, thank the Lord I wasn't tooling down the road at 55 MPH when the thing failed!

My youngest son's adoption plans are now on hold due to other financial obligations, mainly medical bills. About a year's worth of work has gone into the adoption process, he assures me that it's just on "hold" for a year or so and they won't loose any of the money they've already poured into it.

Why do I even try?

I've now been unemployed for a little over two months. Resumes and cover letters have been flowing out of my printer and sent off like little pigeons. Unfortunately they don't seem to be homing pigeons, because nothing has been coming back so far.

I had to attend a mandatory meeting about looking for work and the opportunities that are out there. It was pretty depressing to hear that, although the average unemployment rate in Ohio is 7%, for our county it's 11%.  Didn't sound very good to me. One of the presenters was from the local vocational school, talking about adult training classes that were available.  Coincidentally, I used to teach classes there myself.  Anyway, he passed out a brochure that listed the various things available. A major drawback to any of the classes is the school location...on the other side of the county. It would be a 70 mile drive to attend classes which means spending $70 to $100 a week in gas. Not very likely.

So, I noticed that one of their classes was offered online and it sounded like something I could handle. Hot dog! I asked the presenter about it, and he said "Yeah, the whole course is offered online," so I checked the box on the form we had to turn in at the end of the session that I was interested in training classes.

The following Monday I called the school to inquire about when classes would be offered.  Surprise #1, not until September. Five months from now. Bummer. Okay, how about the online component of the class? Surprise #2, we don't offer that anymore...the brochure is out of date.

Come on, people. If you're giving out information on what's available, at least you could make sure it's current!  I mean, the brochures were obviously printed with a color laser printer hooked to your computer...is it too much trouble to go in and edit your document?

In other news, my wife's cataract surgery has been put on hold due to an unexpected rupture of a blood vessel in the eye. A trip to her retina specialist was unproductive last week, too much blood occluding the retina. He couldn't see anything, much less do any laser work on it.  We're going back in a couple of weeks for him to take another look, hopefully the blood will have settled and he can work on the eye then. If not, she may be in for some more serious surgery to do the repair.

Her gastric bypass is still on track, no setbacks on that front. She's been very serious on her diet and has lost at least 7 pounds so far. I'm very proud of how well she's doing.

Tech Guru In Training

I've been helping my wife set up a new website she's wanting to run. If you know her, you know she's a somewhat technology impaired, but enthusiastic nonetheless. She wants to learn but gets frustrated very easily when things don't work the way she thinks they should. She also gets VERY impatient if I can't fix the problem like snapping my fingers. Hopefully I can get things up and running for her in a few weeks, we're shooting for May 1, 2012 to put it online.

No major changes for the two of us otherwise.  As for the family, my youngest son and his wife just moved from a medium sized house into a 2nd floor apartment for two reasons. First, it puts both of them several miles closer to work. Second, they are in the process of adopting a child and felt that the new apartment would help them in regards to some of the qualification requirements. The old house had some problems in the basement that would have been really expensive to get up to the standards of the adoption agency.  They've also started an adoption blog, so we can keep up to date on how things are progressing.

I'm Still Here

No posts for a couple of weeks, been kind of busy. Unfortunately that doesn't mean I have a job yet.

I gave up waiting on the AARP insurance papers and called them on the phone and gave them my vitals...sorry Charlie, AARP only takes the healthiest people. After some more searching, I determined that nobody except my school retirement folks would even offer me health insurance.  So I had to go with the high-priced plan.  All of my retirement income plus somewhere around $600 of my wife's will be going to pay for it.  Still haven't gotten the first billing...sort of nervous about that.

My plan went into effect April 1st and I renewed all of my prescriptions for about $100 co-pay.  I sat down with the bills and added up the actual cost before the insurance and the price would have been about $150 less than what my premiums amount to...so I guess I'm sort of breaking even.  Why do I still feel it's WAY too much money?

I've started collecting my unemployment benefits from ODJFS, that's a little consolation also.  Just got notified yesterday that I have to attend a mandatory four hour meeting on job hunting next week. Oh joy.  I've also been sending out resumes to potential employers, no responses yet.

My wife is still pursuing the cataract surgery and surgical weight loss and has at least one doctor's appointment scheduled every week for the next month and a half, some weeks two or three appointments.  All of them involve a drive of between 50 and 200 miles, depending on the doctor.  At 14 mpg, my old truck is sucking up a good portion of our income also.

Ah, such is life. Sooner or later I'll get over it.