Who's on Deck?

airborne72 said:

Google it...

Tru:

I had to Google the meaning of chuffed.  Never heard it before.  I have learned a new word today.  Thanks.

Jim

I'm happy to have added to your vocabulary, Jim. 

Tru

Trubrit said:

Modesty

No such word after CRC hits you.  I'd obviously never had a rectal exam, being a woman, and now...... well, I can't count the number of exams or (male) Doctor's who have had their fingers where I'd rather they not be. 

The way I hadle it now is just to think of my body as a whole. One part is no more embarrasing than the other. If you believe in God, then you should look at your body as something to be respected and honoured, and NOT something to be embarrased about. 

Still, I've refused the last four rectal exams. HA!  (I'm all talk and no action)

I'm terribly chuffed that you are doing so well. A sense of humour is an indication of health. Keep it up. 

Tru

It went out the window immediately it seemed for me also.  Sure, you need to poke there, have fun.  I did try to keep my butt covered to some degree as much as possible in the wonderful gowns, but did not care too much.  If you got it flaunt it I say.  Not that I have got it. LOL   Before all this I was MORTIFIED about the prospect of being in a gown and what might be seen.  

I'm terrinbly chuffed   - Love that phrase. 

darcher said:

I don't know that McDonalds

I don't know that McDonalds could use that for a commercial but looking back on it now, it's kinda funny.   The diet said "no restrictions"  so there it is.  Maybe I should have ordered a take out ribeye.  That would have been worthwhile tasting it as it cqme back up, lol. Then again,  maybe not.    I appreciate the suport here which is one of the few places I get any.   Life is weird and sometimes you get curve balls and have to wonder why they are what they are.  I just don't understand some people.  I nearly didn't do this due to other circumstances but I figured what the hell so here I am.  

 I think two things are responsible for getting me through.  One was doing exactly what the doctors said without question and the other, as silly as it sounds, is not really accepting that I had anything at all.  I was able to pull off that illusion because I never really looked like I had anything and would play it off as such most times.. Holding on to that seemed to help avoid dropping into the pitty hole of cancer.  Hell, I even fooled a couple nurses who said I looked perfectly fine after chemo and radiation. Truth is, this is one ugly disease and by god's will I avoided most of what could have been a huge calamity. 

 I've noticed some nurses are kinda nervous while others aren't  I don't know if it's because of all the mayhem they're exposed to or what. In this area of teh hospital they've been quite good even though I had the colon issue and big mac attack.  The one told me I reminded her of a character named Thomes Shelby in the movie Wanted man.  I haven't seen the movie so I have no idea what he looks like or what his character does.  One other thing is I've pretty much lost all my modesty.  When you have a nurse hold your penis while trying to empty it through a cathader it doesn't leave  much else to hide.  Had a cathader and then it was removed but I was still having a hard time so she did a 5 minute in and out job to get the bladder emptied out. 

Right now all I have left is the epidural connected to me.  My swelling is starting to go down and based on where it is, it makes perfect sense.  On the left tracing the sigmoid colon.  Now, all I have to do is a number 2 and I'm outta here, 

 

 

  

 

No such word after CRC hits you.  I'd obviously never had a rectal exam, being a woman, and now...... well, I can't count the number of exams or (male) Doctor's who have had their fingers where I'd rather they not be. 

The way I hadle it now is just to think of my body as a whole. One part is no more embarrasing than the other. If you believe in God, then you should look at your body as something to be respected and honoured, and NOT something to be embarrased about. 

Still, I've refused the last four rectal exams. HA!  (I'm all talk and no action)

I'm terribly chuffed that you are doing so well. A sense of humour is an indication of health. Keep it up. 

Tru

NewHere said:

Sorry

I was not making fun of the spelling, I love the phrase and did not even see that.  LOL.  The first time I heard it, to my 'merican ear sound kind of dirty. 

For many years after moving to America, I used expressions and words that caused much embarrasment. We may all speak English, but not all the words have the same meanings. 

Tru

darcher said:

  They said I can walk out

  They said I can walk out since that's all I was doing 90% of the time I was there.  I'll say this, now that it's 3 or what ever ever in the morning, I am feeling it.  That epidoral was worth its weight in gold.  I had 3 bags of that stuff and it sure as hell did the trick keeping the pain away.  Turns out it was a narcotic as much as I wanted to avoid it.  Looked up the ingrediants and its a form of morphine and oxy or something like that. I am in mysery now and as much as I didnt want to take the opioid pain pills I had no choice.  It's the only reason Im able to get out of bed now.   I had to look up chuffed too.   A new word and there will be more.  My sister is engaged to a guy from the UK who happens to be an ER nurse.  I talked to him once a few weeks back and couldn't understand half of what he was saying, lol.  

 McDonalds on the other hand is on my short list of places to avoid.  Their food is one step up from garbage as far as Im concerned.  My body finally got to have its vote counted.  My little ones like the kiddie meals only because of the toys.  They almost never eat what's in it except the hamburger and even then that's only because they think it's a crabby patty from spongebob cartoons. 

  Hoping by daylight there will be some reduction in pain.  I've been to the bathroom 4 times so far and each of them are a good deal different than what I experienced before.  At least now I can hold it to some degree.  On the way home which was an hour+ drive I had the urge about 1/2 there.  Made it without incident where as before, not a chance in helll would I have gone 10 more minutes. .  My weight climbed way up.  I pegged 180 in the gown while I was there.  Prior to I woulda only hit maybe 168 or so.  It must have been all the fluids in the IV that were going non-stop.  It's starting to drop a little.  Im now down to about 177 which is still high and has me feeling porky.

 

Sorry for the pain that you have now but you seem to be a guy with a very strong constitution and I think that you'll conquer the pain soon. Maybe even this morning.

My wife grew up in Singapore (originally Malaysia but Singapore was kicked out of the country), and lived in Australia for a while so she has a natural British English accent tinged with Singlish and Australian local terms. It took me a while to pick up the terms too but Americans often find the British English accent delightful.

I stopped going to MacDonalds and Burger King upon learning of my diagnosis. I wasn't a big customer but I just decided to stop completely.

I basically fasted (very light breakfast and skipped lunch) so that I wouldn't have to change the bag along the way. So I understand not wanting to have to deal with bathrooms on the trip home from the hospital. I'd guess that I dropped about 7 or 8 pounds at the hospital and will likely drop more over the next week. There was enough sugar in the IV to get my glucose level to pre-diabetes numbers. I know that they gave me Ringers Lactate as well and I imagine that there are a lot of calories in that. The reason I lost the weight is that I didn't eat much of anything for two days after the surgery.

Yeah, it sucks but at least Im alive and going to stay that way.   I'm clinging to that. 

darcher said:

cancer strikes out.

  Met the surgeon today to go over the pathology.  He said 0 of 18 lymph nodes showed any signs of cancer.  What's important about that are a few things.  One, it's why a lot of people end up with metastasis to the liver because that's where they ultimately lead.  Beyond that it also matters what sort of treatment was done before surgery.  I didn't think about this but in some cases the cancer can be dead after chemo/radiation and it shows nothing but that doesn't mean it wasn't there and has already made the journey. He said there are usually some tell tale signs of that.  In my case there was nothing.  They were nice and clean.

Next item was clear margins which means nothing was found in the outer realm of what they took out which also helps to preclude notions that it might have spread.

Last item is the tumour was well differentieted.  That indicates it is a slow grower and not agressive to begin with. That's a plus taking into account the stage that the chances it took off in search of greener pastures are slim.

 He still wants me to meet with the chemo people in a few days but more than likely I'll get a light version of it for a short while.  I have no argument to that.  After all, it only takes a few errent cells to make new home. That being said it looks like cancer struck out so I'm one happy mo-fo.  

Not exactly a free man just yet but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Most pre-cancer functions have returned even though it's been less than two weeks since my OR visit.  My incision still tingles a little bit when I move in certain ways or if it's rubbed but it's a lot better now than the day after I came home. This journey was certainly a life changer.  I had some adjustments to make and am dealing with that so in some respects this won't ever be over.  

 

Glad to hear the excellent pathology results. It sounds like you made it through, so far, with relative ease, and have a relatively easy adjuvant chemo.

So glad you got good news on the pathology report!

very happy for you!

  I saw the chemo oncologist today for the follow up and he had a couple surprises.  One, he doesn't have much faith in lymph node reports when chemo/radiation were done prior to surgery. If anything was there it could have been killed off and there is a possibiliy there would be no sign of it.  Unlike the surgeon who said they were fine he said it doesn't take much to be missed to end up with cancer a few years down the road.  I agree, better safe than sorry.

   With the absense of lymph node involvement mine was downgraded from a stage 3 to 2 on that technicality.  He said he wants to do the full on stage 3 follow up to be sure. They want me to heal a little while longer and then startup in late December.  It's going to be Xeloda again albeit in a stronger dose than what I had prior to surgery and for 7 days a week for 3 weeks with one week off for 4 to 6 months.  It should be tolerable even if it is a little heavier than before since there won't be any radiation with it plus the shock of all this won't be there dragging me down either. At least I won't have any hoses sticking out of me and won't have to go in so often. Just the one time on the week off and that's it.  That's fine by me.   We'll be starting the home stretch in a few weeks.