I thought I'd start a new thread for updates on my cancer treatments and whatever else is going on, since the bad news thread title is misleading now.
My last treatment went better than the previous two and my chest wound is still closed up, which is a good thing. My arm is getting slightly stronger and I hope to resume lifting dumbbells next week. I need to build up my strength again, because I am going back to Denmark in May and I am extremely pumped about that! I'd like to be able to schlepp my own checked bag and not have someone else lifting it for me.
It's going to be a fabulous trip, 6 weeks and a couple of days for me. My brother is going along as well as my friends Chipp and Rod. Chipp is staying close to 3 weeks and has not gone with me over there since 2006 so he is also very pumped to be going. It will be Rod's first trip and he will be there for 2 weeks. I will get to be a tour guide. Also, I am throwing a party in my favorite pub of all, the wonderful, ever-magnificent Irish House in Aalborg on May 7th. The owner and I are friends and he will give me a little discount. We'll have Irish stew and brews in the cellar and I hope to have around 25 family and friends there. I might bill it as the "Fu** Cancer Party." A few months back, I was not sure I'd ever be able to go over to Denmark again or if I'd even be alive, but the cancer hasn't gotten me yet. I'm doing a number on it, instead.
Some other cool things I plan to do when I am back in my ancestral lands include a wine tasting in a castle, touring another castle and the northernmost manor home in the country, and visiting Skagen, the top of Denmark, where you can stand on a little patch of beach and have one foot in one sea and one in another. They also have a brewpub up there I am wanting to check out. I will start and end my trip in Aalborg and spend 5 weeks in an apartment I rent that is very close to the beach. I can hardly wait for May 4th to roll around! [Reply]
Originally Posted by Lonewolf Ed:
I actually had a doc come in and see me around 9 am this morning and he said there was no reason to keep me here. I asked if I can shower without protecting my incisions and he said it's fine as is. I've got staples in my gut and will have to come back in 2 weeks to have them removed. Can't I just go to Office Max or some such place instead?
I took my buddy's staples out with a good pair of side cutters. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Lonewolf Ed:
I am being released today, but don't know when yet, though. I ordered a late breakfast since I know it won't be in the next hour or two. Experience has shown me that.
Excellent!
I was sprung Friday evening. Hospitals need to keep costs down. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Lonewolf Ed:
I am being released today, but don't know when yet, though. I ordered a late breakfast since I know it won't be in the next hour or two. Experience has shown me that.
I am home now in my room, listening to YouTube and surfing around the web. I started to cough and that hurts, so I took a sip of Nyquil to coat my throat. Better now. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Lonewolf Ed:
I am home now in my room, listening to YouTube and surfing around the web. I started to cough and that hurts, so I took a sip of Nyquil to coat my throat. Better now.
Awesome Ed no more Doctors showing up at all hours poking and prodding. No place like home. [Reply]
Yes, it is. If I had not been preoccupied with blinding pains, I would have demanded that they access my chemo port much earlier, as in right away, since they were jabbing me left and right. I finally got the port accessed and they hardly had to use it. One blood draw and one IV of some potassium and mineral supplement and that was it. :-) [Reply]
Keep up the good fight, Ed. Modern technology has come a long way from what it was just a short 20 years ago. Best of luck on your future recovery, and congrats on beating the shit out of cancer. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Chiefaholic:
Keep up the good fight, Ed. Modern technology has come a long way from what it was just a short 20 years ago. Best of luck on your future recovery, and congrats on beating the shit out of cancer.
Thanks, but it is not over. There is still the matter of my liver at stage IV. My colon cancer is gone, though, and it's nice not seeing blood in the toilet anymore. [Reply]
How long of a incision did they make Ed. I know surgery is so much different now. When I had my emergency surgery for a ruptured spleen I was 14 or 15. I just remember they had to get me in surgery immediately because if it burst I might not have made it.
I always remember they had gave me the shot in ass and i was groggy as the rolled me to operating room. The surgeon took his finger and thumped bottom my foot and my belly swelled up like a beach ball. Next I remember is waking in recovery. Pain was intense but not nearly as bad as the belly ache I had waiting for my parents to get home and telling them about me sneaking out the house while they worked down to the trails in the woods on that trail bike.
My recovery was long time to get strength back. Much like you they first dangled my likes over bed while I sat up. It made me sick had to vomit in that little tray that seems to small for the volume. In the end I have a 7in scar across my belly and have always been self conscious to take my shirt off and gross people out hahahahaha. [Reply]
I am not sure how long it is, but maybe 5 inches, but probably less? I haven't examined it in detail since it hurts to pull the compression wrap up and look. [Reply]
Just go back to surgeon and get those staples removed. I have never had any but sutures. are staples metal? I would hate to remove tissue along with the staple.
I have had plenty stitches in fingers and hand from field sharpening machete and ditch bank blades. I just pulled them with tweezers and needle nosed pliers. The emergency room doc always said come back to have removed but never did. [Reply]
