The Day After

Let's see, first a recap of yesterday.

After the requisite pre-op checks Dr Konety's chief resident stopped in my room to answer any questions I may have had and that's when I found out they were planning to give me a course of Mitomicin C intravesically after the resection to kill off remaining cancer cells and prevent reseeding. They actually ended up using Thiotepa instead.

They rolled me into the prep room after giving me a lovely sedative and prepared me while the lovely drugs kicked in and then put on a little mask and off to sleepy land I went. It was a little after 1:30pm.

About an hour later Dr. Konety came out to the waiting room and told Jeanne it went well and that I was being taken to recovery room.

I woke up in the recovery room about an hour and a quarter later. It turned out they had just told Jeanne I was still asleep and to check back in half an hour, so the nurse went and got her and Jeanne hung out in the recovery area with me for the rest of the afternoon.

Around 4pm they started me on the Thiotepa which involved pouring a container of it into my bladder and clamping off the catheter. It also involved giving me some pain drugs (it was fentanyl) as my bladder was not very comfortable and it's bad enough to have it spasming against the catheter baloon but having it filled for an hour was very uncomfortable. I'd say that was the most uncomfortable part of the last two days.

Somehow I made it to 5pm when the nurse came back and unclamped the catheter (*aaahhh*) and then after the chemo was out of me he set up a large saline IV bag which was going to wash out my bladder of all residue of Thiotepa which took another hour.

During that time Dr. Konety and his resident stopped by to tell me it went well and to explain that they switched the plan from Mitomicin to Thiotepa because of the thinness of the bladder where the larger tumor was removed from he didn't want it to get irritated and Mitomicin is rougher on the bladder as an irritant than Thiotepa and they seem to have similar effectiveness decrease against recurrence and reseeding. He also said that while normally they would take out the catheter before sending me home, they would set me up with a leg bag for it to keep it in for a few days to allow the bladder more time to heal before putting any "strain" on it.

So, the nurse set me up with the leg bag, gave me a larger overnight bag to switch it out to if needed, showed me how to remove the catheter on Saturday (that'll be tomorrow) and what to watch out for (basically no straining, take it easy, return to normal activities within 5-7 days as I feel up to it). They also gave me a prescription for Septra (antibiotic, five days' worth) and Vicodin (about three months worth at the rate I use it!).

We took a cab home around 6:30 and after a stop at Wallgreens and picking up my prescription drugs and some Perydium (magic stuff for any sort of urinary discomfort) and I settled in bed to watch some TV, check e-mail (of course!) and such. I felt some discomfort so I took half a vicodin and one perydium pill (half a doze of each) and then felt pretty comfortable for the rest of the evening taking the other half of the vicodin before going to sleep a few hours later. I wasn't up to solid foods so I just had some fruit/veggie juice that Jeanne picked up at Safeway. Ben came over after work and the three of us watched a little TV and then after hooking up the larger draining bag I went to sleep.

This morning I woke up feeling okay, still needed half a vicodin a couple of times, in the morning and then in the afternoon before taking a shower. I had some more juice in the morning and then half a banana, and half a pear cut up in some yoghurt which was my lunch. The antibiotics sadly have the side effect of causing gas which was putting a bit of uncomfortable pressure on the bladder but not painful just a little uncomfortable.

Around 6pm my friend Susan stopped by with her singing group - they sing at hospitals to lift spirits so they made a house call to me to lift my spirits and it worked! Thanks guys!

For dinner Jeanne made me some sweet potato which was excellent. I think I'm primed and ready for dim sum tomorrow! 11:30am, see y'all there!

I'm still planning on flying to Chicago starting a two week business trip/mini vacation this Sunday. My easy work week in Chicago will be just conducting some training there for three days and then I go on to Europe, rest up over the long weekend and I've got the same training to conduct in our UK office near London.

Thanks for the good thoughts and wishes everyone, it really cheered me up both here and on FB.

And big thanks to Jeanne for being my excellent surgery buddy!