It's been a few days, but they were a few very good days.
I got away from the negative and obnoxious acquaintances and had a few excellent days including going to an excellent concert. I also confirmed that eating bacon is only going to kill you if you also eat a lot of other crap, no good stuff, smoke and don't exercise. And that's definitely not news!
And I feel a million times better.
I've been telling people as quickly as I can, but it looks like some of them have now heard through the grapevine rather than through me, so for them I say: "Don't worry - I have a very curable type of cancer, and I plan to be cured."
I've also been amazed over the last couple of weeks how many people I've found out I know who also had some form of cancer they have now fully recovered from. I guess usually you only hear about friends and friends of friends when they DIE and when they get some "lesser" form of cancer, get the treatment and are declared cancer-free, that doesn't make as good of a gossip or maybe they themselves don't feel like it's important or appropriate to tell people (after all, medical stuff is usually considered private, and cancer in particular can make some people freak out where even if you're cured, they'll always think of you as "in danger").
So maybe that's part of the reason I'll continue telling people - even after my treatment, even if that's the end of it other than frequent check-ups, I figure that if I can get people to realize it's not always a death sentence, unless they don't get their symptoms checked out maybe it'll get some of them to their doctors and most of them will feel silly because it'll turn out to be nothing, but maybe someone else will catch this thing early and make a complete and full recovery.
Nothing going on till the pre-op appointment on Thursday to prod me and make sure that I'm fit for surgery. It's conceivable that I may have to decide if I want general anesthesia or "local" (spinal with a sedative). It's only a 30-45 minute procedure so I'm thinking general is probably the way to go - not long enough to make recovery difficult, but if anyone knows anything to suggest, drop me an email or leave a note.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
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6 comments:
Advice I've been given is that the fewer times you have to undergo general anaesthesia the better; it's rough on the central nervous system, and there are always risks, even with healthy people. And surgical sedation is very effective - with stuff like Versed and Fentanyl, you're not conscious of any pain or anything going on and have no memory of anything or that any time has even passed. (I had this for endoscopy.) Worth reading up on.
sending best wishes from here, thinking of you!
MCB: is that old wisdom about GA? It used to be a lot harder on the system because well, they had to figure out how much to give you to keep you "down" for the right now - it's very fast acting now, and fast stopping - when they are done they stop giving it to you and you wake up shortly after that, so there's no issue of giving "too much" for example.
I've had general twice, 20+ years ago for wisdom teeth removal (~1 hr I think) and seven years ago for my breast reduction (that was over four hours, and recovery was rough but I think that's because it was a much more major surgery).
I guess I'll check with a doctor friend of mine... Also the pre-op has me meeting with the anesthesiologist so I'll get a chance to ask him as well (or her!)
You're undoubtedly right that GA has improved dramatically in the last 10-20 years and is way less toxic. I recovered pretty quickly from GA after gall bladder surgery in '06. On the other hand, if there's the chance of conscious sedation it might be worth checking into - after my endoscopy I went out to dim sum.
Well, I had a discussion of this with a friend of mine who's an anesthesiologist and his opinion was either is an option but he would recommend general. He thought I should be able to go for dim sum after my surgery too. Of course since they won't let me out of the hospital till dinner time, it'll have to be the next day...
Hey, how about dim sum to celebrate my tumor removal on Saturday April 25th?
You're on!
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