I has been really good to hear from a number of readers concerned about my whereabouts. I am sorry that I have not kept things better updated. Generally, when the health gets really shitty, I tend to shut down. I don’t read or pursue other intellectual pursuits, but, rather, sit and watch a wealth of daytime tv. In fact, I have been telling the office that “I am working at home” which generally means that I am sitting back in my recliner and criticizing Judge Judy’s evidentiary rulings.
Since I last posted I have really hit a downward spiral. The abdominal pain has become so intense that I cannot hardly eat at all. I am unable to work any meaningful hours and have become so weak from not eating that I cannot hardly care for my self. I mean, I have always been lazy and out of shape. But it is so extreme that I could not get out of the bathtub on my own. If I get down to a knee I will not be getting back up without help. This weakness is unlike anything I have ever experienced. I can just see my self on one of those commercials for Medic Alert. “Help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!.” I have been making fun of that poor old lady on TV for years and here I sit.
A few weeks a go I pulled off a Trifecta. On a tuesday an MRI of the liver, wednesday a CT Scan of full body, and thursday a PET. The good news is that the Sir Sphere thereapy on one-half of my liver shows essentially no evidence of disease which is really amazing. The downside is that during all the shitting around getting ready for that therapy I have been off chem and, my onc believes, allowing advancement of my disease and thus pain. The doc wants me to do the other half of my liver, but can’t do it until I get some weight and health back on.
My onc wants more chemo. We started Folfiri last week. I felt great the day after, but that has really been my only good day. I had been having some serious constipation problems and have finally found the answer! Irenotecan! That stuff cleared out shit that had been rolling around my intestines since childhood. BEST laxitive ever.
I am sitting here on home IV hydration therapy as I type this and see my number one goal at present to get some nurishment. My doc suggests protein powder with ice cream, chocolate syryp, and anything else that I can cram in there to gain obscene wieght. Strange directions in that docs have always told me to take off a few pounds.
Thanks again for the well wishes. I’ll try to keep you posted.
Well, I’m about 2 weeks out from my first Sir Sphere session and still feeling pretty crappy. I worked 1/2 time last week with just to much fatigue to do otherwise. I am also continuing to suffer a lot of abdominal pain. I am losing a crazy amount a weight because I can’t eat. Not only do I not have the appetite but it seems to hurt every time I eat.
Enough of my problems. Don’t you wisht they had a Make A Wish Foundation for adults? I don’t know what I would wish for. Drive a fast car, have two women at the same time? Seriously, I have always dreamed to play in the World Series of Poker. That would be cool. Actually, here is a kid that has the right idea. This has been around awhile so you may have seen it.
So much is going on it has been difficult to keep this blog up. So, to bring you up to date:
About 2 weeks ago I was relaxing one night when I started getting this pain in my side chest, just above the liver, that was kind of sharp every time I took a breath. I noticed that if I sat up straight the pain went away. However, through the night the pain progressed regardless of position. By morning I got up and said to the wife that I needed to get to the hospital. The pain was so intense that I became short of breath and really could not catch my breath. Every short sip of air was just killing me.
So, I go to the emergency room and start feeling little better. They think its cardiac and begin all the ekg and other work ups. I also am running my usual fever of about 102. So, I get admitted and end up staying in the hospital for a damn week! My first day, Dr. Personality, the emergency room doc comes to see me bedside. He is one of these guys that seems to know a little about a lot of things but not a lot about any particular thing. So, he starts spouting off about how my ekg was not quite normal and that maybe I will be looking at a bypass or angioplasty in a couple weeks and I know its liver and not heart. Dr. Giggles goes on to say ”what kind of prognosis does you onc give you.” In other words, am I going to be dead soon because we don’t want to waste precious cardiac resources. What a pick me up. To top it off, I was giving Dr. Feelgood my history as to the fever and said “just last night my fever was 102″ to which he responded “fahrenheit?” Are you shitting me? No, Celsius. My body combusted into flames and I had to stop drop and roll just to get my temperature to come down. My onc and other docs quickly ruled out heart or blood clot problems and I was let go from the hospital with some high doses of antibiotic to get the fever down. I am coming to find that you do not have to be as smart as I thought to become a doctor.
Also while in the hospital my doctor was giving me a hard time about not eating. I just have not had the appetite. So, he prescribesmarinol to see if that will help. For those that do not know, Marinol is a marijuana derivative that is supposed to give you traditional munchies and help with nausea and such. So, the nurse is giving me first treatment and which point I break out into a stirring rendition of Buffalo Soldier. Unfortunately, the nurse is unfamiliar with the drug and does not know Bob Marley. The humor was completely lost. Having taken the drug, I cannot say that I am that impressed. Bob is probably rolling over in his grave seeing what they have done to his precious herb.
So, after a brief one day stay at home I was whisked to SLC for my first round of of Sir Sphere therapy. I love my interventional radiologist up there. I tell him that I am retaining some water since being in the hospital and he says “lets git rid of it.” So he adds on a periocentises to get rid of the water for me. The Sir Sphere treatment is quick, easy, without a hitch. You barely know that you have been through a procedure. The radiation is kind of fun because now I can run around the office threatening to sterilize everyone if they get to close. Frankly, sterilizing everyone in my office would probably be good for the gene pool.
So I had the pleasure of an endoscopy in SLC today. You may recall that my interventional radiologist (IR) told me to go get that stent that the endoscopist (END) placed a while back as it was no longer necessary with the biliary drain I have now. So here is the exchange of docs with me as intermediary:
ME (to IR): Hey I’m going in to the END to have my temporary stent replaced
IR: Tell him to simply pull the stent as it is no longer necessary
ME (to END): Hey IR says to pull the stent as it is no longer necessary
END: Hey tell the IR to pull the drain out and we can place an internal permanent stent to replace the drain and solve the problem internally with no external equipment.
IR: Hey you tell him to pull his junk out!
END: Hey you tell him to pull his junk out!
IR: No you tell him to pull his junk out!
END: No, he needs to pull his junk out!
Actually, I think the docs are somewhat on the same page and that page includes a good possibility of me losing this external biliary drain with would be freaking sweet. So Y90 Sir Sphere therapy begins on the 25th and somewhere before, after, in between, we may be able to lose the plumbing. I’ll let you know.
We have had some previous talk here about how breast cancer gets all the awareness. You can buy almost any product these days in pink with some portion of proceeds going to breast cancer. I buy pink batteries all the time. Some Colon Cancer patients have questioned why we don’t get this awareness. Well, its because everyone likes tits.
Well, here is a new one. Kentucky Fried Chicken has started selling its chicken in pink buckets with a whopping 50 cents going to breast cancer. You can learn more at www.bucketsforacure.com.
Can you smell the 11 herbs and spices of irony yet. We take a product, greasy as hell chicken in a paper bucket, that probably goes a long way toward causing colon cancer, and peddle it in favor of breast cancer. However, those that watch South Park know that when the KFC closed there was a spike in testicular cancer until “Medicinal Fried Chicken” was brought back.
Interesting. What’s next? Marlboro? I can see it know, I walk into 7-11 and say “uhhh . . . can I get pack of Marlboro Pinks in the box?”
My reader recently sent me an email wondering if I was still alive because he had not heard from me. I’ve just been a little lazy. I’m glad people are looking out.
I’m still at the regular routine. I missed some chemo because I picked up a nasty fever for about a week. Since then I have continued to have some regular fever. Chills in the morning and hotter than hell at night.
Last Wed. I was back in SLC having a Coil Embolization. This is the first step of the Y90 Sir Sphere therapy. The procedure is for a radiologist to go in through the femoral artery and scope and map out the blood system between there and the liver. The radiologist then coils off and blocks anything to goes anywhere but the liver. This way when they hit the radiation they know it won’t go anywhere but where they want it to. It isn’t a real painful procedure, but you are laying awake on a table for 4 hours.
I’m a little sore after the fact. I thought the femeral artery would be accessed in the inner thigh. Rather it is accessed right at your groin about 2 inches to the right of your unit (trust me I used my penis to measure). So . . . lets just say I will not be masturbating anytime soon. I have never been much for shaving down there, but they shaved basically one-half of the package. So I’m running around with only fur on one side. Real attractive.
I’m headed back to SLC on the 10th to have the stent removed from my bile duct. Later that week or the next week I will have my first hit of radiation with the Sphere Therapy. I’ll keep you posted.
The fatigue levels have been up and down and I still have a fair amount of pain from the liver drain. Today I broke down and mowed the lawn. Now I am wrecked.
Here is how tired I am. I am in my chair and the remote is across the room. Before I sat down I tuned into ESPN because it said that they were showing 2009 World Series of Poker. After I sat down, got comfortable, I realize that they are showing a national championship bout. Wait, football is over, basketball is barely over, baseball just got started, what could possibly be on. The National Championship of Collegiate Women’s Bowling! No I am not shitting you and I don’t have the energy to get up and get the remote.
It is powerhouse match between perennial favorite Nebraska v. Fairleigh Dickenson, who is no slouch. Really, FDU? Is that really a college? Are they making this shit up? Well, FDU handled the 6th round handedly going into the 7th to decide the champion. Each team hitting strikes and spares without leaving an open frame until frame 5 when “the country’s best bowler,” on scholarship (are you kidding?), from Nebraska leaves one pin standing. As FDU continues to wreck the pins the Huskers hit a 7 - 10 split on the first ball hurled. This would prove to be an insurmountable gaff.
So, you heard it here first folks. FDU is your new Womens Collegiate Bowling Champions. There is sobbing on both lanes. This is fucking rediculous. The remote is out of reach. Can I change the channel with my laptop? Maybe I will email my son to come upstairs and get the remote. Its worth a shot.
So, I had the procedure up at Huntsman Cancer last Friday. An interventional radiologist created a drain from my bile duct to my bowel to allow for internal draining, so I do not have a permanent external drain. However, he did install a permanent valve coming out of my gut that could be hooked to a bag for external draining if needs be. I was awake during this procedure which kind of blows. In any event they did a good job and bile in draining. However, when I got home Sunday and early Monday I developed a mean fever and have been in a lot more pain than I expected. Some heavy antibiotics have kept the temp down, but I have been carrying around the external bile bag. I should be able to switch it out in the next day or two.
As I have stated, Huntsman is by far the best hospital I have ever had the pleasure to stay in. Its like a Marriott. I only stayed one night and my brother came by to visit. I perused the room service menu and ordered the sirloin with baked potato and a strawberry milkshake. “Any thing for desert?” of course . . . I will have the key lime pie. By this time my brother could hardly contain the laughter but when I asked to see a wine list he really lost it. Great food and a really great place to be a patient.
So, next stop is Sir Sphere therapy probably in April. I’ll keep you posted.
So, over the weekend I dove into working on my ‘71 VW Bus that I am attempting to restore. During the process I took a little break. I was sitting in my garage, doing body work, drinking a Miller High Life (not Genuine Draft, not Miller Lite, High Life, the Champagne of Beers) out of a 24 oz. can mind you, smoking a cigar and wearing sweat pants. My hell, I am white trash.
On a side note, colon cancer patients regularly experience irregularity. It has been more than one month since I took a regular shit. I’m either constipated or shooting vapor out my ass. It has been even worse since the stent placement in my liver for some reason. After chemo I always have five days of constipation and squeezing out rocks. I’m really talking rocks. In fact, I’m saving some of the shit to use as body filler in my bus as it is more durable than the original sheet metal. Then, after 5 to 8 days of constipation I switch gears to the runs. Now, I’m not trying to justify my irresponsible behavior here, but whenever I smoke a cigar it gets the bowels moving. I mean within 2 minutes I’m ready to hit the bathroom. Is there something medicinal here?
I would love for my docs to start prescribing cigars.
So, I’m still waiting out for Sir Sphere therapy to my liver. A few weeks ago I had a stent placement by endoscope to open a bilary duct. The intervention radiologist wants my liver function better before he starts hitting it with radiation. So, I get a call today from the doc who says that looking at the recent CT Scan I still have a 2/3 blockage of bilary ducts even with the stent. That would explain the itching and jaundice.
So, a new procedure. The doc wants to do a minor surgical procedure where he installs a drain tube from the bilary duct to the colon. Ok, sounds cool. However, there is a 40% chance it wont work and they will have to PERMANENTLY drain bile into an external bag, like a colostomy. Except, rather than shit you are draining bile. I have to say this spooks me a little. I know people live with colostomies, but I am still a little worried. I don’t think I have many options here, so I will probably schedule it within about a week. Crossin my fingers because it works just as good as prayer. Out.
