Two weeks ago today...

I had surgery to remove all my female reproductive organs. See previous posts. Oh look, it's still Thursday (but less than an hour to go until Friday). I meant to write this post earlier today, but it's my first day this week online and I got distracted with emails and of course the Facebork.

Yesterday (Wednesday 18 Feb) I saw the gynecologic oncologist for my post surgery checkup. All is well, more or less. There was indeed cancer in the endometrium, as he suspected there might be. It was stage 2 (of 3), so that's a little bit more frightening than had it only been stage 1. However, there was no cancer in the muscle of the uterus or in any of the lymph nodes he removed. He couldn't get to the lymph nodes on my left side because I have some wicked scarring in there. I have no idea how the scar tissue developed. Weird. Anyway, he saw no more cancer besides what was involved in the endometrium. Good news.

However, the cancer might return. Where? I ask, because I have no more uterus or ovaries or fallopian tubes to get the cancer. Ah, but there's still the vagina, he says. Oh. That would be very bad. I have no further need of the uterus, ovaries, or fallopian tubes. The vagina, on the other hand, still plays an important role in my life. And in Superman's life. The doctor says the greatest chance of developing cancer is in the next two years, so he wants to see me every three months for the next two years to continue monitoring the situation.

I thought once I lost the cervix (it's part of the uterus, so it is gone) I'd be done with PAP smears. No such luck, because now they'll PAP the vagina. Oh well. Probably not as uncomfortable as the cervical PAP. I hope.

I'm frankly a bit scared about recurrence. For years I figured I'd probably end up with some kind of cancer. The odds being what they are. Now I have had cancer, it's been surgically removed, and there appears to be no more of it in my body. Also, no further treatment is necessary. But now that I have had cancer, I'm afraid it might return. I really don't want any more cancer, thankyouverymuch. Haven't I paid my dues, Life? Eh, Life doesn't work that way. Life works thusly: Shit Happens. Sometimes it's good shit, sometimes it's bad shit, but shit continues to happen.

Speaking of shit happening; COLD. Today's high temp didn't quite reach freezing. That's very rare for our part of South Carolina. Tonight's low forecast is 11F. I know many of my blog buddies north of here are experiencing much colder temps, but by gosh, this is pretty cold for us. Dearest Daughter Light in western Pennsylvania hasn't seen anything close to above freezing in I don't know how long. It's amazing. Below zero Fahrenheit. Wicked whipping winds blowing snow horizontally. As of yesterday she was still alive. Haven't heard from her today, and I assume no news is good news. Surely she'd let me know if she froze to death, right? She fell on the ice last week, but didn't do any more harm than a couple of scrapes and bruises. Poor Ron, retired in Delaware, messed up his knee falling on the ice.

With this cold weather we got a bit of precipitation Monday. Freezing rain, which is the curse of the south. It rarely snows, but we get our share of freezing rain. Thankfully the roadways were warm enough to not ice over in most of this area. Just a bit north, in Greenville and Spartanburg counties, they had road ice. Anyway, the power lines iced up as did trees. We lost power for about four hours Tuesday morning, from 7:20 to 11:20, and that was a lot less time than some folks did. The houses across the street evidently are on a different trunk line or something, because the neighbor lost power at midnight Monday night/Tuesday morning. The power outage wasn't such a big deal, but the cable outage was. We get our internet through the cable company. No TV, no big deal. No internet, BIG deal! The internet came back yesterday late morning, but I had a doctor's appointment in the early afternoon and after that I was reading, so didn't hit the internet until this afternoon.

The recovery time for my surgery (I changed topics again) is from two to six weeks. The doctor has increased my maximum weight lifting limit. It was 10 lbs, is now 15 lbs. Also, I can drive again. In celebration (or something) I went to the grocery today. I had Superman bring home the two gallons of milk we needed when he came home for lunch, because milk is heavy. I got a few things this afternoon. It was my first time out by myself since before the surgery. Yesterday going to the doctor was my first time out of the house since I got home from the hospital two weeks ago Friday. As I may have mentioned here before, I have a touch of agoraphobia. I feel more comfortable at home. Don't like to go out, especially to large crowded spaces. Some days Wal-Mart freaks me the hell out. Today I went to Aldi, which is much smaller, and I went between 2 and 3 o'clock when the store was sparsely populated. Even then, by the time I got to the check out line the anxiety was ratcheting up. I managed to get home OK, though, and didn't take any anxiety meds. So good for me.

Per Herr Doctor's orders, I still need to "take it easy." Not lift more than 15 lbs for the next four weeks, so no going back to the gym for weight machines. I can walk the treadmills, though, and that would be a good idea. They had told me before surgery that I couldn't resume sexual intercourse for six weeks, so I said something to the doc yesterday about only four more weeks for that. Nope, now I have to wait six weeks from yesterday to have sex. Shit. This is turning into a depressingly celibate winter. At least we can still snuggle.

A Haiku, dedicated to my friends and relatives suffering in the winter weather up north:

Wicked whipping wind
Blows snow horizontally.
Damn, it's cold out there! 

Six days post surgery

... and I feel fine!

Seriously, almost no pain. It's amazing. Oh, and I finally pooped yesterday. The doctor had me take a strong laxative the day before surgery. Took me three days just to fart. This is of particular interest to me because my father died (two years ago next month) six days after heart surgery because his bowel died, or something. Details are sketchy. All I know is that he never had any bowel activity after the surgery. Eventually all his organs failed. So farting after being under anesthesia is very important.

Moving along...

I haven't been online at all since last Friday after I got home from the hospital. I have, however, read about four or five gay romance novels. Fun and fluffy reading, folks. Today I decided to check my email and post here. Between point A and point B, Facebork happened. I'm so ready for a nap right now, but am making myself write this little bit of drivel before doing so.

And that's pretty much all I know.

Oh, here's a fun idea I got from Mel Vassey*, ** on Facebork today. Replace one word in a movie title with "goat." I'll start:
Goats on a Plane
Gone with the Goat
When Harry met Goat
continue in the comments, as you wish.

*Mel used to have a blog. He may still, but I can't find it. Can't remember the name of it either, just that it was a Spanish name having to do with wool or knitting or something. He's very smart and funny and I recommend reading his stuff if you find it. Or look for him on the Facebork.

**I found it! Cabezalana, but he hasn't updated since April of last year. He's also on Twitter, I understand, but I'm not.

All is well, as far as I know.

This is a post surgery update. As I begin this post it is almost 9:30 Friday evening. I was getting out of major surgery yesterday at 1:30. Medical technology is amazing. I had robotic surgery to remove my uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes and ovaries. Check this out: the term for the surgical procedure of removing all of a woman's ovaries and fallopian tubes is bilateral salpingooopherectomy. When the operating room nurse told us that yesterday both Superman and I were in nerd heaven.

I'm very tired. This post might not hold together really well. I took my pain meds about half an hour ago. This is not sober blogging. There are things I wish to say, and will say, but probably not tonight.

I was released from hospital about 12:30, less than 24 hours after I'd been in surgery. And I feel amazingly good all this considered. I'm sore and stiff, as if I was shaken up in a car wreck recently. My neck muscles are sore. What's up with that?

I have five small incisions in my belly, and only one of them hurts. It hurts plenty enough for the others. Moving is a delicate operation. I'm so fat that when I stand up my stomach sags, dragging down the tissues that were disturbed. The more I move around, though, the better I feel, generally. I'm supposed to take it real easy for the next two weeks, not lift anything over 10 pounds (I'm saying less than 10 lbs to begin with), not drive, etc. And I'm OK with that. The 1.5 hour trip home from the hospital was ambitious. Certainly doable, but ambitious.

There is more I want to say about what the doctor found and what kind of follow-up we need to do. Right now though I am so tired I'm gonna quit now. Stay tuned.

'Twas a couple o' days before Christmas...

Feeling groovy. Ish. I'm not taking the high power pain meds anymore after my hernia surgery. Today I was finally able to take the bandages off the incision site. It doesn't so much hurt as itch like a sonofabitch. The area was covered with a gauze bandage and stuck on with one of those large pieces of clear plastic adhesive stuff. Superman called it a "plaster" and says the entire English speaking world calls that a plaster except the U.S. Anyway, I've had that adhesive stuck to my belly for six days. The skin doesn't like that foolishness. Now the whole area itches. I've got dissolving stitches covered by steri-strip bandages. Those will come off on their own, says the doctor. That part itches, too, but the worst is the freshly released skin all around my navel. I'd rather it itch than hurt, though. Being off the hydrocodone, eating real food, and taking a bit of laxative has helped the bowels behave better.  And as you know, a happy bowel contributes much toward general happiness.





Light and Twitch are home now. It was wonderful; Light stopped in Charlotte to see Twitch, and decided to bring him home so neither Superman nor I had to drive to get him. She's a good kid. That was Friday. She stayed the night (we took her and Twitch out to our favorite pizza and beer place) and left early Saturday morning for Charleston, where she met up with a good friend and went to the wedding of a friend of that friend. They stayed in Charleston last night and came home today. Tonight she and her friend and another good friend of theirs, all good buddies from high school, have gone out to the drive-in theater to see "The Hobbit." This was a picture the middle one put on her Facebork page tonight celebrating the reunion of these particular three musketeers. Light is on the right, the one with the biggest silly grin. :-)

(Warning: boring paragraph about cooking follows)
I'm back in the kitchen again. Haven't done much cooking since last weekend. Last night I fixed my favorite macaroni and cheese recipe, double-and-a-half, to make enough for this big hungry crowd. It was well received. Today I started some red sauce for lasagna, but never got around to putting together the lasagna. Perhaps that will be our Christmas Eve dinner. C made some red sauce to go with some penne for a late lunch for him and his he-wishes-he-was-his-boyfriend-but-right-now-they're-"just-friends" and I added his leftovers to my pot of stuff. I haven't tasted it yet, but I suspect it will be wunnerful. There are stealth vegetables in the sauce. I processed some carrots to just shy of puree and added them to the sauce. That might add a hint of sweetness, too. There's no way I'll ever be able to replicate that sauce.

Also, I baked some more bread. And I'll be making stuffing (or do you call it dressing?) to go with the turkey for Christmas dinner using a variety of breads. I'm getting excited about doing stuff again. For the last couple of weeks my give-a-shit has been hobbled. For the next week or two (or three?) I'm limited in how much weight I can lift. Five pounds. That's it. Do you now how many things in the kitchen weigh more than five pounds? My favorite cast iron skillet, for one. And the food processor. (Full disclosure: Superman actually  ran the carrots through the processor.) (He also scraped them into the sauce pot because if he does it all the carrot pieces get into the pot. If I do it a lot of carrot bits are randomly strewn around the stove top. And beside the stove. And probably other unlikely places.)

If there was more I intended to say I have since forgotten it. I could regale you with recent infractions of the law perpetrated by Sproing and/or Diva's trouble with her big mouth as relates to staying at school. A lot of that kind of shit happened while I was on my blogging sabbatical. It was depressing, and I didn't want to talk about it. It's merry happy holiday time now and I don't want to talk about it. And since I can't remember what else I was going to say, I guess I'll stop now. This rambling has gone on long enough for one post.

Thursday stuff

Doesn't seem like Thursday to me. Actually, I'm disconnected from days right now. I had minor outpatient surgery two days ago. A small hernia repair that the doctors seemed to think was necessary. I blogged about that recently. The surgeon disabled my pop-up timer. Yeah, I'm sore. It's a localized soreness, there at my navel. I'm fine if I don't move. Also taking Lortab. Hydrocodone. So yeah, I'm disconnected from days and a few other things as well.

Just talked to an old friend of mine. Received a Christmas card from her yesterday with a brief update letter to let everyone know their house burned down!! About 2.5 weeks ago their house burned down. They've lived there 20 years, raised five kids in it. It was an old farmhouse, and evidently there was some electrical short or something in the living room wall that started the thing. No one was in the house, but she and her youngest daughter were on the property. Poor gals had to watch their house burn down. They got the pets out before it got too smokey. I'm freaking out about it, but hell, it wasn't my house. I talked to her for maybe 20 minutes, and she sounds numb. They're managing. Going to rebuild. Have received a lot of help from friends and neighbors and the Red Cross. They live close to us, the next county over. She does our taxes.

The young kids are home now, on winter break. Or Christmas break, whichever term seems appropriate. I don't care what it's called, I just care that they are home. So far it isn't too bad. Had my surgery the last day of school, so I've been drugged and out of it since they've been home. I'm leaving them alone and they're mostly getting along.

I'm supposed to drive to Charlotte to bring Twitch home for Christmas. Was going to do that tomorrow, but might need to wait until Saturday. My boo-boo needs a bit more healing time before I drive for five hours. Light is leaving Pennsylvania this evening to head this way. She'll take a nap at Twitch's place on her way down, then she's going to Charleston before coming home. The weather between western Pennsylvania and here is a bit dodgy right now, raining with snow in the forecast. Hopefully she'll be far enough south by the time the snow hits so as to avoid it. I'm worried about her driving so far under such conditions, but hell, I've done the same thing myself many times. So I'm going to pretend not to worry.

If there was anything else to say I have forgotten. Kinda spacey. Might be nap time again. Sleep helps the healing process, right? And it's a cool, rainy day, the kind that 's good for naps. Yeah. Nap.

Diva in the spotlight

Here's my baby girl as we sat in the waiting room to be called back to get prepped for surgery. She was still pretty excited about all the drama. I made her wear a night gown to the surgery center. She was not amused, but when I told her "Oh, wear whatever you want, I don't care." she put on the night gown. Kids. 
Here she is on the gurney waiting to go into surgery. The surgeon and the anesthesiologist both visited her to ask questions and explain a little bit about what to expect. Both guys were very nice. Diva beamed through it all. 
My gawd she's a beautiful child! This is such a good depiction of her. She's so often cheerful, except when she's pouty. She's much less attractive when she pouts. I love way her skin glows with this buttery richness when she's happy. This picture was taken pre-surgery. Obviously. 

I forgot to take any pictures of her in the recovery area. She looked pretty dull. She didn't respond to much, negative or positive. Thankfully she did drink some water and eat a popsicle. That's the trick, getting them to drink, drink, drink. They also recommend a lot of chewing. That helps the throat muscles, and decreases the muscle spasms that make the kids' ears hurt. So Diva has been chewing a lot of gummy bears. Gummy bears are nice and soft, and aren't rough on the raw flesh in the throat.

Here she is at home Friday afternoon. She's watching television. It's now mid afternoon Saturday and she's been in front of that television almost constantly. Her throat may be healing, but her brain is rotting. When I took this picture she didn't feel very good. She has cried a few times because the throat hurts so bad, but crying makes it hurt worse, so that's been minimal. It's worst when I give her the pain medication. 

This picture was also taken Friday evening. As you can see, she's still pretty cheerful. She's been cold, though. She's sitting in the chair in front of the fireplace wrapped in blankets. She wanted me to take this picture because the frill on the blanket sort of looks like a beard or a lion's mane. 

The recovery is going well. She's right on schedule. Her assessment of the situation is a bit different, as she's the one with the sore throat. I hope she'll feel significantly better by Monday. She won't be able to go to school until the following Monday, though. We scheduled the surgery for yesterday in part because next week is only a 2 day school week, Thanksgiving break being Wed. through Fri. She needs to be in school as much as possible to keep her grades from plunging. 

Thank you all for your concern, thoughts and prayers. My Diva loves that attention!! And I appreciate it. :)

Diva's day

Today Diva gets her tonsils removed. She was SO excited about it yesterday! This morning she's pretty excited but a little bit nervous. I wonder if she'll be nervous as they're preparing her for surgery. I call her Diva because she loves attention. Last night Superman took her out shopping for post-surgery food. She got some ice cream, juice, chicken noodle soup, and popsicles. Oh, and gummy bears. They say that chewing is very good for healing the throat. 

I shall post updates when we return from the surgery center.

Finally! News about Adam

They've had to put in a new feeding tube due to trouble with the other one. They might have to do a tracheotomy. He's scheduled for surgery on his back on Friday. A lot can happen between now and Friday. I guess they are hoping for (maybe expecting?) some good progress between now and then.
Thank you all for your continued concern.