Learning to Dance With a One-Legged Tan

Okay, I know that’s a crazy title for a blog post but I just had to. And that’s because there are several things that I want to tell you about and don’t know which one to include in the title. So, sometimes you just have to put it all in one mouthful. 

My almost-seven-year-old grandson totally gets that. When he’s hungry and the food looks so good, he just can’t decide which part to taste first. So he just stuffs it all in. Like a bad blog title. You just have to do it. But then that’s what freedom smells like sometimes. Do it now and deal with the consequences later. (Don’t ever tell him I said that. It’s just that I get it too.) I don’t condone that as a habit, but I know how it feels when you just have to, now and then.

Someone Left the Gate Open

Just in case I lose you because you don’t want to read any more of this update, here’s a summary of this past week: It’s been crazy!

Want more detail? Okay. It’s been a roller coaster of emotions. It started literally a few minutes after I’d posted my last update—the one where I finished with the late breaking news that all 20 lymph nodes that had been removed were clear. After I’d posted that update Dr. Bahl, the radiation oncologist, called me with more details on the results of the PET scan. It seems there are two more spots in the proximity of the original tumor removed from my lower leg that appear to be malignant. They’re not small, but not quite as large as my record breaker. These are both 8 mm in diameter and they are of concern to them. And the only way to rid my body of these is more surgery. Oh my! (Just another detour to the end, as my friend Lori observed.)

Don't Mess With the Good News

Chances are that you’ve experienced this a time or two. You have some really exciting news—something that has just made your day, or at least it’s certainly something that’s so important that you want to tell everyone about it. So you run to someone you thought was your friend and you gush it out.

But all you get in response is a strange look on their face. They wait for you to finish (or worse yet, they interrupt you), and then proceed to tell you a story of their own which they think is important. Sometimes it may be similar to yours, sometimes it bears no resemblance. Yet the reality is that from your perspective (which of course is all that matters to you at this point) you cannot imagine why anyone in the world (except, perhaps, their mother) would care even a little bit about their story.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens? It’s so annoying when your bubble gets burst. It can be so deflating.

I Think I Found the Cloud

First, the really good news: I’m out! I’m out of the hospital and on the road to recovery at home.

Sorry for the long delay before I write this update, but I’ve been waiting to see if my head would clear a little more. It doesn’t look like it will in the next few days (thanks to some very effective pain killing medication) so I’m going to give this a try. I just can’t wait any longer. It's understandable if some of this update doesn’t “esnesynaekam” to you. Just ignore that part.

Surgery finished, body all stitched up and stapled in the right places and minus several cancerous lymph nodes, I’m hoping it’s all the cancerous lymph nodes that are gone. But we won’t know that for sure until we talk to Dr. Granger, the surgeon who did the excavating. That will be on March 20^th at which time he will remove the 38 staples that are neatly decorating that part of my body.