Welcome Back or Under The Knife Part 2

Hey Honey!  Welcome back.  How d’ya feel?

Coming out of a general anesthetic is like waking up to find yourself in the middle of a David Lynch film.  Everything seems normal.  Kind of.  Everything seems normal until you realize everything isn’t normal.

In my case, The Drugs were doing a real number on me.  My head felt like someone had opened it up and stuffed it full of wet cotton.  My hands felt like they weren't attached to my arms any more.  My tongue felt like a loofah.

I’m thirsty.  Can I have some water?

I could feel the words forming in my mouth, but couldn’t tell if they were coming out.

I could feel the air conditioning in the room next door.  Somewhere, behind the radiator, there was singing.

In heaven, everything is fine ....

The words must have been working.  A face was hovering over mine.  A kind and loving face.  Sue’s face.  Her lips were moving.

Sure, Sweetie.  I’ll get you some water.  Are you in any pain?  The doctor said you could have some more medicine if you need it.

I think I shook my mead.  Sue went to a nearby pitcher and was pouring a glass of water .... I thought so anyway …. I kept thinking ….

Medicine?  Why do they keep calling  it medicine?  It’s hi-powered pain killers they’re talking about.  Demerol.  Dilaudid. Morphine.  Serious Shit Pain Killers.   But where’s The Pain?  There’s no Pain.

Sue brought the water over and I took a sip.  The ceiling wouldn’t stop undulating.  I closed my eyes.

Did they forget to do the marrow biopsy?

No Sweetie, they did the biopsy, why?

There’s no Pain.  Did they forget?

No Sweetie, they did everything. You rest now.

Resting was easy.  Too easy.  Back into the darkness……

Hi, Sweetie!  Y’okay?

The David Lynch film must have been winding down.   My tongue still felt like a loofah.

In heaven, everything ………

I don't know how long I'd been out, but things didn't seem quite so .... wrong.

Did they forget to do the marrow biopsy?

For some strange reason, I was fixating on this bone marrow biopsy.  I had been expecting a great deal of pain and there wasn't any.  At all.  They must have forgotten.  That, or it was just The Drugs.

No, Sweetie, they did everything.  Are you thirsty?

Are you sure?

I was drinking a glass of water when a nurse came in.  She introduced herself and said that the doctor said I could have some oral Dilaudid (or something like that) if I needed it, so just ask.  They were gonna keep me for another hour and then send me home.

The hour came and went.  I decided that I'd take them up on the Dilaudid offer just before we left.  I got dressed, got the complimentary wheelchair ride to the pickup area and went home.  I sat in My Comfy Chair for the rest of the day, watched TV and drooled a lot.

***********************************************

A week later I was in my oncologist's office going over the lab results.   This time they had enough tissue to make a proper diagnosis.  The verdict was Lymphoma (we already new that), Non-Hodgkin's and very low grade (we had suspected).  There would be no chemo or radiation therapy for the time being, but we'd watch things.  Come back in six months.

Have a nice day.

This was probably the best news I could have hoped for.  I was as happy as a person could be, given the circumstatnces, but I wasn't out of the woods yet.  It was still cancer.  It was still growing.  There was still a lot of shit to deal with.

It's Josh's Bike Now

It used to be mine.

I bought it "off the rack" at my local Kmart.  Or was it Walmart. Shit, I don't remember, but wherever it was, it happened ten years ago.  Maybe.  I forget.  Dammit!  I don't even remember why I bought it in the first place.

This gettin' old shit ain't for pussies.

Anyway.....

I bought this bike and used it briefly. Then it sat in the garage for a long time, collecting dust, the tires going flat.  Ignored.  Neglected. All but forgotten.

Then came Doctors Orders.

Ride your bike.

So, I pulled ten years of flotsam off the bike.  I cleaned it up.  I put air back in the tires.  I oiled the chain.  I went to the cupboard, grabbed my helmet and gloves and went back to go for a ride.

Both tires were already flat.

Gawddammit!

So, I went to the nearest bike shop and got a couple tubes.  I got home replaced the tubes, aired-up the tires and went for a ride.

Let me take a moment to describe the bike.  It was a full-suspension mountain bike.  For those unfamiliar with bikes like this, a full-suspension bike has a suspension system on both wheels.  It was made from aluminum and heavy (weighed in at 42 pounds).  It had 21 speeds - 7 gears (or cogs) on the rear wheel and 3 gears (or chainrings) on the crank.  The derailleurs were made by Shimano but not particularly good.  By any standard, this wasn't a particularly good bike, but it was serviceable.

I would joke about the bike.  I'd call it a POS (Piece of Shit).  I'd run down the derailuers, the wheels, the tires, the frame, the seat, the weight and whatever benighted, reprobate, creature designed it.  I would, at times, be relentless in my condemnation.  Privately, it was a much different story.

I was having fun.

Despite all the bike's shortcomings, I was enjoying the hell out of riding it. The sights and sounds associated with cycling were kind of intoxicating.  Meeting the challenges of a climb, a new route, an old route ridden faster or a longer route I found to be supremely satisfying.  I was feeling better.  I was losing a little weight.  My cardio-vascular health was improving.   It was all that, more and I was loving every minute of it. It may not have been the best bike in the world and it may have been every bit the POS I was telling people it was, but it was also my conveyance to a new world, a new way of life.

I found tinkering with that bike to be very therapeutic.  Going to the garage after dinner with a cup of coffee and NPR to work on my bike (whether it needed the work or not) became a ritual of sorts.  It was calming.  It was intimate.  It was rewarding.

It provided me with education.  I learned to do things I didn’t know how to do.  I learned to adjust derailleurs and brakes.  I cleaned and re-greased the wheel bearings.  I took it apart and put it back together.  I found out what differences changing seat or handlebar positioning would make.  I learned how to pace myself.  I learned how to listen to my body.

This bike, this “piece of shit”, was helping me in ways I had never thought I could be helped.  Taking me to places I had never considered going to.  My life was changing, right before my very eyes and this machine was at the heart of it.

It really wasn’t a piece of shit.  It was more like a friend.  I liked this bike.  I was having fun with it.  It was helping me make my world a Better Place.

What are friends for?

*********************************************

All things change and so would this.  That bike was a mountain bike.  It was meant to be ridden off-road and I was becoming more interested in road cycling.  I found a decent road bike, bought it and began riding that.  The mountain bike was once again set aside.  I was thinking about giving it to some needy kid when a friend, Josh, offered to buy it from me.  I needed some kit, so I took him up on his offer.

So now it’s Josh’s bike and I hope he can get a fraction of what I got from it.

See You On The Other Side or Under The Knife Part 1

Once again, things were getting off to a shaky start.

I was sitting in a cubicle having an interview with a Nice Lady prior to the laparoscopic surgery we had scheduled.  She was asking questions and recording my answers.

Would you like the services of a chaplain?

I thought that might be a good idea.  Having a fellow Buddhist to chat with might help calm my understandably jittery nerves.

Yes, I think so.  I’m a Buddhist, Kagyu if it makes a difference, but any Buddhist chaplain on your staff would be just fine.

I got this blank look from the Nice Lady - that blank look that suggested  that I could have been speaking Esperanto, for all the good it was doing me.

Pardon me, sir?

This was not going well.  I was beginning to regret asking for a Buddhist chaplain, but forged ahead anyway.

It was now a matter of principle.

I’m a Buddhist.  I would like to see a Buddhist chaplain if there is one on your staff.

I could tell she wasn’t getting this at all.

I could call our non-denominational chaplain if you like.

Is this chaplain Buddhist?

No, sir, but he’s very nice.

I was beginning to sense that being "nice" was very important here.

I’m sure, but no matter how "nice" he is, seeing as I’m a Buddhist and he’s not, it hardly seems appropriate ,don’t you think? Perhaps we should move on?

She was visibly relieved, but I was not.  I fixated on the fact that less than 50 miles from where we sat there was an accredited Buddhist university, Naropa, that had a highly-respected Buddhist chaplaincy program.  Ours is a metro area with Buddhists of virtually every kind and lots of them.  That this hospital didn’t have any sort of Buddhist on the chaplaincy staff was very strange.   Buddhism is the 4th largest religion in the country.  Buddhists go to the hospital all the time.  Don't we deserve a chaplain of our own .......

Anyway …..

More pressing matters awaited.

I was then ushered into The Room Where They Make You Wear Humiliating Clothes and was made to undress and don the Humiliating Clothes.  Every single person involved in this procedure, including my oncologist, then marched through the room with smiles and sunshine and handshakes, saying how pleased they were to see me and how I shouldn’t worry and everyone was sooooo fucking nice and ......

 .... we’re gonna have a great time and we’re gonna find that pesky cancer and take pictures of it  and you’re gonna be just fine, and isn’t it a nice day, and …….

I found myself wanting the general anesthetic right away. I wanted to go outside and have a cigarette where there weren't any Nice People. These people parading though the room were way too irritating, way too intense, so fucking nice.  They meant well, to be sure, but it suddenly occurred to me that they were undoubtedly terrified that something would go horribly wrong and my entire family would sue the b'jeeziss out of the hospital and they were all gonna loose their jobs, so......

We'd better be super-nice to this guy or we’re all as good as dead.

I recall saying to someone that there are excellent decaffeinated coffees available these days.

Finally they wheeled me into the operating room. A voice above my head came to me ….

Hi, I’m Dr. Bob and I’m your anesthesiologist today.  We met earlier. We’re gonna start giving you some medicine here in a second.

I had this strange premonition that he was about to ask me if I was allergic to shellfish.

Someone said that that you were the guy in charge of the tunes, is that right?

Yes sir!  I have all sorts of music I can play for you.  Any Requests?

I felt like being difficult.  I would punish them for not having a Buddhist chaplain.

Yes.  Emerson, Lake and Palmer.  Works One. Side A.

One of my favorites too, but I don’t have it here.  Anything else?

I suppressed an urge to ask for some Hawkwind, deciding they had been punished enough.  Time to move on.

Blues?  Anything along that line?

Yes sir, plenty of that.

So, as things faded to black, it was to Buddy Guy playing Sweet Home Chicago, live.
Cool.  Things were looking up.  I remember someone saying ….

See you on the other side!

Do you have a bicycle?

My doctor had been busting my chops for years about everything about my lifestyle that sucked. My cholesterol was too high. I weighed too much. I had been smoking for over 30 years and that had to stop. My blood pressure was kinda scary. In general, my health was a fucking train wreck. I would be pestered about this, gently, for years.

However, the news that I might (and probably did) have cancer brought my general health into sharper focus and with renewed intensity. All of a sudden, my doctor was all over my case about those health issues and would not be deterred. She was dead serious and unrelenting. I soon realized that the only way I was gonna shut her up would be to go along with it.  One by one, my vices, the determents to my health, would have to be abandoned. Some things could be dealt with medicinally. Other things, like smoking would take commitment to changing habits and discipline in attaining it. My doctor felt that an exercise regimen would be a sensible approach to things like blood pressure and weight and recommended I walk 45 minutes a day. This was easy and enjoyable enough, but I began to develop ankle problems. I reported this.

Do you have a bicycle?

Yeah.

The bike had been sitting in the garage collecting dust for 10 years.  It was a heavy, slow, ugly, piece of shit mountain bike but it was a bike and could be ridden.

Ride your bike instead.

So I went home, dug out the bike, aired-up the tires, dusted off the frame, oiled the chain, threw a leg over it ....

and rode.

Is Godzilla Around The Corner?

SKY News ran a story today reporting mutant butterflies near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that was hit by a tsunami last year.

Don't fret. This doesn't mean that there will be giagantic mutant creatures duking it out and leveling Tokyo this week but one can't help but wonder. Godzilla, renowned in legend, song and celluloid was the product of raditaion unleashed via nuclear weapons testing. The distruction caused by the beast was and remains unprecendented. Could our worst nightmare be right around the corner?  Have the seeds for a real Godzilla been planted off the coast of Japan? Will some great mutant beast arise from the ocean and smash Tokyo flatter than whale shit someday soon?

Will there be a Mothra or a Gamara to come and save the day?

Or are we just, plain, screwed?

next ........

I found an oncologist. A nice enough guy and certainly capable but awfully busy and perhaps a bit over worked. I felt that a connection was needed to put this whole Having Cancer business on a human level. I wasn't able to get that. He spent a lot of time looking at my paperwork and not at me. That wasn’t the best start to a doctor/patient relationship, but I figured if things didn’t work out I’d find another oncologist.

His first order of business was to find out just what was going on. He suspected
a low-grade Lymphoma of some sort, but initial exams and blood work was unrevealing.

He then ordered a CT scan - guided needle biopsy and a full-body ct scan. The biopsy procedure was described as using a CT scanner to guide the placement of a hollow, stainless steel needle as much as 3 inches into my guts to get some cells from an affected lymph node. It occurred to me that having a steel spike driven that deeply into my belly might be a bit painful so I asked if such a procedure could be performed with me being unconscious. He said yes. So, the biopsy procedure would be performed with me being anesthetized.

The day of the procedure arrived. For prep, they gave me a big glass of contrast for the full-body scan. Someone came in a few minutes later and told me the contrast was given prematurely and I would not be given the general anesthetic because I now had something in my stomach and might choke on my own vomit.

That’s what killed Hendrix.

I was not pleased by this news.

Then the contrast gave me the shits.

Things were getting worse by the minute.

Next they wheeled me into the CT scan lab and the doctor who would be performing the procedure came in, sat down and got down to business. He didn't introduce himself.

Asshole…

The way this sort of thing works is they do a scan, insert this big needle, take another scan, move the needle around, take another scan and so on. Keep in mind
I was awake though all of this. To say it was painful would have been something of an understatement. He'd move the needle. Take a sample and send it to the lab.
Wait. Repeat as necessary. It would hurt like hell. I'd tense up. Asshole would say ......

Just relax, okay?

I'm thinking to myself ........ You've got something that feels like a 10-penny
nail jammed in my guts and you want me to relax? Fuck you relax! Let me jam the fuckin' thing in YOUR guts and let’s see YOU relax, fucker!

This went on for a while. An attending nurse, an Angel, offered to give me some "medicine" for the pain, which turned out to be morphine. She would give me two shots of "medicine" during the course of the procedure. It did nothing for the pain, but got me totally fucked up. I figure that was ok. If I was gonna be in a lot of pain because some moreon screwed up with the contrast, the absolute least they could do, was drug the hell out of me for my trouble.

Finally it ended. The Asshole left the room. They sent me home.

The day of the follow-up with my oncologist arrived. The doctor came in, and looked at my paperwork and said ....

It looks like they didn't get enough cellular matter. I can't make a diagnosis…..

That really wasn't what I wanted to hear. I thought ...

Sweet Christ! You're telling me that I went through unmitigated hell for nothing?

Before I could say anything he went on ....

….and I'm sorry about that and it looks like they screwed up with the contrast so you were awake through the whole thing. Sorry about that.

Sorry doesn't change much in my case, but , I figured, what the hell. Move on.

So, we decided that we'd move forward, but not repeat the needle biopsy. This time he wanted me to undergo laparoscopic surgery to get an adequate sampling. He also said he wanted a bone marrow biopsy as well. I knew about that. A Lymphoma survivor I had met talked about it. They take a core sample of bone marrow out of your hip. They use an electric drill-thingee. It really hurts. He assured me I’d be out for both procedures.

It was encouraging.

What would happen next will be another story.

Intro

I’m sorry, but you’re fucked.

That’s what I thought would be the next words to come out of his mouth.

I was sitting in an exam room in one of those Urgent Care clinics. I was beginning to pass a kidney stone and The Pain was beginning. I needed pain killers, not a diagnosis. I was getting neither.

I was out of pain killers and couldn’t get in to see my own doctor for a ‘scrip. My doctor would have looked at a urine sample and being familiar with my history would have probably written a prescription and sent me home. That’s all they ever do. This clinic didn’t know any of that so they sent me off to the imaging lab for a CT scan. I figured I’d be on my way home with a bottle of Vicodin in my hand and a couple caps in my system inside of 2 hours, The Pain defeated again.

But this doctor was taking one of those nervous, deep breaths that tells you that what he was about to say was anything but good news.

The radiologist at the imaging lab was reviewing your CT scan and found something very suspicious in your mesentery tissues. It may be a Lymphoma. You should see your own doctor and get in to see and Oncologist right away.

Put more simply, I’m sorry but you’re fucked.

This was the beginning of a journey - a journey that would begin with an extra Vicodin that night and in the years that followed led me though the medical establishment and the Stuff I Am Made Of to learn a single important lesson.

I am not fucked.