Some People Collect Stamps ....

.... and I get to collect cancers.

Lovely

We all know about the Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma I have.  About a year ago my doctor diagnosed me with two more.  One is a Basal-Cell Carcinoma and the other is a Squamous-Cell Carcinoma.  Both are skin cancers. Both are related to sun exposure.  They're fairly common.

I decided i really didn't want to know a whole lot about these additions to my "collection".  I just wanted the fucking things gone.  Fortunately these cancers are fairly easy to deal with.  I had the Basal-Cell and one occurrence of of the Squamous removed late last summer.  I had another Squamous-Cell removed from my right temple just the other day.

I went through what's called "Mohs Surgery".  It's fairly straightforward.  They numb you up with Lidocaine.  In my case they used a Lidocaine cocktail of sorts, tailored to reduce the bleeding that would occur because of the Coumadin I take.  Anyway, they numb you up, and then proceed to cut away the affected skin.  They bandage you up and send you back to the waiting room for a couple hours while they send the tissue to the lab for analysis.  If the lab says they got all of the cancer, they stitch or staple you up and send you home.  If the think some cancer was missed, they repeat the process and continue with that until they get it all.

They got mine on the first try.

So they stitched me up.  They had removed an area about the size an almond.  Fortunately the doctor is a plastic surgeon and does a great job making sure I don't end up looking like Frankenstein's monster.  They covered it with a dressing that made it look like I'd been gun-shot, gave me a prescription for Vicodin and sent me home with instructions.

The instructions were of the usual sort.  They included things like keep the area dry, no bending over, keep my blood pressure down ......

And stay off the bike.  For two weeks.

Two fucking weeks.

I was pissed.  Bad enough to loose a day's pay to have somebody dig a almond-sized hunk of flesh off your head.  But to leave the office with instructions to cease a beneficial and fun activity was bordering on the intolerable.  I have a couple centuries in June to train for.  The weather is starting to warm up.  It's glorious out there, and I'm stuck with doctors orders to take it easy.

Bullshit.

But what can you do?

You contemplate your growing collection of cancers and follow doctor's orders.

Bastard.

On the bright side it's less that two weeks till I'm back in the saddle.  I have a dressing change on Friday and maybe the doctor will see that I'm healing beautifully, relent, and let me get back on the bike.

With my luck they'll want to biopsy a suspicious spot on the other side of my face and plan the next Mohs Surgery.

I can hardly wait.

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.

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!