Chris Writes Stuff

Things are happening very quickly.  I’m eager to get rid of this thing and the whole team is ready too.  Everyone at my job is going above and beyond in facilitating time off and schedule shuffling.  Once again, our community has reached out and helped us with babysitting and advice and support and love.  Thanks everyone! I met with my surgeon on Monday.  He said of the tumor: “Couldn’t be in a better place”.  I had my blood drawn and an EKG (How do you spell ‘cardio’?) and I’m scheduled for my second liver resection this Friday morning. I’ll get a new abdominal scar on the right side, just below the ribs.  My liver will get a new hole.  I’ll spend the weekend in the hospital and then come home on Monday. I’ll meet with my oncologist next week.  I’m not looking forward to chemo but I’ll do whatever it takes.  The first time was simpler because there is an algorithm.  Just follow the map and get to the goal.  The...

Liver: I know it's a little late but I got you something for your birthday. Me: Oh liver, you shouldn't have. 😀 Liver: It's a two centimeter mass in the right lobe. Me:  Oh liver, you really shouldn't have. 😠 I suppose it's payback.  I've been abusing that poor organ for decades. 🍺 December 2018 On March 14, I had another routine, follow-up CT scan.  I was nervous, but I'd been nervous before and it was always a waste of time and energy.  This time, I showed up, drank my nasty juice and got scanned.  Then I came home and began my long weekend. It was a very unpleasant surprise a few hours later when my wife came up to me and told me I had a recurrent liver tumor. So it's back.  But we're gonna do some things different this time. Things that won't happen: 1 - Poop bag.  This was the littlest princess's primary concern.  There will not be a poop bag. 💩 2 - Crying and weeping when you see me.  It's a liver tumor, no...

One year ago, I got cut in half and then put back together.  The new plumbing may not work as well, but at least it isn't trying to kill me. It's been one year since the surgery, 9 months since chemo and 8 months since I went back to work.  I've been snowboarding in the mountains and boogie boarding in the ocean.  I've installed two sinks and a sliding glass door.  I've seen concerts and fireworks.  I've played pickleball and basketball.  Life is pretty great. Oh yeah, I had another CT scan this morning.  It came back clean. When I was diagnosed, it was bad.  Then I got a series of scans (CT, MRI, PET) and each of them showed things worse than they were before.  At the end it was about as bad as it could be. Once that happened, things got less stressful.  Rock bottom is a very freeing place.  Expectations were ridiculously low.  If I put my dirty socks in the hamper, I was a hero.  There was a months-long, ...

It's been too damn long since I put something up here.  My bad.  There are a bunch of reasons why, but mostly I've been busy. Happily, exhaustedly busy. First off, I'm back at work.  I took a day in December to get all the administrative stuff sorted out and to remember what the inside of an OR looks like.   It had been a while since I'd seen one (except as a patient) and I wanted to make sure I remembered how everything works.  Thankfully, I'm still a safe, competent practitioner and the little things are all coming back.  I've been working full time since January and even taking call. I really missed it. Working full time after a year of sitting on my  ass  sofa is exhausting, but the work, the company, the patients (and the paycheck) are very welcome.  Being productive and having a routine is just what I needed.  If I don't push myself I won't get stronger.  To help with the getting stronger, I joined the team of...

Welcome to my penultimate poisoning!  I'm sitting in the windowless infusion room getting my next-to-last dose of chemotherapy.  They're playing Christmas music.  It seems like they should be able to poison me OR play Christmas music before Thanksgiving, but not both.  First 🦃, then 🎄 This chemo is the same stuff I took back in March and April and it still sucks. 🤢   Today is the hookup day for dose four out of five.  I will be disconnected from my last dose in 16 days! 😮  But who's counting? 🙄   The hardest part of post-op chemo is that it's probably not doing anything.  I'll explain in bit. First, the pathology report from the big surgery in August was good and bad.  I had "clean margins" which means that the entire rectal tumor was removed.  Also, there was only one tumor in the removed liver lobe.  According to the scans and surgeon, my cancer is gone. 👍 The bad news is that despite chemother...

This post is gross.  Seriously.  Totally disgusting.  Does poop make you gag?  Stop reading. The Worst Birthday Present Ever My brother and I holding a poop bag filled with chocolate pudding given to him (by me) for his birthday. He should NOT read this kind of post. I write this kind of post. What the hell is an ileostomy ?  It's when the surgeon diverts your small intestine into a plastic bag glued to your abdomen.  It's done to give the rest of the colon a break from poop while the sutures heal.  If there were a teeny, tiny leak at the suture site and an itsy, bitsy amount of poop got into my abdomen, that would be bad.  How bad?  Think catastrophic complications including sepsis, death, permanent  colostomy  and other shitty 😜 things. Speaking of shitty things, lets talk about the logistics.  Nobody takes the time to appreciate poop.  They sit on the toilet, open their phone and wait for things to b...