News Bits

  The right radical orchiectomy went well. The incisions are healing and there has been little in the way of pain. I have to set up an appointment with Dr. Matkov so he can tell me what was wrong with my right testicle. Update: My oncologist, Dr. Jefferies, gave me the orchiectomy results this past Tuesday. It's official, I had stage 1 seminoma (testicular cancer). Since it was confined to my right testicle, it's pretty much gone. My tumor markers are going to have to monitored every three months to make sure there's no recurrence. This fucking sucks. I undergo a colectomy and chemotherapy in order to rid myself of colon cancer only to end up with seminoma. Then I undergo an orchiectomy to get rid of the seminoma. The enlarged lymph node has yet to be analyzed. For all I know, a third form of cancer is fucking up some other part of my body.

  My erectile dysfunction appears to have worsened. I no longer get anything even approaching a decent erection anymore. I'm less of a man now than I've ever been. Not that I've ever been much of a man even when my penis worked and I had two functioning testicles. Women ignored me then. They have even more reason to ignore me now.

  My life has been little more than a shining example of mediocrity. I've made little, if any, impact on anything. Nothing I've done has amounted to anything significant. I used to think that I was smart and that said intellect would land me a decent job and lead to a decent life. I couldn't have been more wrong. Despite having health insurance and living with my parents, I'm barely making ends meet. One major financial crisis and I'm screwed. I have virtually no social life. The only time I usually see my friends is when we get together for gaming. And dating is out of the question. No woman wants what I have to offer. While any one particular flaw might not be enough to scare them away, all of them together will easily do the trick. The total, in this case, is far greater than the sum of the parts.

  That being the case, it means that the later years of my life are going to be lonely ones. After Mom and Dad die, I'll probably have to sell the house. Since I'm their executor, I'll be the one settling their estate. Jeff and I are the primary beneficiaries for now. With them gone, it will just be me. 

More Health News

  The Jan.19th biopsy attempt was a failure. There were too many organs and blood vessels in the way for them to use a needle to obtain a sample via my throat. I have a consultation with Dr. Needle, who performed my colectomy, on Feb. 9th to determine the next course of action.
  I had a consultation today with Dr. Matkov, a urologist, regarding the ultrasound of my scrotum. The end result is I'm having a right radical orchiectomy on Feb. 12th. In layman's terms, my right testicle is being removed because it's enlarged, unusually firm and covered with nodules. Once it's gone, I'll hopefully find out how it wound up that way. I don't believe I have testicular cancer but it's in the realm of possibility.
  All this, of course, could lead to more medical bills. I already have another $1,300.00 added from the PET and CT scans. Despite this setback, I still believe that I can put enough money aside for Gen Con.

The Results of the Biopsy

  The appointment I had with the surgeon that did my colectomy brought news of a less than rosy nature. The cancer that was in my intestines has affected one of my lymph nodes. This means that my cancer is officially at stage 3. I have an appointment with an oncologist this Wednesday to go over my treatment options. Dr. Needle said that chemotherapy is the most likely course of action. Given what I know about chemotherapy, this won't be a pleasant experience. On the plus side, I've heard that there are a variety of chemotherapy treatments out there and not all of them make you sick, kill your appetite and cause massive hair loss. I'm not looking forward to this but I have little choice. Doing nothing means the cancer will spread and I'll end up at stage 4. Stage 4 is pretty much death. I can't let that happen. The cancer can still be stopped.

Home from the Hospital

  After spending five days in the hospital, I was released this past Monday afternoon. The surgery went quite well and the healing process continues. The surgery has left 3 small incisions currently being stitched closed by a single staple each. Another incision, held closed by 3 staples, is on the lower lip of my belly button. The longest incision runs between my belly button and sternum. It's about 4 inches long and has about 16 staples closing it. The incisions are healing nicely. The bruising that surrounded them is gone. There's no pain so it's unlikely that I'm going to need to fill the prescription for Percocet I was given when I was discharged. Here's a picture of the incision.

I wonder what it's going to look like once the staples are removed. 

The Upcoming Surgery

 This is my last blog entry prior to my surgery. My right colectomy, which was originally scheduled for 1:15 pm has been moved up to 11:45 am so I'll be at the hospital at 9:45 am. I'm planning on bringing my iPad with me so I can, hopefully, post a post-op report on how things went. I REALLY want this surgery to go well and be as routine and uncomplicated as possible. For an unknown time after my surgery my bowels will be shut down so I won't be able to eat or drink anything. As soon as I am able, I'll be taking my happy ass over to Red Lobster so I can enjoy a nice Ultimate Feast platter and Cheddar Bay biscuits. After all that I'll be going through I think I deserve some good seafood. I can't say that I'm not worried despite reassurances otherwise. All the pre-op preparations are done. The necessary paperwork has been filled out and turned in. My bowels have been cleaned out and the prescribed pharmaceuticals taken. I'm going to be in the hospital for about a week and at home recovering for about three more weeks after that. How I'll spend all this free time is unknown to me.

  Update: Due to some emergency surgery, my colectomy has been moved back to 1:00 pm.