I had the meeting with my doctors yesterday and things were generally positive. The endoscopy showed that the tumor has not shrunk a whole lot more since the last time evaluation but the biopsies didn't find any evidence of cancer cells which is a really good result and Dr. I tells me that its not unusual to find residual tissue after treatment. The pet scan was also pretty clear - the metabolic activity in the area is pretty close to normal; there's a little bit of extra activity but this is consistent w/what happens from exposure to radiation. The upshot is that there's a pretty solid chance that I'm cancer free at this point however they cannot say for sure so we will be proceeding w/surgery next Wed, 1/31 (which they had always planned to do).
After the surgery, I will spend 10-14 days in the hospital and an additional 6-8 weeks at home for recovery. The good news is that after 2-3 weeks at home, I will be able to travel so I plan to go back to FL for final 3-5 weeks of my convalescence. Apparently they will have me up and walking the day after surgery (with all manner of tubes sticking out of me) and the pain should be bearable w/o significant pain meds about a week after. They will release me from the hospital once, and only once, I can start eating on my own (i.e. when they can remove all of the tubes). The rest of recovery is about healing up, getting lots of rest, and getting lots of exercise, particularly lots of walking. My sister, M, and my mother will come up here on Tuesday and stay while I'm in the hospital (M will go home at some point and my other sister, GOC, will come up to spell her). Once I go home, my father will stay with me at my apartment until I can travel to FL.
I welcome visitors to come see me in the hospital or subsequently at my place in the city - contact me for more information if u r so inclined. Visiting in FL is also possible, contact me for reservations :). This Friday will be my last day at work so I'll have a couple of days to prepare. I'll post updates as they come along.
cheers,
--Dr. D
P.S. my new speakers should arrive this Monday :):):)
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Monday, January 22, 2007
Preparing for Tuesday Afternoon ...
and my meeting w/Dr's I & B. Had my cat & pet scans done on Thursday and my endoscopy on Friday; we'll discuss the results at the meeting so keep your fingers crossed. We're also supposed to set up the surgery date, I'll post here as soon as I know anything. Also, I'm putting together a list of questions for my doctors, if you have any suggestions for questions, post them here or send them to me via email.
Spent the weekend preparing for my surgery. There's a lot of things I want to get done beforehand to make things easier during recovery. Of course the first thing was figuring out what I wanted to do for a home theater system. In the end, I should be able to take what I have now and add some high-end speakers to come up with a kick-ass system but I was looking into a lot of alternatives (made my head spin). Think I had too much tea on Saturday because I ended up staying up all night playing with different audio components until I realized that thing annoying me was the sun shining in my eyes at sometime around 7. Nocturnal tendencies once again (jeez, I even love the word 'nocturnal'). Also got my satellite radio set up and routed through my stereo - it's awesome (except listening to the Patriots lose, which sucked).
Decided that I've seen way too much tv over the recent months so I'm going tv-free until after surgery. This is why I listened to the Patriots lose on radio. So it's already paying dividends because I woulda hate to have seen them lose. Still, I'm gonna miss 'The Daily Show' and 'Countdown w/Keith Olbermann' but I think I can get by (thought about dvr-ing them but that seems like cheating :) and I'm really sick of the commercials at this point. Send me a note if any breaking news happens that I should be aware of.
That's about it for now, until Tuesday (well, maybe Wed morn) ...
c u later,
--Dr. D
PS - hope u like the new profile pic, thought it was time for a change. And here's the best pic I took while in FL:
Spent the weekend preparing for my surgery. There's a lot of things I want to get done beforehand to make things easier during recovery. Of course the first thing was figuring out what I wanted to do for a home theater system. In the end, I should be able to take what I have now and add some high-end speakers to come up with a kick-ass system but I was looking into a lot of alternatives (made my head spin). Think I had too much tea on Saturday because I ended up staying up all night playing with different audio components until I realized that thing annoying me was the sun shining in my eyes at sometime around 7. Nocturnal tendencies once again (jeez, I even love the word 'nocturnal'). Also got my satellite radio set up and routed through my stereo - it's awesome (except listening to the Patriots lose, which sucked).
Decided that I've seen way too much tv over the recent months so I'm going tv-free until after surgery. This is why I listened to the Patriots lose on radio. So it's already paying dividends because I woulda hate to have seen them lose. Still, I'm gonna miss 'The Daily Show' and 'Countdown w/Keith Olbermann' but I think I can get by (thought about dvr-ing them but that seems like cheating :) and I'm really sick of the commercials at this point. Send me a note if any breaking news happens that I should be aware of.
That's about it for now, until Tuesday (well, maybe Wed morn) ...
c u later,
--Dr. D
PS - hope u like the new profile pic, thought it was time for a change. And here's the best pic I took while in FL:
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