A little advice to anyone having surgery on one's abdomen...

Get one of the velcro-equipped wrappers to support your innards, while the healing process goes on, or you'll have trouble with things flopping around that didn't used to flop around...and that doesn't feel too good, dontcha know!!!

I found this out last week, while attempting to get a little activity back into my life via having Diane drive me around to job estimates...the actual estimating was no problem, but the car ride to get there really messed with my internal surgical site...after a while, it felt like a knife shoved into my left side...yeowwww!!! After the first bout of this little inconvenience, just sitting in a chair caused the same kind of pain, and only laying down for a hour or so provided any relief, so I got myself one of those abdominal wraps, and damn if it didn't greatly reduce the problem...not totally, but enough to allow me some more mobility...thank you , Jesus!!!

Mike

Happy Thanksgiving!!!...I'm thankful for...

...being alive to give thanks!!! This year has been a real challenge for my family & I, and we're reallyreallyreally grateful for everyone's love & support during our ordeal with my kidney cancer, which I'd like to think is over for the time being (except for the continuing recovery from my radical nephrectomy, a.k.a. rip that sucker out by the roots!). My prognosis is good right now, persuming that no further tumor growth is detected by my 6-week CT scan on 12/14. The NIH docs will put my on the wait-&-watch list for a few years, and hopefully I'll not need any further follow-up treatments. If this shit does come back, I hope it's years in the future, when the research has developed effective treatment therapies that aren't worse than the disease...but I'm hoping I've seen the last of cancer for the duration, at least the kind that can't be frozen off in a doctor's office...I do have a few small skin lesions due for removal...it's always something.

At this stage of my post-op recovery, my general condition is pretty good, with the occasional discomfort in my side, where the cutting, suturing, snipping & scraping all happened. My digestive system took a major hit from the tumor's intrusion, and the surgical process, not to mention the effect of pain meds, so I'm having to really watch what I eat, and limit the amount of food, to avoid severe pain in the surgical area from gas & bloating...man, that is really uncomfortable!!! It passes, eventually...(loud FART noise here!)...sorry about that...

Mike

Getting antsy...can't drive...trapped!!!

I guess there's a lot worse things than not being able to drive for 6 weeks...2 weeks of constipation wasn't too enjoyable...a natural result of the pain meds they give you post-op...but now that I'm feeling better, being cooped up at home gets a little confining. It is kinda fun working in my office in my jammies...

I was able to discontinue Percoset pills last Monday, and switch to Advils, which allows me to have the occasional adult beverage...I'm actually enjoying one right now!!!...baby-steps back to normalcy.

Physically, I'm more energetic every day, although my surgical incisions are kinda sore, still. I think the feeling in the shocked nerve endings around the largest incision are starting to wake up, and it's a little more easily irritated this week than last week, although it seems to be healing up just fine. I've been able to go out with either James or Diane to do on-site estimates during the past two weeks, so I feel pretty good about that...people seem to be amazed to see me out & about, but here I am!!!

Mike

Today, I'm one lucky s.o.b.!!!

Heard from my doctor at NIH this morning...all my pathology results are in, and yes, I have Renal Cell Carcinoma, a.k.a. kidney cancer, a variety known as "clear-cell carcinoma". It's a nasty malignancy which, if it spreads outside the kidney, is pretty much untreatable with current medical technology...the very reason why NIH was interested in my case to begin with...lots of research going on there, with some promising stuff on the horizon. The lucky-bastard part is that, after a thorough examination of all 21 of my lymph nodes removed during the surgery, and all the peripheral tissue, no evidence of cancer was found in any of it!!! My doctors are amazed at this, since a tumor of the huge size of mine almost always has spread to the lungs, lymph system, or somewhere by the time it's discovered. God, and the luck of the Irish, must be with me on this one!!! If nothing nasty turns up during my December 14th 6-week followup CT scan, they're going to send me home a healthy boy again...lots of followup scans & checkups in my future, however, due to the mean nature of this disease, but I feel pretty much like I've been given a second chance at life, and I'm going to try to make the most of it...

Mike

Day 10...getting my "zipper" removed this a.m.

Hi, all!!!

Today, I'm having the 22 shiny staples, which were clamped on my 12" incision by the good doctors during my operation, removed by my local M.D. You'd think that having a bunch of dang staples stapled into your tummy would be pretty dang uncomfortable, but actually it's not been that bad...but I'm glad to get them out...one step closer to having a cool scar to scare the kiddies with...arrrrrrr!!!!

Mike

Made it home at last!!!

Thanks to the skill of my surgeons, the love of my family & friends, and the big mojo of the Universe, I sit at my own desk, in my own office, in my own house, less than a week after having my left kidney removed...pretty surreal, I must say! We got home a few hours ago, and after a nap & a 500 mg Tylenol, I feel pretty good...on a scale of 1-10. I'd rate myself a 6 right now. In a couple weeks, I'll be fit as a fiddle

My surgeon, Dr. Coleman, gave me a DVD of the actual operation, since they video all proceedures. He edited it down to about six minutes of some amazing little tools being used to excise the tumor, while a tiny TV camera illuminated the whole thing...really freaky-looking...the tumor looked just like chicken...hmmmmm?!? Wonder what THAT means? I mean, seriously, it looked like an oven-stuffer roaster...I don't know what I expected, some evil-looking blob of blackened rot or something, but this thing was alive & doing fine (unfortunately for me!). Oh, well, it's a done deal now, by cracky!!! Hopefully, I won't have any evidence of metastisis on my pathology report, which I won't have for about a week...more news to come!!!

Mike

I made it through surgery!!!

Hello, sports fans!!! The "Kidney Classic" has been a wild ride, but here I sit, Day 6 post-op, and I have to say I feel so damn good, it's something I wish I could bottle up & save for the future.
My wife & best friend Diane, my rock & anchor thru this and many other storms, is upstairs in our room at the Safra Family Lodge, on the Bethesda, MD campus of NIH...she's working on some paperwork stuff for her "Pure Romance" biz, and has a regional sales meeting this afternoon in College Park, close to here, which is why we chose to stay here in Bethesda this weekend, even though I was released from the Clinical Center hospital on Friday evening. The Lodge is a quiet, very comfortable place to transition back into the hubbub of the real world after a big operation like the one I had. The extra two days' rest has done wonders for my energy & helped in the healing process of my surgery incisions...I feel progressively better day by day, and today, I feel really energized & overflowing with joie de vivre...

For those interested in the nephrectomy process, basically the surgeons (the good Drs. Coleman & Novacovic) made 4 small incisions on my left abdomen, in such a way as to provide access for a mini-television camera on a flexible tube, and three lapriscopy multi-tools...the whole surgery is done via the mini-tools, while viewing the proceeding on a wide-screen TV. Dr. Coleman is Dr. Pinto's partner in the urological oncology dept. here at NIH, and stepped in to perform the operation when something came up in Dr. Pinto's personal life that prevented him from being there on Tuesday. (What! He has a personal life? How dare he!!!) He's a great guy, and a great surgeon, and I thank God for him & his skill!!! Anyway, back to the process: the patient's abdomen is inflated with CO2 gas to provide a larger work-space internally. After the kidney, tumor, and any affected tissue is cut loose, the material is placed in a plastic bag while still inside the abdomen, and pulled out through a fifth incision, right below the navel, where muscle & tissue damage can be minimized. The "open" version of a nephrectomy involves a huge horizontal incision transversing the abdomen & affected side, in my case it would have been my left one...removal of a rib would have been necessary, and I probably wouldn't be sitting here typing at a computer terminal at this point in my recovery process. Because of the HUGE size of my tumor (5 1/2 " in diameter, over-and-above the kidney's original size!!!), the removal incision had to be enlarged to almost 8" long, starting just above my navel, and ending at my groin. Amazingly, this doesn't really hurt me that much, and I'm able to walk around, sit down, stand up, and do some mild twisting & turning without too much difficulty...in a couple week's time, I'll have to remind myself to take it easy, or risk damaging the internal stiches, but that's the kind of problem I'm happy to have at this point in my life! Since I'm an inquisitive kind of guy, I asked Dr. Coleman if he'd take a few pictures of the surgical proceedure, so I could get an idea of the process...he enthusiastically agreed, and gave me a DVD of the operation, along with a personally-expedited picture of the diseased kidney & tumor, down in the pathology lab where it's being analyzed, typed, & graded. I haven't seen these pics or the DVD yet, but it should be fascinating viewing, if it doesn't make me barf....
We're heading home to Ocean Pines tomorrow morning, and I'll continue my recovery from surgery in my own casa...more details as they occur, and if I think of anything else amusing I'll post it here as well...

Love to all!!!

Mike