End of Term

I should have interesting things to say, but instead I mostly have a litany of tasks accomplished or to be accomplished!

Accomplished: Two eight-page essays and and a 15 page paper, some progress on two short stories that I fear has made them worse not better, and 16 student papers graded. To be accomplished: 11 more student papers, end of term grade calculations and submissions, and finishing the two stories. The final deadline is Wednesday at noon, but i would like to get done even sooner to leave time to do dishes, get a hair cut, a massage, take the month-old nail polish off my toenails, file some stuff, pay some overdue bills, have some doctor's check-ups...That kind of stuff.

That's all pretty boring...here's something interesting, but is probably sharing a little too much...but hey it's on my mind lately. So my Dad had to go back to the hospital for a day or two, because of his pain killers etc, his intestines have been slow to get working again and ...long story short...he wasn't pooping and it was kind of freaking him out. Here's the thing, since I heard that, or maybe a little before and then I noticed it...I haven't been pooping either! I mean, I have, but like little baby poos. And that freaks me out. I guess maybe the whole family is just instinctively anal retentive, because my sister also has this problem from time to time, AND her kids both seem go through phases where they don't want to. Pretty bizarre.

There's no place like home...

Yesterday everyone came home...well actually Mom arrived in Sarasota around midnight on Tuesday, but close enough. Wednesday mid-morning I hit the road, and even managed to make it back to Tallahassee for my evening Victorian Literature class, the last of the semester. Dad was discharged from the hospital...so anyone who was planning to call there can now call him at home: 941-366-6140. He will get to loll about and take some good pain-killers for a week or so I suppose. I haven't heard what the first supper was after his post surgery fast. After my episode, I somehow remember having being mashed potatoes with garlic at the hospital.

So, as crises fades into memory, this blog will return to it's regularly scheduled programming...i.e. random thoughts and meanderings about ME, mostly at least.

I have a ten page essay on the topic of the personal essay due in a few days...I've started it about five times, at first comparing the essayist to a painter, then to a surgeon (guess where I was when I wrote that one?), a fiction writer, etc. On my morning walk this morning I started thinking of something a litlle lighter-hearted, which I am about to start on, new working title: 21st Century Girl Meets the Essay.

Getting Better...

Another day at the hospital...The biggest news is probably that Dad's pathology report came back and was very favorable (for being cancer of course.)The tumor was stage one, which means it had not broken through the intestinal wall, nor was there any lymph involvement. It is very unlikely that any oncologist will advise further treatment after the surgery.

As to more mundane stuff, they removed the catheter in the morning, and Dad took two walks with a walker today. He's still in a fair amount of pain, and they haven't offered him any food yet...though he did get to have an orange Popsicle today. This in someways is the hard stretch, because you're in pain, and kind of bored, but in too much pain and a little too drugged to really be entertained, so time goes kind of slow. Feel free to call his room anytime. Mornings and evenings are especially good as he is less likely to have visitors and more likely to be feeling lonely. Some of my parents' Sarasota neighbors came this afternoon which was nice.

Easter Sunday...He rises!

Although periodically disoriented, and consistently in some pain, Dad made good progress today. Right at the beginning of the day they put him in a chair. He dozed for most of an hour before going back to bed. When they came to bathe him he was confused about the day, saying that he had "just showered this morning." But thourghout the day he had more periods of being lucid (though he doesn't necessarily remember these.)and sounding quite like himself.

The surgeon made his rounds about 3pm and said that the tube running into dad's nose and down his throat into his stomach could be removed, so that made him much happier. Tomorrow they'll remove the catheter and he'll get to put on his own pajamas. The docotr said they might start food in about two days, and the ideal, if he's doing really great, day that he might be able to come home is Thursday!

Then around 6pm, before I left for awhile, he stood up and walked with a walker, into the hallway and back. So all and all a pretty impressive day.

My feeling is that by tomorrow, getting (not too long)phone calls might be good and might help pass the time. Be aware that because he is self medicating, that he's not really getting long stretches of sleep, so don't be offended if he sounds fine then fall asleep in the middle of a sentence (his or yours!)

Here is the number: 941-917-3745. He's in room 745 Bed A, but it should connect you directly.

I know a few of you mentioned praying...while you're at it, don't forget Moira, who is well into her second week of "keeping her head down" and hoping to regain the most sight possible as her retina heals. I know it will be appreciated!

Dad Part 1

(It always seems to happen so fast...For the next few days, I'll let this blog become my place to post updates my Dad's health, giving more detailed account than one might want to give over the phone too many times.)

Yesterday I was lying in the backyard at a friend’s house. Though books and student papers were piled next to us, it was a beautiful afternoon. We’d just walked the dog, and had started hinting to each other that we might be tempted to play hooky from the schoolwork and check out a Tallahassee restaurant, when I saw that I had missed a call from my mom.

When I returned her call, she said that the previous day (Thursday), after Dad had gone to the clinic for a blood test, the clinic had called to say that Dad’s hemoglobin reading was very low, an 8.5. A couple weeks earlier, he had tested at 10.2, and the doctor had said they should watch this as they start doing transfusions when it goes as low as 10. Thursday afternoon the doctor recommended that Dad go to the hospital for a blood transfusion. Since he had been scheduled for a colonoscopy on the April 20, they decided to go ahead and do this the following day (Friday). The procedure revealed a tumor in his transverse colon. They immediately scheduled a CAT scan for the evening. Because his hemoglobin was continuing to drop, indicating that the tumor was bleeding, and because he had already undergone the bowel prep that would be required, they decided to operate today (Saturday).

Because Mom is in California helping my sister recover from a detached retina, we decided that she would try to stay there a couple more days and I would drive to Sarasota Saturday morning, but when Paul got out of class at 10 p.m., we decided to drive up together last night. Early today we heard that Dad's CAT scan had revealed no other tumors or metastases, which was good news. He also had an ultrasound of his leg, that showed the blood clot that had originally run much the length of the leg, had decreased in size by about half.

We got to the hospital around 9.30 today (Saturday), and were able to wait in the prep area until they took him into the operating room a couple hours later. He seemed a little anxious about the pain, etc, but said that the Xanex they had given him was helping some.

After the surgery the surgeon, Dr. Yunis, came to the waiting room and said that the surgery had gone very well, and that the tumor had been on the right side.

“Not the transverse colon?” I asked, as his ascending colon (normally on the right side) been removed in the past.

“Well there’s not really any names at this point,” he responded, “there’s just colon. So I took that section that had the tumor and attached it to the small intestine, but they must have not taken much the first time, so he still has about half a colon.”

He also said that there had been quite a few adhesions (scar tissue) to work with, which changes the “plane of the tissue.” It causes the organs to stick together (in my mind I envision the clump of spaghetti when you overcook it a little and it all sticks together, instead of being nice and slippery.) When I asked if Dad’s tumor had broken the wall of the intestine, he said it was a little thick in one part, which pathology might show going through a little, but it didn’t look like it was cause for concern. Some lymph nodes were also taken, but he didn’t comment that there had looked like any involvement. He said that when he sliced a piece tumor to send off for a biopsy, there was blood, which indicates that had been the source of the dropping hemoglobin count.

Only after Dr. Yunis had disappeared down the hall, did I realize I had completely forgotten to ask about the “umbrella,” a second procedure to protect the blood clot in his leg from breaking off and going to his lungs. So I managed to get him back for long enough to say that the procedure had been ‘easy.’ And to explain quickly what it was all about. Here’s what I understood:

There was no “cutting,” in this procedure, instead a needle is inserted into the vein around the groin area, with a thin wire, and this is pushed through directed to the heart. The little needle stick gets pushed up the vein to the ‘Vena cava,” and then ‘deployed” pretty much like opening one of those little fancy drink umbrellas, except it’s mesh. The filter allows the blood to go through to the heart, but not the blood clot.

Since the surgery Dad has been quite out of it, and sleeping some, but also in pain. He has a button to push to release the intravenious pain medication (not morphine, something else, but he’s a little too out of it to press the button in his hand, so he kind of wakes up, grimaces a little and mumbles “Pack, pack,” and then I push his thumb down on the button. I’m not sure self medication is the best way to go just after, but by tomorrow it will probably be great.

That’s it for now, sorry for any typos etc. I’m a little sleep deprived!

Memories, Don't Light the Corners of My Mind

I've never had a great memory for names or dates. Interestingly, I do often remember conversations pretty closely (even if I can't recall when they occurred or who with).

For instance, I remember emerging from the movie, Memento, with a friend (who knows me well). He asked me, "What was that like to see your life on screen?"

I responded, "What are we doing here? Are we going to a movie?"

Today I am working on application material for a scholarship at school. Somehow, I had overlooked until this point that a CV is a required component. It has been too long since I updated my resume. Plus, as someone who has meandered through much of my life, not really knowing what I'll do next, I have no sense of what will be important to remember. Now that I'm a wanna-be writer, I look back and say..."oh, hey, I read this poem on a radio show once, I should put that on there!" Of course I don't remember the year or month, the name of the show, my interviewer, or even the call sign of the station. Who knew it would matter? (And probably it doesn't...)

If only I had kept a blog, I could spend hours scrolling back and looking for this experience.

Sunday Blues

Today is the day my weekend catches up with me. I have been reading stories and writing critiques for my fiction workshop almost all day. If I ever finish, I'll start grading papers. Finally went outside for a nice long walk around 5pm.

Something else that has been on my mind a lot this week is my friend Rosie. She was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, and is keeping an amazing blog at www.rosiemaynard.com. I had colon cancer two years ago, diagnosed at thirty-three years old. Rosie is the same age. Although through my illness I became friends with many people with cancer, Rosie is my first friend from my "normal" life who has been diagnosed. I think I somehow thought that since I have been through cancer myself, that when this happened--news of someone else having it--it wouldn't affect me so much. I'm finding that is not exactly the case, as I have been quite emotional this week.

We tend to think of cancer as the domain of older people, that younger people are the exception, but I think this is less and less the case. Over one quarter of deaths in the U.S. are cancer related. I read recently that the incidence of childhood cancer increased 28% between 1950 and 1987, and that overall incidence of cancer increased 44% between 1950 and 1998 with breast and male colon cancer up 60%, and prostate cancer up 100%.

Reading such statistics, I'm sometimes amazed that we aren't running and panicking in the streets, looking for someone or something to blame. In a country where we have no problems suing a fast food chain for making us fat, don't you think we would consider looking at the vast amounts of sugar based foods on the market, as well as the number of foods that are made with partially-hydrogenated oils (that are banned in European countries), our use of pesticides on produce, hormones and antibiotics in our milk and meat products, and artificial sweeteners as just a few of the things that have changed since 1950?

Anniversary with worms

Today was our five year anniversary, which I think is maybe traditionally about some material that isn't yet a precious metal, probably like paper or wood or turquoise...Wait, I'll google it...wood. Anyway, for us it was worms, as we travelled forty minutes southeast of Tallahassee to Sopchoppy--home of the sixth annual Worm Gruntin' Festival. Paul had the day off so we rode down with my friend Susie, her sister and three kids in her deluxe mom-van with the DVD player.

The festival was was pretty small, compared to say, the Covered Bridge Festival in my home state of Indiana. But truthfully, how many rows of handicrafts and fried food stalls do you really need after a certain point? Not much of the merchandise caught my eye, though the confederate flag cel phone holders were an exception to this. We got Paul a Worm Gruntin T-shirt...it was our anniversary after all. In order to deserve it, he pounded a stake into the ground and pulled the grade-school principal size paddle made of iron back and forth across the top. This creates a "grunting" type noise and vibrates the earth around the stake which lures the worms up to the surface. Theoretically that is. No one seemed to be having much luck summoning the worms and neither were we, so eventually we gave up and went into the hall where they had looped an old documentary about Worm Gruntin. Apparently the best time of day is quite early in the morning, before the dew is gone. We were wooing the worms at high noon, so that was probably the problem.

Then we checked out the eatin'-- Paul ate the BBQ pork dinner from the Primitve Baptist Church tent while I had French Fries...Susie's kids Emma and Trevor (7 and 3) split some cotton candy as we watch the casting contest. Emma was hoping to stay for the hula hoop contest as well, but that was at 3pm, while by 1:30 and we were done for and it was starting to rain, so we headed for home.

Arty Evening

So here in Tallahassee on the first Friday evening of every month there is something called "First Friday." This takes place at Railroad Square, which I guess could be called the "arts district." On First Friday a number of studios, warehouses and a couple of storefronts occupied by artists are open to the public, and usually a band plays as people mill around. Rumor has it (i.e. he told us) that a friend of ourw recently started working in one of the studios and would have some work on display last night, but though we circled, we never found him. Still, pleasant to wander in the nice spring weather and look at pictures and jewelry, and some cool wooden sculptures.
Tamara and I left our group a bit early to go to Down Below Barnicle Bill's and see our friend Dara do spoken word as the opening act for a visiting singer/songwriter. She did well, but I sometimes forget how in the real world, people just keep talking while you perform. The same thing happened during the singer, though I think both were well received. Today I'm going to the Sopchoppy Worm Gruntin' Festival. More on this soon.

Is 3AM a good time to start a blog?

I fear acquiring a blog in the wee hours like this might be akin to early morning impulse buys at the 7-11...when I end up with a handful of different flavored beef jerky even though I don't eat meat (much, and certainly not dried). Or coming home and deciding that finishing off that container of freezer-burned Ben and Jerry's seems like a good idea. I don't see a spell check, it might be a little dangerous. Oh well.

Tonight I went to Baja's, one of the two places in Tallahassee that I know of with a Latin night. It's hard work fishing a dance in this town. After an hour, a guy named Victor finally asked me to dance, followed by his friend Alberto, and then his other friend Alberto. Muy simpaticos, eses hombres. I wonder if the short list on my dance card is because I'm starting to look old! That's depressing. But still, in L.A. it seemed like if you were a dancer, even if you were older, or heavier, or less pretty, you still got asked to dance...guess I just need to perservere until I get to know more people. Or until they get to know me.