A PORT IN EVERY STORM

A "PORT" IN EVERY STORM

Let's see, where was I?  Oh yeah, commenting...  I believe that you can leave a comment by simply going to the very bottom of my post where it says COMMENTS, click on that and fire away.  Posterous takes care of notifying me when someone leaves a message.  Hopefully it is as simple as that.

On Friday I had my port put in, which took up most of the day, but at least it was outpatient surgery and I was able to come home after I woke up.  The woke up didn't last very long though, as soon as I walked in the door I curled up on my favorite chair and went back to sleep - see below (after taking a pain pill, that is - nothing like drugs to put you in la-la land). The pill is more for the pain in my bones than for the surgery.  Apparently the cancer is predominantly in the ribs on my right side, which makes even a light touch hurt.  My first chemo will be this Tuesday so with the port the nurses avoid poking away at my veins; the drugs are administered straight into the port which has been imbedded in my chest.  At the end of the treatments it will be removed.

The only "good" part of this whole procedure is that I will get to read alot.  I am an avid reader, sometimes having several books going at the same time.  Right now I am just finishing an amazing book by Wallace Stegner, "Angle of Repose," which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1971.  It is a story consisting of many layers - a memoir of the main character's great grandmother, a vivacious, cultured young woman from the East who marries a handsome mine engineer and finds herself living a very rough life on the Western frontier.  Their triumphs and disappointments are told in a prose so beautiful and tragic that you long for their happiness but realize it is slipping from their hands.  The son born to that couple is the grandfather of the man researching and writing the memoir, and that writer has his own personal history to tell, as does the young woman who has been hired to serve as his typist.  She is a 1970's Berkley hippie with her own serious issues.  The contrast between each generation is masterly done.

Thanks to all who read my post and left a comment.  I surely appreciate your concern, in particular the Buerger family who have been through this so recently.  I love you all!

Nancy

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Grim Nancy

"Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants"
                  Michael Pollan





DISCOVERY

One wonders how they might feel if they were diagnosed with cancer - breast, lung, pancreatic, liver, whatever.  In my case I felt sort of OK with it (breast cancer).  It was only a Stage 2 and my surgeon thought a lumpectomy would do the trick, plus, of course, the chemo and radiation that goes with it.  That was in 2007 and I got through it pretty well.  Losing my hair was really the worst part.

Jump ahead three years and I find that I am faced with it again.  Now it has mestastisized to my bones and liver and it is a Stage 4.  And this time I am not as blase' about it - as if anyone can really ever be blase'...  Last time, though, my surgeon removed the tumor and what she felt was a decent margin around the lymph nodes and I never really experienced any real pain.  I tolerated the chemo pretty well, never was so nauseous that I couldn't eat, and chalked it up to a medium-bad experience.  Now there is pain involved.  In fact, that is what triggered the visit to my doctor - I simply woke up one night and felt as though my bones were all achey.  When I look back on it, though, I realize that I probably had some prior signs - pain in my back usually late in the day, sharp pain in my coccyx area at times, sometimes a discomfort in one arm (all of which I attributed to "getting older").  But now the pain has gotten bad enough for me to have to control it with Tylenol and Ibuprofen; I wake up at night and have to take a second dose and I realize that this is going to be a whole different ball game than the first time around.

It also has started all kinds of alarm bells ringing, as I realize, and Kelley and Michael realize, that I won't be around forever.  Cancer is a "no guarantee" type disease.  I might beat it into submission, and then again I may not.  So as you have all heard a zillion times:  enjoy each minute, take time to smell the roses, etc., etc.  My priorities have now been re-shuffled, as they should be at this time of life anyway.  I need to give that a little thought.  My next post will probably be more on that theme.  In the meantime, here are two of my priorities...

Grim Nancy

"Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants"
                  Michael Pollan






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