Pants on the ground, Pants on the ground
Once my bum heals up and all the swelling goes down, I've got to get me some new clothes. I'm pretty much swimming in my pants. Going into surgery, I knew I was going to lose a bit of weight, not only because they were going to take out a bunch of stuff (how much does a rectum weigh? a foot and a half of colon?), but also from not being able to eat anything for awhile. Only in the past few days has my appetite truly returned. I've been able to wear jeans (instead of sweats and 3XL hospital pants) the past few days while I'm out and about and they're baggy as hell. My scale says I dropped 15 lbs since surgery. That's a good thing. All the studies say that rectal CA patients need to get lean and mean to help keep cancer at bay and I wouldn't have used the words "lean and mean" to describe me prior to surgery.
Today I walked downtown to take care of some small errands but mostly to see how well I'd do on a longer walk. For the most part, I did pretty well. I was able to walk at full speed with a normal gait without pain until I got downtown. Then I didn't feel so hot. I had planned to walk downtown and back, but wound up taking the streetcar to get back to my apartment. I was amazed at how much a mile and a half walk completely wore me out. When I got back home, I completely crashed. My recovery is really progressing well, but today made me realize I have a long ways to go. Even though the walking is going well, I'm still generally in pain, and I still can't sit at all.
Some notes about the surgery and my hospital stay. I like to write about stuff as it happens, otherwise it feels kind of forced. But, I wanted to capture a few things so that I don't forget what happened. This blog isn't just for all of you, it's for me as well. I don't want to forget about all the things (bullshit, pain, suffering, etc.) I went through to beat cancer. I never want to take my health for granted again, and I want the record to show what I had to go through to beat it. I want "battling cancer" Doug to inspire "post cancer" Doug when "post cancer" Doug needs to be inspired. And, knowing me, I know "post cancer" Doug will need to be inspired at times. So, here are some surgery and hospital stay notes.
For those of you who have had surgery requiring general anesthesia, you know that there's absolutely nothing you remember about surgery. One second you're in pre-op and the next you're in post-op. I remember the anesthesiologist/bartender adding the happy juice into my IV and then *immediately* feeling it kicking in. I vaguely remember being wheeled into the operating room and thinking to myself how my surgeon looked like the death star operator guy from Star Wars (see below) with his face guard coming up and out from this neck. (Hey, heavy drugs were starting to take effect ...)
The next thing I remembered is waking up in post-op, shivering violently. Don't know if this was because of the anesthesia or because the room was super cold. I remember them trying to wake a guy named Ron next to me, and Ron being pretty beligerent about the whole thing and fighting the nurses. I remember wanting to get away from Ron. I also remember looking at a clock that read 7:30P and thinking "holy crap, I was in a surgery for a long time, what went wrong?" They wheeled me into the operating room at about 11:15A, so I was out for quite a long time. They told me they had the operating room reserved for me for 5.5 hours, so I was in there for a few extra hours. Eventually, I'm going to get a copy of my surgeons records for my file, but I think switching over from LAR to APR and having to get a blood vessel to stop from bleeding are at least two reasons why things took longer. Maybe I really don't want to know any more than that.
I also remember hearing nurses uttering the word "colostomy bag" a few times. I really couldn't be sure that's what they were saying, but that's what it sure sounded like, but I don't remember being dejected about it. I was too wiped out about that. I figured I'd just have someone else verify that for me later. They then wheeled me to my room where my Mom and Wendy were waiting for me.
Obviously, the first few days were a blur. I don't remember much as they had me on a dilaudid drip. According to Wikipedia, Dilaudid (hydromorphone) "is a potent centrally-acting analgesic drug of the opioid class. It is a derivate or morphine ... " I was able to get a dose of dilaudid whenever I pressed a button, but I wasn't able to get more than one dose every ten minutes. Patient controlled administration of drugs sounds like a good idea, but really, it has one glaring shortcoming. If you're in serious pain and you need the pain meds to keep the pain under control, which is what they want you to do, you're kinda screwed when you fall asleep because you can't push the button when you're unconscious. Right? Didn't anyone think of this? For me, when I was eventually able to fall asleep, this led to me waking up in pain every hour or so, just so I could push the button to give me more drugs so I could go back to sleep. Can't they have a "sleep" option on these machines, some operational mode where the patient gets a reduced stream of drugs during the nighttime hours? Doesn't that just seem to make sense?
One of the keys to recovery is to get up and move around early and often. It wakes the body up and gets the healing juices flowing. Getting up out of bed was a chore, and quite painful at times, and the first few walks around the floor were not pretty. The other 95% of the time, when I wasn't walking and was lying in bed, they had do some deep breathing exercises involving some contraption every hour or so to help ward off pneumonia and fever. Not sure how taking deep breaths fights off a fever, but it worked. It seemed every night my temperature would spike and I'd wake myself up every hour to do these damn exercises.
On the fourth night, Sunday, I think, the drugs and the fever got to me. I had trouble falling asleep that night, so the nurses gave me lorazepam (an anti-anxiety/anti-insomnia med) in additional to the dilaudid to help take the edge off (we had successfully tried this a few nights earlier). I fell asleep but about an hour later I woke up covered in sweat from head to toe with the sheets completely soaked. I had no idea where I was, what was going on, or even WHO I was. Seriously. I don't know if anyone has experienced this, but this is a very scary feeling. I looked around the room, eventually realized I was in a hospital, recognized a call button for what it was and pressed it, but not really knowing why. The nurse came in and asked what was wrong and I said "I don't know. I don't know why I'm here or what's going on." As the nurse filled me in, everything came back to me, but that experience shook me up. The doc later filled me in that hallucinations and disorientation are side effects of dilaudid. Nice.
Being on dilaudid also made it extremely difficult to concentrate. After that waking-up-and-not-knowing-who-you-are experience, I came up with the seemingly brilliant plan to set an alarm on my phone every hour to remind me to press the pain medicine button with the notice "take pain meds - rectal cancer surgery" to remind myself what was going on. But, I was so completely stoned that I couldn't set a calendar appointment on my iphone to save my life. I could barely focus (mentally or physically) on my iphone screen, and when I didn't fall asleep in the middle of typing something and was able to set an appointment, I came nowhere close to getting either the date or the time right. After about six tries, I gave up. I apparently did manage to set a few reminders as over the remainder of my hospital visit my phone would go off at random times with the "take pain meds - rectal cancer surgery" notice.
The next morning they switched me from dilaudid to oxycodone. I think they gave me one last shot of dilaudid followed by a chaser of three pills of oxycodone. This didn't work any better as I had a repeat of the amnesia event. I fell asleep after taking the oxycodone and an hour later, I again woke up covered in sweat, all dazed and confused. That was enough. I told the nurses what was going on and that I wanted to try a different pain drug.
I couldn't get any sleep because my body was fighting off sleep. Every time I was on the bring of sleep, my mind was start hallucinating and my heart rate would jum pup. My body just didn't want to deal with the hallucinations, crazy/vivid dreams or whatever that I would see whenever I shut my eyes. (I can't really describe all the crazy stuff I saw.) The doctor eventually came in and after a bit of discussion, he really didn't seem to know what to do. I told him that I do great with vicadin/hydrocodone and that I'd be happy with that, and he went with it. (Why he didn't suggest vicadin up himself puzzled me. It was a little disconcerting to me that me, the patient, was the one that was coming up with the ideas that were being implemented. In fact, I felt that was the case more than a few times during my stay. Don't you think the doctors and nurses have all the answers? Me too. But, I'm here to tell you that the don't. Nobody does.) The vicadin worked fine, the disorientation and hallucinations stopped, and I've been on the drug since.
That's it for now. It's late. More tomorrow.
Can any1 tell me how Twitter works?
I am new to Twitter, added a few people but how the hell do you leave a message for them? Also how do you add a comment to the forums on the right side of the page e.g. #musicmonday. thanks for all help 
She Said: Valentine's Day
She said: Valentines DayBy Donna WeaverElm Staff Writer
This past Sunday was one of two things for you: absolute bliss or hell. of course there are a few of us who can survive Valentines Day alone and not feel tortured, but only a very lucky few. Valentines Day is a real holiday and should be treated as such.
Valentines Day was created to celebrate love, which of course can cause many singles to be upset on such a day, and they have every right to be. Nobody wants to be alone, but we have to be alone some time before finding the right person. Just because you are not loved by or do not love anyone at the moment does not mean you should feel hopeless. you have your whole life ahead of you, so give that love to your family and friends before you become too absorbed in a relationship.
We all have our likes and dislikes about the holiday, but the things I dread the most during Valentines Day are the arguments against it. The one that I hear so often, that Valentines Day is just a Hallmark holiday, is simply not valid. What does that statement prove anyway? The holiday and tradition of giving love letters and gifts to your significant other has been around long before Hallmark came into existence.
Of course, Hallmark took advantage of this opportunity to make some money, but it took advantage of every other holiday also. I dont see people sulking in the corner murmuring, its just a stupid Hallmark holiday, when Christmas rolls around.
There are two reasons you might have this argument. The first is that you disagree with the commercialization of the holiday and you think it is just another sly way for capitalists to steal money from us eager to spend Americans, and not to mention men usually are uncomfortable by feeling pressured to buy expensive things for their girlfriends. The second is that you are bitter and/or lonely and you dont want anyone to know your true feelings, so you shrug it off with this excuse, even though everyone can see right through it.
Of course the commercialization of Valentines Day is a bit saddening and it might seem overwhelming too. out of all those chocolates, jewelry, red satin hearts, cards, and flowers, which one will please your loved one the most? Every person usually prefers something different, and sometimes he says they want nothing at all.
The truth is that everyone wants to feel loved and appreciated, and the gifts that melt hearts the most are not those bought at Godiva or the florist. they are the gifts that little money goes into but require much thought, and that is what makes them so special. Gifts that are genuine, like a poem, scrapbook, homemade dinner, or song, although small and inexpensive, they are much more powerful than roses and a Hallmark card. these are not simply material gifts, they are signs that the person you are with is truly interested in you, knows your personality well, appreciates the uniqueness of your relationship, and wants to put every effort into it.
This is why Valentines Day should be treated as a holiday. We Americans are always so busy and wrapped up in our work, school, and social life that we rarely take enough time to show appreciation for our loved ones. this doesnt just include boyfriends and girlfriends; it also includes family and friends. We all know Valentines Day is for lovers, but it can be for anyone special in your life too. Who doesnt like to feel loved?
My “oh so not” romantic hubby got me a bottle of tequilla rose for vday-What the hell do you make with that?
Lol....Hope he wasnt planning on getting laid-it's only 15 percent alcohol and I am 85%unimpressed!!
Lol... Men always side with eachother!!Clever or not...liquor store was on his way home!!! 
Ok....love the stawberry as a shot glass idea!!
