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Post by Rune Lai on Mar 12, 2021 18:28:24 GMT -5
Not really a health issue, but getting ready for surgery isn't working out the way I wanted it to. I put together a to do list to make my life at home as simple during recovery as possible, and then the bathroom flooded. So I'm trying to get everything cleaned up as best I can. Using a wet vacuum for the first time to try sucking up all the water, using towels for the rest. Have a fan going and the windows open. The timing is just... ugh... I just hope everything's dry by the time I go into the hospital early on Monday morning and I'm going to be gone so long and no one's going to be home. The carpet got pretty soaked.
So all the things I wanted to do today to get comfortable before surgery, I just can't do because of the bathroom.
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Post by Solana on Mar 12, 2021 19:45:33 GMT -5
(Hug) I wish I was my avatar to be able to dry all that up for you.
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Post by Rune Lai on Mar 13, 2021 23:00:30 GMT -5
I ended up calling a professional. It's still a mess though, and the meat of the clean-up is going to have to wait until after I get back.
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Post by Rune Lai on Mar 27, 2021 23:30:46 GMT -5
I'm home from the hospital. Tired. Might elaborate more later.
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Post by Rune Lai on Apr 20, 2021 17:40:58 GMT -5
Bit of a copy/pasta from my blog to explain how I'm doing.
I've been home from the hospital for about three and a half weeks now, and though I'm improving, things are still rough. I have a feeding tube in my gut that connects to a feeding pump half the day to make sure I get enough nutrition because I can't eat enough through my mouth right now. But even that is an improvement. I'm making progress. At least the tube isn't necessary 24/7 anymore.
The surgery seems to have gone reasonably well, though I lost all of my stomach. The surgeon tried to save some of it, but it just wasn't in the cards, and after getting my genetic testing back, it looks like taking all of it probably was a good idea. It turns out that I have a genetic defect that predisposes me towards getting stomach cancer, so even if some of my stomach had been saved, I think there would have been a decent chance of the cancer coming back independently just because my genes suck.
Even though I'm home, I'm still not active much. I can really only do one or two small chores a day, and there have been a lot of times when I've had to make the choice of "Do I write this e-mail or that e-mail?" Because I just can't sit up for very long without getting tired and writing while lying down is not great either. A lot of times things get pushed off to another day, which is why it's taken me longer than I wanted to write about how I'm doing, since I know people have been wanting to know.
It doesn't help that the surgery caused some nerve damage due to my positioning on the operating table. The anesthesiologist and his team were supposed to move my limbs around during surgery to keep the circulation going, but apparently didn't do a good enough job so I woke up with severely numb hands. Though I got the feeling back in them before leaving the hospital, I still can't feel temperature in my thumb and first two fingers of my left hand, and about half the fingers on both hands are overly sensitive to some degree or another which can make it painful to type.
As a writer, this really sucks. And the occasional pain spike in my healing fingers doesn't help. They do seem to be getting better, but really slowly, and from what I'm reading online it may be months before they're fully back.
It looks like my cancer treatment will be changing going forward. My previous round of chemo didn't look like it was that effective, so it sounds like my oncologist may be trying a combination radiation/chemo treatment for my next stretch of treatment. Given that this is a genetic cancer, there might be the possibility of getting into a clinical trial as well.
I'm on leave from work for another month, and I'll probably need it. This is much worse than when I had my endometrial cancer a year and a half ago and the recovery much slower. Though there's a light at the end of the tunnel, it's still very far away.
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Post by Solana on Apr 21, 2021 9:57:38 GMT -5
(Hugs) Best of luck getting into the clinical trial. And thanks for the update- I think a lot about how you're doing during this time. I hope your fingers end up healing faster than you expect, for you and the sake of your fans.
Hit me with medical or insurance questions any time, and if you need more books, I can get you going on the 'City of Brass' series. (Extra cash on hand with the stimulus checks.)
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Post by Rune Lai on May 3, 2021 17:31:10 GMT -5
Thanks, but I think I'm pretty booked-out at the moment. I'm still working through the batch my brother sent me. I did finish the Shadow of the Fox series though.
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Post by Solana on May 4, 2021 18:55:39 GMT -5
Booked... out....? I do not understand this concept.
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Post by Rune Lai on May 6, 2021 23:39:05 GMT -5
My chemo treatment is resuming Wednesday next week, which means my food's going to start tasting like crap again. And then after that's over (almost two months, if we do the whole regimen, which we might not depending on side effect intensity), I'll be doing a combination of radiation and chemo (probably for six weeks).
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Post by Solana on May 9, 2021 16:40:41 GMT -5
(Hug) Best of luck. We're all rooting for you.
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Post by Rune Lai on Jul 17, 2021 20:25:11 GMT -5
I'm recovering from my chemo regimen now (last dose was just over a week ago) and late this month or early next I'll enter what will hopefully be my final leg of treatment; a combination of chemo and radiation. I still have a feeding tube in me to supplement what I'm able to eat normally, but I'm hoping now that the chemo-only portion of my treatment is done I'll start developing more of an appetite and my body can continue adjusting to life without a stomach.
I can eat a lot of things though. Except sweets. I really have to be careful not to take in too much sugar at once because sugar accelerates the passage of food through the small intestines, and I can't automatically control how much goes in an a time anymore without a stomach. But other than that, nothing else is technically off limits. I keep a food diary just in case so I can mark off any specific dishes that give me trouble (like one restaurant's sesame chicken turned out to be a bad idea), and since everything hits my intestines immediately I generally know within an hour or two if something's bad for me.
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Post by Solana on Jul 18, 2021 13:08:46 GMT -5
I'm glad you're on the home stretch, mon amie. (Hug) If you need any advice on cutting down on sugar, please don't hesitate to let me know. If you have to do it at once, there can often be a sugar withdrawal, but it WILL get easier.
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Post by Rune Lai on Jul 18, 2021 19:14:09 GMT -5
I don't really have to worry about withdrawal since I've been watching my sugar intake ever since I got home from surgery, but it's a little inconvenient sometimes when a lot of prepared foods will put in sugar in the sauces or even in meal replacement shakes for people who can't eat a lot. (One of my doctors was going to give me some free samples of Ensure her office got, but then we saw there was 22g of added sugar!) I read a lot of labels these days when buying food. I'll probably start cooking more when I get more energy back so I can better control what goes in my meals, but that's still a ways away.
I also miss pies and pound cake, which were my usual bakery items when I went to the grocery store. :\ Now I need to look for sugar free or no added sugar versions which are harder to find.
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Post by Solana on Jul 19, 2021 10:37:59 GMT -5
(Nods) My mom and I have been carefully reading labels ever since I got sick. Instead of Ensure, I'd recommend Glucerna. It's low enough in sugar that even I can have it, as it's formulated to balance blood sugar for a long period of time for diabetics.
For cakes, if baking isn't wise yet, skip the bakery. You know those cake in a cup things in the dessert aisle? The Keto ones are low in sugar and taste pretty decent, plus you don't have to worry about finishing one off if you're not up to it. There are box mixes that are sugar-free that we'll use for my birthday cakes.
Pies are easier to make sugar-free, as there's not a lot of sugar in the dough to begin with. (We use the stevia baking blend.) If that's not an option, maybe some puff pastry to make turnovers? I finally got a sugar-free apple turnover last year after longing for one for over a decade. Hell, my mom will even get a tube of crescent rolls, slice an apple, add some pie spices, and roll it up to bake for 'apple pie bites'.
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Post by Rune Lai on Jul 19, 2021 16:21:31 GMT -5
Glucerna is actually what my doctor ended up giving me samples of. It's all right, though not very filling, even for me with my limited digestive space. I've been drinking the samples as a snack, but not really looking at them as a meal. (I once had Ensure years ago and I remember drinking it felt like a weight settled in my stomach and Glucerna just doesn't give me that same feeling, lack of stomach not withstanding.) I might end up buying some anyway though as they're a good way to squeeze in extra calories since they're not filling.
I hadn't thought about keto baked goods, but yeah, now that I think about it, keto's about cutting carbs so they would be low in sugar. I'm glad to hear there are sugar free box mixes.
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