Released on good behavior

Getting released from the hospital ain't too shabby of a birthday gift.  After keeping solid food down yesterday they decided I was good enough to be on my own.  I am feeling alright, off all pain meds, and can saunter around like an old man.  We celebrated tonight at my brother's house and it was great to be back.  This is definitely going to take a couple months to heal fully but we are off to a good start.  Barring any late complications (this surgery it is fairly common) I will head out to the valley to recover at my parents' house for a couple weeks this Friday.

Update from the hospital bed

Holy cow! Surgery flipping hurts sometimes.  As you can imagine this week has not been the smoothest and I'm pretty sure has been one of the tougher ones in my existence.  I've been saying it all along but support from family and friends is huge in these situations and all day and night I have had someone by my side to help aide me through this and I just have to say a big thank you to all who have gotten to visit or send your well wishes.  My attendees here have kept me posted throughout the week with your messages.  Today I am feeling much better than just a couple days ago and able to walk normally (still no ab workouts though).  I have found that surgery is a bit different than chemo in the sense that after surgery is set in motion, there is not a choice to cry uncle and take a break.  I also wanted to reiterate how big of a success this surgery was.  The goal of the surgery was to pull out all the cancerous tissue and sew me back up to heal with no cancer left in the body.  At the end of at least an 8 hour surgery, my stellar team here at UWMC managed to remove my bladder, prostate, and 24 lymph nodes.  They then took a 60 cm section of my small intestine and created me a neobladder (I was lucky enough to have this option as there was no cancer in the urethra, they tested it during surgery).  It took until late Friday evening for them to finish up the pathology report from all the removed tissue and Dr Wright came in on Saturday morning to give me the news.  They found no cancer in the bladder or prostate, no cancer in the lymph nodes highest in my chest (highest risk), and only microscopic living cancer in one of the smaller nodes next to the bladder that was surrounded by dead cancer.  It was great to hear that the chemo had been so successful and that we managed to pull out everything that was affected.  Tears of joy my friends! 

I'm now waiting on my bowels to decide to play nice with each other once again.  The last few days have been full of a forward/backward movement that I must say is not fun.  The scar is not quite as long as I was originally thinking but it is still 6-8 inches long, mostly below the belly button.  If I can manage to keep some solid food down for a day I will be on my way out of here and likely recovering at my parents house for a couple weeks.  Not sure how long the rest of recovery will be but I think I'll be taking it slow and the hard parts should be behind me. I may post more details of the past week later but it may not be the most pleasurable read.

Ferlan and friends, see you in June for the sprint triathlon :)

Post surgery

Phil's surgery was a success. He has a long road of recovery to come, but has a great starting point.

-Lorri

Surgery Update

My surgery date is March 4th and not today. Sorry I didn't update this earlier. I have been a bit anxious awaiting this procedure as it is a bit extensive. The plan is to remove my bladder, prostate, and affected lymph nodes. Bladder cancer tends to have a high recurrence rate so the docs want it outta there so we don't have to go through this again. The prostate generally comes out with the bladder due to the proximity anatomy wise and I don't need it to survive (and as a bonus I won't have to worry about prostate exams or cancer in the future). I got more good news after my CT scan on Monday that everything has remained stable or shrunk in size. The concern was that after leaving the cancer alone without being bombarded with chemo it may start growing and spreading. They tell me that if all goes well I will be in the hospital for 7-10 days. My goal is to be out on the 12th for my birthday, if not I may have to just sneak out :)

Thanks again for all the prayers, thoughts, letters, emails, cards, and all else you have done to help support me through this.

Next Chapter

So it's been a few weeks since I last updated.  I have been enjoying my newly found no chemo freedom and I have good news!  The latest scans showed more reduction of the lymph nodes and no spreading of the disease!  As a result, the next step is surgery which is scheduled for February 27th.

That's the high level of what is going on.  That last round of chemo was rough and put me out for a solid week before feeling half normal.  The extra week of recovery has been noticeable though.  Last Thursday I finally got back into the pool and managed to do 12 laps.  I felt great besides needing a break between each one to catch my breath.  It was good to do something more active than a brisk walk and I still felt decently strong in the pool (for my swimming buddies, I managed a lap at 40 seconds).  I also managed to go snowshoeing with Lorri for about 6 miles on Sunday, not too shabby. 

It was also good to spend a week plus down in the 'couv hanging out with friends and coworkers and not having to get plugged back into the chemo drugs.  I was definitely dreading this last scan result.  It's like a test you're going to take that studying hard won't help you and after the scan is done you still have no idea how the results will pan out.  Thankfully my results were good. 

Thanks again to everyone for the continued support and well wishes.  I feel like we have made it through another chapter in the cancer saga and are heading towards recovery.

Round 6/6, already? Finally?

Here I am, sitting and getting my last scheduled round of chemo.  It has been a bit of a journey to get here but boy am I glad the end is only hours away.  I was a little concerned that I wouldn't make it this far from some of the recounts of others' experiences but my body has continued to be strong and resilient.  My blood work even improved in some areas this last round, much to the amazement of the docs.  I did manage to catch a small cold last week that is still hanging on but it is on its way out.  As a result of still having a bit of a runny nose, I'm wearing a mask and in isolation from the other patients here to help prevent those with compromised immune systems from catching my germs. 

Here at SCCA (as in most medical facilities) it is commonplace to see people with masks on.  I do find it interesting how our culture perceives people outside of medical facilities who wear masks.  I know my initial reaction is that they are either paranoid of catching something or infected with the plague.  In reality it would probably be better for all of us if we wore a mask when we know we are infected with some sort of communicable disease.  In my travels to China I have observed many people wearing masks in public areas and it seems to be more accepted.  They are in fact doing everyone else a favor in not trying to infect everyone.  I have even seen some masks that have designer patterns to be more aesthetically pleasing.  I guess in areas with such high population density it is probably a good idea to do whatever you can from preventing disease from spreading (Hong Kong is nearly the most population dense country in the world with over 6000 people per square km, the USA has 31/sq.km).  Anyways, enough soap box talk.

After today, the doc is giving me a 3 week break before we do scans again to assess the situation.  I will then talk with the urologist surgeon to figure out our plan of attack.  It won't be minor surgery and I may even get to stay in the hospital for a week afterwards (my first hospital sleepover, I won't forget my blanket).  I am still nervous and hopeful for good scan results as this is the next pivotal checkpoint.  We are hoping for tiny tumors and no spread.  If things are moving the other direction there won't be much point in doing surgery.  I'm very thankful that I have been able to survive through this treatment with minimal side effects.  I'm very much looking forward to be able to get back to some regular exercise so that a flight of stairs doesn't put me out of breath and I don't require 16 hours of sleep in a day.  Hopefully that is only a short couple months away.

Happy New Year!

Hope you all had a good holiday and are enjoying the New Year!  This last round did not start off as rough as Round 4 and I was able to enjoy a root beer tasting party, late night board gaming, and managed to stay up late enough to welcome 2013.  I think I was working on borrowed energy though as the last two days I have not managed to stay conscious for more than 4 hours.  Hopefully two days worth of sleep is enough to recharge myself so I can get back to just a couple short naps throughout the day.  It seems that this last round although not making me feel as ill has definitely moved me down another notch on the energy.

Next week will be Round 6, the last scheduled dose dense MVAC chemo.  I am definitely looking forward to an end of pumping these amazingly working yet poisonous drugs into my body and recovering from this ordeal.  It has been an interesting opportunity these past 2+ months for me to spend more time with family and friends and create new relationships of which may not have happened under normal circumstances (oh and normal, I'm not convinced it exists and if it does is likely boring).  Next week will be a milestone but I'm still not out of the woods just yet.

 Root Beer tasting party

Gabe's Birthday game night.