Current news about my ongoing saga

I am back. A lesser person than when I went into the hospital, (ie even more of me has been left in a waste bucket!).

After a five hour operation (three hours more than originally mooted) I was up and out into the recovery area from which it was a short push to the High Dependency Unit. Stayed there from Monday afternoon to Thursday morning when I was allowed to go home.

Apparently they took out a fibrous tumour the size of a golf ball from just under the right collar bone and there is now a cut covered with a waterproof bandage just where the top of a shirt collar would go. According to the pundits this will blend nicely with the age creases in my neck when it heals and become scar tissue. I remain sceptical - but considering the alternative who cares. The stitches will come out next Thursday and I hope to be able to get the results of the pathology this will then determine what if any treatment in the future is needed and can be undertaken.

The tumour was apparently wrapped around the nodes, the vagus nerve, blood vessels (which is why the operation took three hours longer - they got in a vascular surgeon to assist).

Meanwhile I still have appointments with the radiologist and of course we have to get additional blood tests for this. Then they have discovered that I had a very fast heart beat while I was in hospital that my cholesterol was elevated and so a cardiologist was called and he has put me on some beta blockers and then will give me a stress test in about 4 weeks time. I did ask about that one - after all I thought that having stress was bad for the heart and they all laughed and said what it was was my riding a bicycle to see whether I could manage or not - so I guess now I will have to practise around our little lake as well as go for the 5 km walks. These bloody doctors they put you through your paces and CHARGE you for the privilege of making you work out! I am having some trouble sleeping as I seem to have considerable congestion however this is being taken care of by with some anticongestion medication and there is of course some pain, not from the surgery yet - strangely enough but mostly from cramped muscles in the neck. I am told that I will have pain from the surgery as things heal and scar tissue forms - terrific - just what I am looking forward to.

Meanwhile a have discovered the joy of children's paracetamol - ie the raspberry flavoured concoction that is liquid. MUCH happier to take this than try and swallow that bloody great big pill and the relief is the same for six hours.

I was up an about yesterday out shopping yesterday and I was able to manage walking about the supermarket and even going shopping for things on my own - what bliss, no nurses to pamper me at every step!

Not bad for someone out in four days after major surgery.

The drugs have been making me a little muzzy headed and I really HATE this so have asked the doctor (local GP) to DO something that I would encourage all doctors to do and hold a 'case conference' in which I feature as a person rather than various body parts which are focused on and treated seemingly independently. In this way I hope our good medical friends will be able to get their collective and expensive acts together and look at the various bits of medication and processes and treatments and start to reach some agreement about what is needed (overall) and how things can be balanced and adjusted so that no one treatment buggers up something else and so that each treatment is complementary instead of being a stand alone thinggy.

Yeah I know - it means I am BACK and wanting to exert control again - well - that's the penalty for letting me wake up after the anaesthetic! Since I have to pay the bills I really want to have a say in what happens to me and I do NOT want to be treated like an ignoramus - after all I too have university degrees so I CAN understand what is going on if they would only bother to explain!

OK, that's enough for today I will go and try and have some breakfast it being 06:37 here on a Saturday morning and then slowly chew and swallow gingerly until it all goes down.

CT aided fine needle biopsy!

I have as many people know been having some shoulder and back pain for the last few months. The doctors diagnosed it as overuse syndrome and prescribed physiotherapy. Well so much for a month of activities and heaps of money spent. Then I tried acupuncture. Another month of wasted time and effort. Since I also had a funny throat I booked into see an ear nose and throat specialist who indicated that he had found that one of my vocal chords simply did not function the way it should and so he sent me off to a CT scan of the neck and chest.

Lo and behold they found that there was an abnormal mass situated slightly to the right of the wind pipe and the oesophagus and pressing on some nerves and killing them.

I was then sent to see my oncologist who did not have great news - he wanted to get a biopsy. Sounds reasonable of course and so we booked in to have this done.

Some considerable amount of money later I staggered from the place where the biopsy was done - it had taken all up some two hours.

What was done is something I would like to warn people about so that they know what to expect.

A CT aided thin needle biopsy on the neck is exactly what it sounds like - one of the most horrific experiences you can have.

You go under a CT scanner, and bare your throat!

I don't know how other people feel about this but let me tell you that letting someone near your bared and extended throat with a sharp instrument is - to say the least, nerve wracking!

When the doctor tells you that you will have a local anesthetic you hope for the best and hope that the actual procedure will be painless.

Well, I guess it is - in a way but just listen to what actually happens.

First you get your local. That numbs things up a bit then your head is strapped to the bed you are lying on and while a nurse holds your arm murmuring reassuring things a thin needle is inserted into your neck. They then leave the room WITH THE NEEDLE STILL IN YOUR NECK and tell you not to swallow and that they will take a picture.

The machine starts up and you know that gamma radiation is being fed into your body at a rate that would probably make Hiroshima look poor by comparison. They come back and fiddle with the needle to adjust its position and then leave to take another picture. When they have done this at least four times to get the needle to just the right spot then the doctor comes in and tell you he will now take a sample. This involves pushing the needle up and down in your throat collecting cells and of course pressing on all sorts of things. You can feel some pain from the pressure and your imagination runs wild with what is happening, whether you are bleeding like a stuck pig or what. The needle is 4-6 centimeters long!

Having obtained their sample leaving you trembling with fear on the bed they check with a pathologist who is on hand to see if they have collected enough cells.

You just lie there trembling!

Then they come back and say they will have to do it all again!

So it all happens again.

Then they tell you they will have to do it AGAIN!

And of course by this time - local or not this thing is beginning to hurt and you feel that you may never be able to swallow again and your neck is like a pin cushion!

When it is all over you are required to stagger out to a waiting room for around 45 minutes to see whether or not they have nicked an artery or a vein and whether you will bleed all over the place - what they do NOT want to see is your neck inflating all of a sudden with a golf ball like protrusion filled with blood.

45 minutes later with you nursing your neck and gingerly swallowing you are told you can go home and that if there are any other symptoms then to make sure you get rushed to an emergency area at your local hospital.

All really great news of course AND you still don't know what the biopsy will show for at least another three to five days!

Do not under any circumstances even dream about getting yourself to and from the place where you will have this treatment.

By the end of it you are likely to be as traumatized as I was and just nursing your throat and feeling like s*^#t on a stick!

Let's hope they managed to get something to test in the pathology lab - the next possibility is that they will have to literally open your neck in an operation to get a sample.

The way I feel today I think they might as well cut my throat while I am on the operating table if this is what it has to be.

God I hate cancer!

Pain Management

I don't know what others have experienced, but to be truthful I do not like pain!

Does anyone have some experience with the management of pain using acupuncture?