Can you spot yours?

These cards make me look popular. It's a wonderful illusion!

Filling in the gap

The past couple of days have gone really well. I've steadily felt better, more nimble/spry, hungrier, straighter (posture-wise), and just generally more normal every day. Yesterday I ventured out to the Natural History Museum and the Hayden Planetarium, which was pretty fun. I was wheeled around in a wheelchair, the amusement of which was increased greatly by a stick of rock candy and my repeated attempts at conversation with kids in strollers (my wheeled brethren). I even had the chance to act like a parishioner at a TV-evangelistic church when the wheelchair got caught on the way into an elevator and I jumped up and walked in under my own power.

On a completely different topic, I feel the need (in the name of science, perhaps) to fill in the game between going to Dr. Motzer and having the RPLND surgery. As you may recall, our story left off with me visiting my oncologist, Dr. Motzer at Memorial Sloan Kettering, thus beginning a journey during which I exposed my genitals to virtually every staff member of a second hospital. Unlike Marans, Dr. Motzer was concerned about the anomaly on the left side. As he explained it, the cancer would most likely spread to the right side first so if something was showing on the left side, that could mean that had already spread to the right and the left nodes, but that the right nodes weren't showing up in the CT scan. The prognosis: a new CT scan and either chemo and then Retroperitoneal Lymph Node Dissection (RPLND) or just the RPLND. You can read more about the RPLND and when it is performed if you want. I had a CT scheduled and made an appointment to come back to Dr. Motzer and to see Dr. Sheinfeld (the surgeon) the next week (since I was going to need the surgery either way).

That was a fun week. My mom was convinced that I was going to have to have chemo. I wasn't at first, but by the end of the week had convinced myself of that too. The CT scan was easy and relatively painless, especially compared to my first one. Seems like MSK did everything better than St. Vincent's.

We went to Dr. Sheinfeld first. He said the new CT scan didn't show the problem of the first, which meant that I wouldn't need the chemo. That was a huge relief. Basically there were no signs that the cancer had yet spread, but there was a 50% chance that it would spread. Dr. Sheinfeld recommended that I have the RPLND both to determine if it had spread and to stop it from spreading. He said that was the standard protocol in the US and would more than likely keep me from ever having to have chemo. He also noted, however, that in other countries they wouldn't do the surgery.

I thought it over for a few minutes and decided to have the surgery based completely on math. The surgery would come back 50% of the time and if it came back, it would do so within the first year 90% of the time. That meant there was a 45% chance that I would have a semester of law school or my studying for the bar exam interrupted by a relapse. I didn't like those odds, especially considering the surgery would only cause me to miss 3 weeks of work at my firm and would allow me to start school on time. Dr. Sheinfeld even said I'd still be able to study abroad.

I scheduled the surgery right there and didn't even need to go back to Dr. Motzer. I was apprehensive about the surgery, but ready to get it over with and move on with life. I just kept working at the firm and enjoying my summer until right before the surgery. I left my firm (with an offer to return permanently) just before the surgery and that pretty much catches you up to this post.

Here ya go!

As promised, a picture of my facial hair. I think the beard needs a little work but the moustache is coming in quite nicely.

Checking the mail today was like Christmas! I got several packages and cards, it made me feel all fuzzy inside. Thanks everybody. I'm planning on high-tailing it out of here next Friday so if any of you are thinking of sending something and don't think it will get here within the week, hold off. Email me for my home address.

Also, among the wonderful gifts was Season 3 of Family Guy. A wonderful present indeed. The only problem is that I have no idea who it is from. So fess up so I can thank you.

Off the ride?

Maybe the train pulled into the station and I'm getting off this roller coaster. Today I have (knock wood) felt pretty good all day. No pain killers, eating more (just finished a bowl of veggie chili), even walked down the street to get a smoothie this morning. My back hasn't hurt much at all today and my groin (which felt awful yesterday) has only felt a little bad. I haven't felt nauseous and I really feel I'm back on the road to recovery. Still missing real food like crazy. I don't understand you vegetarians. If we weren't meant to eat meat God wouldn't have made it so tasty. Also, we wouldn't have needed such sharp teeth.

Roller Coaster

The last couple of days have been a lot like the title of this post. I've had moments when I've felt fine, others when I felt like I was going to hurl while simultaneously being in immense pain. A few hours ago I was miserable and now, other than a bit of the constant pain (partially alleviated by a heating pad) I'm doing fine.

Yesterday was pretty active. I went up to the roof of my building (first post-op experience with stairs... no problems). I walk around the roof a bit and then ended up doing laps of the shaded part (hot time, summer in the city). I'm still pretty hunched over when I walk, even though I try to stretch out so the main effect is that this aggravated my back pain a bit.

Then last night I actually ventured out to the movies. I figured I could sit in a movie theatre for two hours as well as I could sit on the couch for that long and I had definitely experienced hours of barely moving over the last couple of days. This assumption was basically true, but I realized halfway through the movie that on the couch I had the freedom to not be sitting there any longer should I choose which I mostly lost in the movie theatre. I decided to go to the slightly further away and much ghettoer theatre on 34th over the huge and really nice theatre on 42nd b/c I was afraid of the Times Square crowd with my big incision. Also, we took a cab there and back. In the cab home I started feeling sick and my back started to kill me. When we got home I went up to lie down and my mom bought me a heating pad. Great investment. Today my back hurts more than it ever has but the heating pad gives me so relief (it's on my back as I type). The rest of last night is a bit of a hellish blur. I didn't really feel good till morning and didn't sleep very well.

Today has been the same mixed feelings. Faith left this morning, which sucks. The nurse from my doc's office called to check up on me which was comforting. I have an appointment to go see him August 3. Also, in my good period, I started reading Devil in the White City. Pretty good so far. Had some visitors who showered me with love and gifts but I think the longer visiting sessions are wearing me out and I may need to cut back (so hard to do).

Oh, and I shaved today. Not everything, I left the moustache and a pathetic excuse for a goatee (I like to call it chin music). I figure I might as well grow these monstrosities while I am locked away from society for my own curiosity more than anything. Again, hopefully I'll pull out the camera and get some pics soon.

Enough is enough. Till next time...

HOME

A lot has happened since my last post... the biggest thing being that I am now home. I actually was released last night around 6. I had no idea it was going to happen until yesterday morning. Originally I was slated to leave sometime Monday. Then, since I was progressing well the doctors said maybe Sunday... but I still though Monday because I didn't want to get my hopes up. So it came as a surprise yesterday morning when my doctor said: A) I could eat some real food (at least as real as fat-free can be) and B) that if I kept it down I could leave that evening. So I accomplished letter A (FF oatmeal with lots of honey to mask the horribleness, some banana, a bite or two of awful canned pineapple) and the doc complied with letter B.

So here I am. I've got some Vicadin (fun dreams), some Colace (if you don't know, consider yourself lucky), and something else that I barely know what it is but take obediently (Soma?). I've eaten a variety of foods: Frosted Flakes in skim milk, FF blueberry muffins (pretty darn good), some salad with mushrooms, tomatoes, and egg whites, blueberries, jelly beans, a baked potato w/ FF sour cream and chives, FF Fig Newtons. I write them all out to let you know how much fat-free and edible (if not the most flavorful) foods are out there. I've got to keep this diet up for two weeks and it shouldn't be as bad as I originally feared (which puts it in line with most of this whole surgery process). !!OVERSHARE ALERT!! Now I've just got to focus on getting this stuff back out the other end. Hello Colace and prune juice!

Overall I'm doing pretty well. One of my biggest concerns right now is that I hunch over like an old man, which is obnoxious and hurts my back. Hopefully I'll start to straighten out soon.

One more note: I haven't shaved since before the surgery (more hair on my chin than on arms and belly). Unfortunately, I have the facial hair of a twelve-year-old-boy so I've got a creepy little moustache, a goatee of sorts, and four hairs popping out of each cheek. Combined with my quasi-uni-brow, which grows ever more unified by the unplucked day, and my relatively new penchant for making odd faces, I'm a pretty weird looking dude. Apologies for a long description with no picture, hopefully I'll scare someone into taking one soon.

First meal

Visual evidence that I ingested a food product tonight. It was my first since Sunday. Weird how you start to miss those little things like eating. It was some mediocre chicken broth, (I ate half) followed by some decent Italian ice. I ate all of that. Now here's hoping it a) stays down, and b) passes through my digestive system and doesn't just decide to take up residence somewhere random in my body.

Also, please note the tee shirt and lack of a hospital gown. Another important development if I do say so myself. And all it took was putting on some pj bottoms and a weezer tee after my shower and assuming everyone would be okay with it.

ALL CLEAR!!!

I just heard from my doc: 86 nodes removed and 86 of them are clear. Thus, I am officially in remission! And he said I could get out of here in a "day or two." I'm on "sips" today, which is basically a shot of water every 30 minutes. If I do well with this, I'll move on to clear liquids (either tonight or tomorrow) and then on to fat-free and then home. I'm really excited! Time to go pound some celebratory H20!

A Couple of Pics

The picture from the last post is obviously of Faith and me. Its from tonight. Here are few classic "before" and "after" pics. The first is from a couple of weeks ago after a night on the town. The second is from the night before the surgery (notice the difference in these pictures). The third is from tonight. The incision actually makes it way all the way down to just before you would not want someone cutting anymore. Oh and BTW, leave feedback please.

Noche Cautro

OVERSHARE ALERT: This post is not for the faint of heart.

Today turned out to be a pretty good day. As I reported earlier, I had my catheter removed this morning and I have since been complemented several times on the volume and quality of my urine. It's odd what you get excited about in the hospital: piss, farts, and crap. Yes that's right folks, I had my first post-op BM. It had to be, um, encouraged with an incident I'd rather never mention again. Afterwards I just stood and stared at the wall for a few minutes in total shock.

I've also managed to walk around a bunch. This afternoon my mom and I went for a 3-lap walk (which immediately put me to sleep) and this evening my two rocks (Faith and mom) walked with me around for a few more laps. Faith did some lunges to stretch/entertain us.

Anyway, prognosis is this: tomorrow or Saturday I get ice chips, then the next day liquids, followed by non-fat the following day and then I'm free to go home. Hopefully I'll get the ice chips tomorrow so I can get home by Monday morning. TTFN.

Dia Cuatro en el Hospital

Not the most original posts here. I got that stupid tube out of me so now I get to pee all by myself, like a normal person. Still no drinking or eating, just swabbing my mouth with a damp sponge. I crave every food product advertised on TV and a bunch that just pop into my head all by themselves. Right now, it's BBQ. 20 minutes ago it was Greek (from the sponge docks). But I try not to think about that too much.

Today I've been doing more walking (4 laps so far, where I only did 4 total on each previous day). My pain meds have been backed off to the point that I only get them when I press the button. My stomach is a little tighter for it, but it should help me to be able to eat sooner.

The nights here are the worst. I tend to dream a lot (especially with the pain meds) and the dreams tend to involve me not being a surgery patient. So I often wake up and want to move, or at least roll over, or take a few sips of water. Then I feel a little trapped by my inability to move. Last night I woke up Faith by throwing a stuffed panda at her. She asked what was wrong, and really nothing was wrong specifically, I just needed to not be the only one awake and not able to move really. I ended up putting the TV on falling back asleep with it on.

That's another strange thing about the hospital: I watch the entire Today Show. All summer I worked right above where it taped and maybe turned it on twice while getting ready for work. Now I watch all 67 hours of it every day and get excited when they show 30 Rock.

Enough for now. Stomach is rumbling. I'm told that means my bowels are waking up. I like to think of two little furry things stretching and yawning to represent my bowels waking up.

Day 3

I'm feeling a bit better today. I got the dressing off my incision this morning, which was nice. I'm still just on IVs and am itching to get back to liquids and then food, but the doc knows best. Today has a lot of walking and breathing exercises in store like yesterday. That's about all... no news is good news.

Day 2 in hospital

Surgery was yesterday. All went well. I was freezing and shaking when I cam out. I was pretty freaked out. They covered me with hot blankets and I warmed up. After a while I was moved back to my room where I was in and out of consciousness all night. I was told I had to go for a walk in the morning and dreaded it all night. Faith slept in a sleeper chair next to me and attended to me along with my nurse, Kim. Kim is a sweetheart. I can't have anything to drink (not even ice chips) so I have a little swab to keep my mouth relatively moist. Faith kept having to give it to me in the night. I went for my first walk this morning and it wasn't as bad as I had dreaded, although not really fun. I've been on 3 more since then. After the second I started to get very short of breath but my oxygen was high. My day nurse, Ellen (also really sweet) increased my pain meds so it wouldn't hurt as much to breath. Also I have a fun thing I have to breath into to keep from getting pneumonia ten times an hour. And then there's that stupid catheter!

So basically, I'm in pain, not liking walking, hard to get comfy, but being treated very well and feel better with every hour it seems. I know it doesn't sound it, but I'm in pretty good spirits, just a bit grumpy. This has drained me, so I'm off to lay down.

Night before surgery #2

So... that last post took me a couple of weeks to write. I went into more details than I meant to. Now I am 8 hours away from surgery #2. I'll later post the details of how I got to this point, but basically I'm getting and RPLND, which means my doctor tomorrow will cut me from sternum to just above my groin, pull out my digestive organs and go attack all of my lymph nodes in the area. Then he packs everything back in, sews me up and I recover and am hopefully cancer-free. Today was pretty crappy. I could only have liquids and had to take some laxatives for "bowel prep" and thus had a wonderful day of starving and horrible diarrhea. Anyway, I'm a little nervous about the surgery, but mostly just want it to be over with. If everything goes well, I'll be home within a week and back to Florida in a couple after that. Anyways, I'm going to try to get some sleep. I also want to say welcome, because this blog is going public as of 5 minutes from now.

Discovery and Surgery #1

This blog is mostly for my friends and family to keep tabs on me and for me to keep busy. However, I'm planning on posting the link on the TC-Cancer.com message boards so it can be a resource for someone else in my position. I have found that I have an insatiable desire to learn everything I can about my cancer and the procedures I'm going through and I really appreciate all the personal stories posted online. So this blog is also my contribution to the next guy who goes through this crap.

A little about me. I'm a law student in DC and am working for the summer here in NYC for a large full-service law firm. I moved up here in mid-May and a couple weeks later I felt a dull pain in my groin, as if I had been kicked there, but not that hard. I kind of just ignored it until it came back. I then felt myself up and noticed that the right fellow was harder than the left. I didn't really notice any lump like a lot of guys, just that it was harder and more sensitive. I don't have a GP and I especially didn't have a doc up in NY, so I looked up some urologists on my insurance company's website and started calling and making appointments. The closest one I could get was about 5 or 6 days away on June 5th.

I didn't tell anyone about my problem before I went to the urologist for a number of reasons. First of all, it's pretty embarrassing to tell anyone you have a problem in your balls. Secondly I didn't want anyone to worry about me before I knew what was up. It really makes me feel for the kids who get TC in high school or earlier when they can't just go to a doctor on their own or would be embarrassed to do so.

So anyway, I skipped out of work and went to the urologist who I had picked at random. He asked me a few questions about the pain and then examined me. He said there was definitely something there, but needed to send me for bloodwork and an ultrasound to see if it was cancer. He also told me that TC is rare and so it probably isn't cancer. I was scheduled for the ultrasound that Friday (June 9).

I went and got bloodwork the next morning (06/06/06), then went to work. After work there was a cocktail party at the Chelsea Piers for summer associates. On my way there I began to feel a bit of pain in the groin again. We got to the place and fought our way to the bar. I ordered drinks for my coworkers and suddenly the pain was too much. I managed to get the drinks and pass them off and then started stumbling to the bathroom. My vision was a bit blurry and I felt nauseous from the pain. I made it to the bathroom and then the nausea passed. I managed to fight my way out of the crowd (rejected a goody bag) and got to a cab and went to the nearest ER.

That night in the ER was a lot of fun. They gave me some pain meds and about 75 people took a gander at my bits and pieces. One nurse even stuck a swab up my pee hole (definitely an out hole). Then I was sent upstairs for an ultrasound. The technician said it was usually not cancer, but he had to make sure. He lubed up the boys and rubbed an ultrasound wand over them for about 20 minutes and sent me back to the ER. I hung out there with some really nice nurses and some completely insane patients for a few hours. The doc on duty informed me it was indeed cancer and that it would have to be removed. Then I called Faith and my mom to tell them what was up. They both seemed to take it harder than I did (especially mom). I got a room around 3:00 AM and finally passed out.

The next day (Wednesday) was a lot of waiting around. I talked to Dr. Marans (my new urologist) and he explained the orchiectomy procedure a bit better and said he could do it the next day. I waited around for a long time and finally late that night had a CT scan to check my lungs to see if the cancer had spread. My mom and sister got into town and I ate some really crappy hospital food (my first food in a couple of days) and went to sleep.

The surgery the next day (June 8th) was really not that invasive considering they took out righty. I again waited around... till around 3 (I was originally told it would be 1, but by then I know hospitals run on a different time-table than the rest of the world). The anesthesiologist explained what he was going to do and Dr. Marans came and explained the surgery again. He asked if they had marked the side yet, and I told me no. He gave me a pen to do it myself but it was out of ink so he just marked me. They wheeled me in to the O.R. and started to prep me. I don't remember too many details after that but one of the nurses at one point turned away when I was taking off my scrub pants which was considerate but completely unnescesary since I had now shown my stuff to half the hospital staff. I woke up (apparently a little over and hour later) and was staring at the anesthesiologist again and asked him if he was going to put me out. The next moment I was awake enough to realize that the sugery had already occurred. I waited in the recovery room for a few minutes but was not at all groggy after a minute or two.

I was wheeled back to my room and then went through the fun process of transferring to the bed. I was on pain meds, but it still was rather uncomfortable. Faith go into town and I finally had a piece of pizza that night (brought in by my sister). I had a dull pain that became very sharp when I tried to use my abs at all (standing, leaning forward, some movements in the bed). I took a look at my main man in the mirror at one point. Looked pretty much like you would expect it to if you yoinked one out. The incision, which is about 2 inches and is right on what they like to call my bikini line (odd term since I've never worn a bikini), was pretty well covered so I didn't look at it right away. When I did, it didn't seem to be too bad.

The next morning I took a cab back to my apartment with my mom and Faith and stayed there pretty much for the next two days. I had Tylenol with codeine but moved on to regular Tylenol pretty quickly as the stronger stuff gave me headaches. The pain really wasn't too bad until I tried to stand or sit back down. I soon wanted to get out of the house and walked around the block with Faith a few times on Saturday (6/10). By Sunday (6/11) I was up to walking around Central Park for a pretty decent distance. Monday I went to an event at the Central Park Zoo and stopped taking the pain meds and I was back to work by Tuesday.

About a week later I got the results that it was an embrynol tumor with vascular invasion (cancer cells found in the blood vessels surrounding the testis). The CT and chest X-Rays came up clean, except for something on the left side that Dr. Marans was not concerned about because of the way TC tends to spread. It almost always spreads first to the lymph nodes in the abdomen and does so generally on the side of the original tumor and then to the other side. Dr. Marans was not concerned with the possibly too numerous nodes showing up on the left side because there was nothing on the left side. Dr. Marans recommended going to the TC experts at Memorial Sloan Kettering to see how I should proceed. I had already decided that I was going to do this (from my research online) and so my mom and I went through the process of getting an appointment there (arduous mostly because of the pain in the arse it was to get my files and films from St. Vincent's). Meanwhile I was back at work, not really feeling too many effects of the surgery (although my mom did have to put my socks and shoes on me the first couple of days of work), and partying like a summer associate in NYC should. Then I went to Dr. Motzer (an oncologist at MSK) for my first appointment...

Hello

...and welcome to my narcissistic, oversharing, thinking-out-loud, little portion of the web where you can track my every thought, feeling, desire, need, and emotion over the next few weeks which promise to be some of the most harrowing of my life. I'll begin the journey soon by explaining how I got where I am now (one-balled and about to be gutted) but for now I'm going to run outside and enjoy the wonderful weather and a cold frothy beverage while I still can.