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Posted

Hey, guess what! I'm back... Here's the update I sent to my Friends & Family email group:

All,

I'm out of surgery and out of gall! Besides feeling like I've been kicked in the stomach by a plow horse, I'm doing pretty good (not a quarter horse, a horse with BIG FEETS!). Laparoscopy is wonderful - makes ya look like you've been squeezed by Freddy Kruger - that "Nightmare on Elm Street" guy with the razors on his fingers. Nice little additions to the shark bite of February - my right side is beginning to look like a tangle (tango?) with a meat grinder!

Quick background on laparoscopy - it's a process in which a few small cuts are made in place of one big one. I have a hole over my belly button that was used to pump up my tummy with carbon dioxide (like a roadside "coon balloon" - rancid roadkill inflation) and then as the entry portal for the "scope". Three more incisions were made under my ribcage and towards my right side to "chop stick" around and get to my gall bladder. This all happened while watching through my belly button in the "stage" of my blown up belly. The doctor grabbed hold of the gall bladder, emptied it on the outside of my body, then removed this nasty little deflated balloon through one of the three holes. THEN, they put surgi-strips and tape on the smaller holes, and only God and the operating staff know what is under the cotton above my navel (50 billion stitches??). Over all this stuff, patches of clear tape were put on that immediately filled with about a half teaspoon of my blood mixed with numbing agent. Sure is one gross looking mess, and it's on ME! Ewwwww!!!

So, today I had some questions on these gross looking things on my tummy - the biggest question being if it was okay that one of 'em was still full of liquid while the other two had dried. Yep, that's fine. AND, I was supposed to report any "new" pain, so I told the doctor that the hurt was now in a line pretty much under my ribs - he said that that is normal, as the tools have a tendency to rub on the ribs (pretty picture) - and that MOST people complain of pain when the lungs brush the diaphragm and push on the liver...well hell, I ain't got THAT problem! ;)

I told him that the reason I was concerned about all this on the second day after surgery is because I had taken the "walking" for exercise to heart and went Christmas shopping for over three hours on Wednesday and I thought I might have overdone it. He said if I was out for THAT long, I was doing REAL good and was better off than most people. (He's the one that gave me the GOOD drugs - I can't drive, but I can CHARGE!! hehehe)

We, of the household, have some concerns with liver condition as it is one of the places lung cancer likes to metastasize to - the doctor told Mark after surgery (still during MY "nap time") that my liver looks GREAT (not just "good"). We are happy with THAT news.

So, the skinny is that even losing parts can't keep a woman from the mall (poor Mark!).

Follow up with the Gall Bladder Guru is Monday (12/22), the same day as follow-up CT scan and blood panel for the oncologist. Keep ya'lls fingers crossed! We will have results from the oncologist on 12/29.

Love to all and Happy Holidays! (Sorry about the lack of Christmas cards - I bought some in November with the best of intentions.....I put the cards in a "safe place" so I could get them mailed out well before Christmas - I figure I'll find the cards around January 8.... Ahhh, the trials and tribulations of the LEGAL drug addict - this is my brain on drugs!)

Mark & Becky

Posted

Ok Becky but you didn't get such a long absence excused. Next time we'll need a note for you to be off so long. Don't make me call you again :wink: .

Glad all is well....

Posted

Hi Becky, Glad to hear things went well. But let me remind you !!!! that you were Awol from chat on tuesday and wednesday night(thats okay though gave us a good chance to take YOUR personal inventory).

I hope things continue to go well for you .

Happy holidays. DavidA

Posted

Becky,

Glad to hear things seem to be going well. What a wonderul Christmas present! I hope you don't get charged with a CUI (Charging Under the Influence)!

Have a most Blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year!

God Bless,

MO

Posted

Hey Girl;

So glad your back on track and your wit is better than ever. :D:D

hope to talk to ya on Tues. night

God bless and be well

Bobmc- NSCLC- stageIIB- left pneumonectomy- 5/2/01

MRI's taken 12/18 - 2 brain mets found- named em Frick & Frack

"Absolutely insist on enjoying life today!"

Posted

Becky:

Great news on the laporscopic surgery. Also, as one who has liver mets, that's good news on the liver. The news about the liver mets was worse then the first time they told me I had lung cancer.

Have a very Merry Christmas.

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