I'm Back

Here's the pre-op cancerous me (left), and the cancer-less me with improved heart function and the girls. Contrary to the artist's rendering, I did not pee in my pants prior to the operation.

I'm back home. I would have been out even earlier if the complications from my previous bouts in my twenties with pneumothorax hadn't popped up, but I'm glad the docs had the wherewithal to clean that up as well. A weak lung wall was leaking and that made them put in a second drain and leave it there until my lungs were back up to full speed. At one time I had seven different tubes and drains attached to various parts of my anatomy, and the removal of each one was responsible for a celebration. I'm now the proud owner of a nice five-inch gash under my right armpit, accompanied by two smaller scars underneath where they stuck in the camera and had the drains. I also have a week's worth of pain killer and sleeping pills, but the dreams have been so vivid and incredibly stupid that I figured my imagination doesn't need the extra fuel. Now I'm focusing on taking long walks and getting various massages from M until I get my strength back. (Did I mention she gave me this incredible head massage while we were waiting for the nurses to come wheel me to the OR? I was so relaxed by the time they showedup, they had to pour me onto the operating table.)

On November 5th  I meet again with the doctors and get x-rayed to see how well I'm doing. And then I'm going to have to make some decisions about whether to keep to this lifestyle of the long commute, or turn into a local hippie, surfer, or one of the other groups of people around here that seem to live without a visible source of income.

Anyway, again thanks for everything. m and I decided that since my lungs now take up less space my heart has room to get bigger so my love for her, M and all my family and friends can continue to grow.

Thank you very, very much

I'll write more personally when I have access to my own computer (this is from the hospital's Internet Corner), but thanks to everyone for all the thoughts, prayers and concern for my condition. I've never realized how important those can be, but it was a huge, comforting feeling of support. Thank you.

A deep, deep breath

Almost one week to the hour from when I went under, under the glare of the overhead lights, I've had the last of various tubes (which numbered 7 at the peak) removed and feel incredibly free. The last one was the second of two drains from my right lung, and it seems like I've been dragging it around and pushing it out of the way and sleeping with it, and sharing meals with it for ages. I was getting close to giving it a name. But I won't miss it for a minute. Its removal heralds the opening of the hospital exit doors tomorrow and I'll be on my way home to finish the recuperation there.

I can't deny the last few days have been driving me crazy. I felt pretty good other than when the drain tube would poke the inside of my lung everytime I took a deep breath. I'd asked one of the nurses, "Can I walk around?" and when she said yes, I waited until no one was around, put on my clothes (the drain bag was still banging my thigh, but wtf) and skipped out. Made it down the street to our old house in Hiroo, just to look around, and wandered around the neighborhood until I got tired. I thought I was home free until the evening when the nurse who was attaching the drip asked me. "Did you go outside today?" "Just around the outside of the hospital," I said. "That's odd," she said. "We got a call from someone who told us some foreigner was wandering around Hiroo. And he had a drain bag hanging out of his jacket."

 "Well, we all look pretty much the same," I said.

I was lightly chewed out by pretty much every one of the staff, but they were all smiling.

A Breather

Anyone here for sunset and fish stories is in the wrong place, at least for a week or so--though it is a beautiful afternoon, after a day spent swimming all the way beyond the pier and back in the still warm and totally calm sea, spreading chicken shit and building some raised beds for the vegetable garden, and watching some egrets, seagulls and a crow or two fighting over a dead fish on the beach.

Spent most of the day yesterday going over the final operation protocol with the surgeon, getting an ultra sound check-up of my heart to see if it could handle it, and getting the run-down with the anesthetician. There were a lot of diagrams drawn, papers gone over, and everything is very fascinating in a scientific way (You can do that!? Damn!) until, of course, it reaches the last few paragraphs: "Oh yes, this says there's a possibility--a very slight one, of course--that you could die from complications. Could you sign here, please?"

So it's cool and scary at the same time--like a good horror story. It's going to be one of the least intrusive surgeries they can do, making one incision for the cutting and another small incision for the endoscopy camera which they'll watch on a tv monitor (I'd love to get a copy of the DVD) as they cut. The anesthetician was a character, though a horrible sketch artist. I've been going over his drawings, and I'm either going to have two tubes put down my throat to carry oxygen and anesthetic to my lungs, after which the one to my right lung will be turned off during the operation . . . or I'm supposed to make a right somewhere after the road splits just before the convenience store.

Oh yes. The surgeon told me that during their team meeting to discuss the operation, one of the nurses mentioned that she'd been on the team that did my hernia operation at the same hospital five years ago. "So," he said, and spread his hands wide. It was like someone inviting you to a party with the reassurance that you'll know at least one of the people there.

The weird thing is that it did kind of work.

中止 Cancelled

It's more than wet. It poured all yesterday, got very heavy last night, and rain has kept falling without a letup all day today. Unfortunate, because today was supposed to be the big undokai athletic meet. Teams from the four villages that run along the coast here--Sajima, Ashina, Akiya, and Kuruwa--were supposed to compete at various events that make up the usual undokai. Races--sprints, relays--and other events.  I don't know about the other villages, but we in Akiya even had t-shirts prepared for the big day, with logos, one in Japanese on the front, and one in English on the back. But the downpour soaked the school grounds, and so we'll have to wait until next year to see if M is very good at throwing small balls into an elevated basket and m very good at eating bread hanging on a string, and running in the relay. (I was supposed to run the three-legged race with m but we couldn't agree to do it.)

The front logo

And the one on the back

Homework

 

I'm taking today off. I can't pretend that it's not exhausting, making the long commute, being in the office and concentrating on various things with the big event--the upcoming operation--hanging over my head. I don't know how other people handle it, but I'm finding it hard to go more than two or three days without a break. So, instead of rushing out in the morning while everyone else is just finishing breakfast, I got to hang around, and watch M get m's free-spirited curly hair under control, and send her off to school.

 

Watching her upload that fairly heavy schoolbag with all its attachments on her skinny frame had me in stitches. She's off to pick up her friend at her house, and then they continue picking up other friends until they have a whole posse of kids making the 1k trek to the school. There aren't a lot of sidewalks in this area, but most of it is down backstreets, and the pack of kids definitely is more visible than if she were alone. 

I think I'll spend the day just staying healthy, maybe take a long walk down the coast. I don't know how long the recuperation will take before I can do yard work, and we figured it would be best to get the heavy stuff done now. So last weekend, I shoveled a ton of dirt we'd ordered from the pile where they dumped it in the yard (below) to the vegetable garden area to start preparing for next spring (though we might try to do a few winter vegetables, like broccoli or something).

Bright spots

 The end of the summer put on some spectacular sunset displays. I didn't get home in time to see a lot of them, but the ones I did see--on weekends and holidays--were amazing. These are all shot from our front window. The one above is shot with a friend's 200mm lens, since I don't have one.

 

This one (above) is on one of the two days they call--as I've mentioned before--"Diamond Fuji" days, when--on its way across the horizon--the sun sets just behind the crown of the mountain.  If you look straight out our window facing the sea this angle is at about 45 degrees to the right. In mid winter the sun sets straight out the window; mid summer probably 60 degrees to the right.

  

This last one is an example of a tumor seen on a  PET CT scan, almost exactly the way my tumor looked when they first showed it to me. The bright spot is where the radioactive tracer has collected at the tumor. I met with the surgeon yesterday, and we've decided to have the surgery on October 18th. The MRI of my head and the CT of my insides have shown that there isn't any spread, so I'm very thankful for that. They're going to have to take out the middle lobe of my right lung, but the lung capacity tests were good, and the doc said I may lose as little as 10 percent of my capacity. I don't have much time to make a difference, I guess, but I'm going to start trying to up my breathing capacity before the operation.