He made it sound so simple. So straightforward. So easy. It's growing, he said. In fact, it's doubled in size, so we need to do something about it. I would recommend we surgically remove it. Pull the weed by the roots from the garden. We could irradiate it, or ablate it (with heat or cold), try more chemo, but none of those gives 100% control. With surgery, we get it all. We could go minimally invasive, but I'd have to remove lung by anatomic sections instead of by feel and you'll lose more. You're a runner, so we want to preserve as much lung tissue as possible. So, I'd recommend we do a wedge resection via thoracotomy. I'll cut under your arm up to your shoulder blade, through a rib and the muscles and move everything aside. From there, imagine a pea inside a basketball. I'll make a wedge shaped cut down to the tumor and remove it. Then, I'll feel the rest of your right lung. Even though the CT shows only the one nodule,I'll be able to assess the middle and lower lobes too and address any areas of concern. Any questions?
Nope. Seems pretty straight forward Doc. Questions? Questions I know the answer to, I don't really need to ask, right? I used to say that phrase in a very flip manner, mostly in regards to situations where I've heard it said it's better to ask forgiveness than permission, as in, "Are we allowed to do that?" "Questions I know the answer to, I don't really need to ask." Wink, wink. Well, I wasn't feeling quite so flip this time, but the principle still held. I knew the answers. Is it going to hurt, I wanted to ask? Yep. Will it show up again? Maybe. Maybe not. We don't know. Will everything be OK? Will anything ever be the same? Can I rewind 2 years and get a do-over?
I'm scheduled for surgery on Friday, Sept. 16 down at MD Anderson. My surgeon is Dr Wayne Hofstetter. He's Deputy Chair of the Dept. of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery, so he has some pretty impressive credentials. He's about my age and wants to own a ranch someday. We'll have to invite him for a visit. Maybe I'll bring him a Downey Ranch hat. In any event, we sat there the other day together going over all of this and he took out a little purple marker and proceeded to graffiti me. On my ribs under my right arm, he wrote,
Nope. Seems pretty straight forward Doc. Questions? Questions I know the answer to, I don't really need to ask, right? I used to say that phrase in a very flip manner, mostly in regards to situations where I've heard it said it's better to ask forgiveness than permission, as in, "Are we allowed to do that?" "Questions I know the answer to, I don't really need to ask." Wink, wink. Well, I wasn't feeling quite so flip this time, but the principle still held. I knew the answers. Is it going to hurt, I wanted to ask? Yep. Will it show up again? Maybe. Maybe not. We don't know. Will everything be OK? Will anything ever be the same? Can I rewind 2 years and get a do-over?
I'm scheduled for surgery on Friday, Sept. 16 down at MD Anderson. My surgeon is Dr Wayne Hofstetter. He's Deputy Chair of the Dept. of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery, so he has some pretty impressive credentials. He's about my age and wants to own a ranch someday. We'll have to invite him for a visit. Maybe I'll bring him a Downey Ranch hat. In any event, we sat there the other day together going over all of this and he took out a little purple marker and proceeded to graffiti me. On my ribs under my right arm, he wrote,
I've been tagged.
Those are his initials, and the "yes" indicates this is the correct location. Wouldn't want to start whacking at the wrong lung. He gave me the marker, because as I shower, or work up a good running sweat, I'll need to redraw it periodically. Hmmm. I have the marker. Maybe I should take this unique opportunity to write some other message. I've thought about drawing a zipper where they'll be cutting. I've thought about writing "Boston Marathon Runner." "Good luck!" crossed my mind, but didn't seem quite right. "Measure twice, cut once." sounds a little too Bob Vila. Actually, a treasure map just occurred to me. I may have to get some more markers.
Maybe we'll make this another contest. Although, after the "Save the Anus" debacle, I'm more than a little worried about what you all will come up with. But what the heck. Here goes nothing. Put your suggestions in the comments section below and we'll have a few laughs. Of course, I'll be already under by the time our artistic endeavors are revealed to the prep team, but if we're really creative, I should hear about it afterwards. Have fun with this, folks - nothing's sacred. We could all use the laughs!
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