Zzzzzzzzzzz...

I'm doing what I do after all my surgeries. Sleep. I figure the more I sleep, the more my body doesn't require any energy and it can all go towards healing me. Also, I get bored to death and I only want to be put in a coma and wake up when I'm fine. If I can't be out exercising, what's the point of anything? :-)

I'm a little sore in my neck, but not too bad. The part that is bumming me out is that I have a big patch over my neck. Normally, it would not be a problem whatsoever. However, in 6 days I get my photos taken for my Colondar calendar. So, instead of looking good for that photo shoot, wasn't able to workout for the past 8 weeks. My muscles deteriorated on my right side to be visibly smaller than on the left. This was due to the brain impulses not getting to the muscles at all. It was like they had died. So, no muscles and a big patch on my neck. Won't I look adorable? :-(

Easiest surgery yet...

Yesterday I had my herniated disc in my neck repaired. It was a lot less painful than Lasik for me. (Lasik felt like sand and shampoo was in my eye for a couple of days.) I woke up from surgery and was hooked to pain meds via I.V. I could press the button every ten minutes if I wanted to. I didn't need to. I only pressed it when I was going to sleep and that was only because they scared me by saying, "don't let your pain develop because it's hard to bring back down again." So what happened when I pressed the button? (Either I launched a nuclear missile, opened someone's garage door, or became itchy on every square inch of my body. You guess.)

I had to be given Benadryl (sp?) for the itchiness. Then that made me so groggy. Had I just layed there with no meds I would have been fine. But I had to take meds for the sole reason of repairing the damage from the meds I didn't really need! Ugh.

I'm home now. I'm not suppose to talk for a couple of days. Follow up visit is 9 June. I have to get an x-ray on 8 June. Then back to I.V. for cancer prevention on 10 June. (Admit it, you wish you could have my life!)

Joke time...

"Why haven't you called me?" I said, "I can't call everyone I want. My new phone has no five on it." He said, "How long have you had it?" I said, "I don't know...my calendar has no sevens on it." -- Steven Wright

I got a call from my surgeon's office today. "We've hit a snag. We can't do the surgery on Monday because that's a holiday." (That's probably why I asked last week, "do you do surgeries on holidays?" when you replied "yes.") She continued, "so we can either do it tomorrow or Wednesday the 27th." (Well, given that I already postponed tomorrow's scheduled surgery because my oncologist said it was too soon after my cancer treatment, so I'm going to say no to tomorrow again.)

Okay, so it's now on Wednesday the 27th. "By the way, were my blood counts okay for surgery?" "Oh, I haven't given the results to the doctor yet." "Oh, so all this could change again." (How about if once you see my obituary, you make the appointment for the next day?)

First it's a pain in the butt...

...now's it's a pain in the neck. What could possibly be next?

So, the latest on my herniated disc neck surgery is that I am scheduled for 25 May. Yep, that is Memorial Day. I spent last year's 4th of July in the hospital for surgery and my birthday last year also in the hospital for surgery. So, I have a good, proven track record with holidays.

The only thing that could prevent this surgery date is my bloodwork. I will have labs drawn on Monday and let's hope I'm given the go-ahead. I need to get back to swinging! (That's a softball bat, not exchanging wives for the evening.)

History of the Colondar...

As you probably know from following my blog, I'm going to be in a calendar for colon cancer suvivors for 2010. The photo shoot is in June. Take a look at the history which is now on Youtube:

Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiSCszlVbgs
Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bsNu3W4Ob0
Part Three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2TUhJEmk_k
Part Four: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjuMI8vtfVE

Why me??

You know, throughout my entire year of surgeries and chemo, I never once asked, "why me?" So, now that my herniated disc has become more painful than anything in my life, I'm going to ask. WHY ME??? What did I do?

My physical therapy was helping slightly over the two weeks since I started. But then a few days ago, I woke up and I was worse than ever before. Time to see the neuro surgeon. He looked at my MRI and said, "do you have pain here, here, and here?" Yep, those were the spots. So, I knew he knew what he was talking about. He tested my arm strength and I had none in my right tricep. So, he knew it was time for surgery. Sadly, he's booked until 20 May. Ugh.

I was supposed to leave for Europe on the 18th to celebrate the end of chemo. That's out the window. Does anyone know if I can get any of my money back from Travelocity for hotels and flights?

Oh, yeah...btw. The reason I started this blog... I have a CAT scan for cancer tomorrow. I almost forgot that cancer is my main issue!