GAME ON!

Note: a couple of weeks ago, I wrote my most brilliant piece ever. It would have would have won the Nobel Prize for Blogger Blogging.(1) But just as I was about to publish, it disappeared.(2) Alas, what future generations will miss! I had writer's block as I tried to reconstruct it, but more important events have intervened.(3)  This entry was written has a word document before I pasted it here.  Duh.

As Clear as Mud

Remember all that forgetfulness and falling stuff?(4)  Maybe it was a small stroke. Maybe it was the mass growing into my brain. Maybe it was a side effect from the antifungal medication. Or maybe it was from the sandwich I made with the bread that was growing hair.(5)  It was time for an MRI.  An MRI should detect a stroke and can measure tumor growth. It can't detect medication side effects, and it certainly cannot detect the sandwich I made with the bread that was growing hair, but it's a start.  So I had the MRI a week ago.

The doctor called that night to tell me that the mass is growing into the back of my naso-whatsis.(6)  The doctor was so concerned by this that they recommended I consider getting a Percutaneous Endoscopy Placed Gastrostomy (PEG) tube because it would soon become impossible for me to swallow, and thus to get an endoscope down my throat.(7)  The procedure they would use if that happened would be much harder on me. 

The doc then described in disturbing detail how, for a PEG (the gentler procedure), they would shove the endoscope down my esophagus into my stomach.  There, they would shine a light so bright it would be visible from the outside. They would use a scalpel to cut towards the light.  Then they would pull through a tube that looks a little like the alien that burst out of poor John Hurt's stomach and leave it in my stomach, sticking out.  I would then have to use that tube to eat.  Although my grandfather enjoyed the smooth way vodka went down his own PEG, I didn't find the idea enticing in the least. 

After this, K/BWE, Willow the Dog, and I had a little freakout, while the Professor and Katie the Cat obliviously watched baseball. We did feel better in mere minutes when we then joined five of our best friends for our regular Tuesday night online game, where my job is mainly to make other people laugh.

The official MRI report came back the next morning. The radiologist, Dr.Glow, did not notice any significant changes since the last one they have access to--May 2019.  That was before the surgery, so it's a little weird, but when is it not a little weird with me?  Weirder still, they see no sign of tumor inside my braincase at all.  As certain people said in the debate tonight, let me be absolutely clear.  She did see tumor in my nasopharynx and my sinuses just like before.  I called her for clarification about the intracranial part of the mass.  She disagrees with the interpretation of the May, 2019 MRI.  That means that not even the radiologists agree about what's going on.

She did not see a new stroke, which weirds me out.  My symptoms have improved.  That's consistent with stroke, not with tumor or medication reaction.  That leaves hairy bread sandwich.  I guess I'll accept that for now.  I will be curious to know what the folks at the larger hospitals think.

But events have moved fast, and that's no longer where the real action in this story is!

Back to the City of Steel!

That morning, we received a call from the ENT Surgeon of Steel. The Game is on! He and the neurosurgeon have agreed that this surgery will happen! We took the opportunity to press him for details.

First of all, I wanted to reassure myself that this wasn't a crazy move. I asked him how often he and his partner did this kind of surgery.  The answer was, every week for 13 years and similar surgeries every weekday, and they have a good record. That's the kind of answer you want from a surgeon. The single most important factor in determining how confidant you can be in your surgical team is how many times and how often they have done the surgery in question.(8)  This was really good.

I asked where they will get the flap (graft) to patch the hole in my skull.  He said he would look for nearby tissue in the back of my nose. I expressed skepticism since, as I said, I have had an absurd amount of radiation to that area.(9) I reminded him of how much radiation I have had, and asked if he had ever seen someone that had had that amount. "Um, that's a lot." However, he quickly responded by saying that, if necessary, they will take some subcutaneous tissue from under my scalp, drill a little hole somewhere (I forgot to ask exactly WHERE he will be drilling - that seems important! I'll have to ask more about that later), tunnel the tissue and its blood supply under the skin, and pull it through.  Then they would patch it over the hole. 

I swear, I did NOT make this up!  I am very willing to do it, but how did they even conceive of such a weird procedure??

Anyway, they are so used to doing this procedure, that they actually bored with it.  To keep from falling asleep, they hang themselves upside down in the operating room, one hand each holding a paddle for their ping pong game and one hand each doing the surgery.  The ENT Surgeon of Steel is ahead despite the fact that his glasses often fall of during games. (10)

He also thought getting a PEG tube was unnecessary. So much for that idea.

Since then, events have proceded apace.(11)  K/BWE has made the appointments (because she rocks). On November 4, I have an appointment in the City of Steel to get a preoperative evaluation from an internal medicine doc. The next day, I see the surgeons, get my angiogram, and enter the hospital.  On November 6, let the wild rumpus start!

(1) I have the best words!

(2) Thanks, Blogger!

(3) Also, it's distracting to have sports on all weekend. Since the early spring, the Professor has become a sports fanatic, so I'm starting to follow baseball again. Incidentally, true to his nickname, the Professor now knows every fact ever known about baseball, and he's starting on hockey.  I am proud that, since our home city's team didn't make the playoffs, he is rooting for the baseball team of my old home in the pennant.

(4) Oct. 2 post

(5) I think it was a small stroke. The symptoms have improved. Small strokes are actually a yawner for me.  I've had a couple.  The whole idea starts to get old, so they're not even good for thrills. 

Anyway, I have put all my money on small stroke because the symptoms mostly cleared up in a matter of weeks. When you have a small stroke, a little part of your thinking thingy goes kaput, but the neurons around the dead spot quickly build work-arounds that are almost as good as new.  I am no longer forgetting so much or falling down wells during long hikes.  (I will, dear patients, have a full neurological workup to make sure I am ready before I return to work, hopefully in December.)

(6) A.k.a. my nasopharynx, the part where the throat comes up behind my (and your) nose.  That is the source of many of my recent troubles since that is where my radiation-abused soft tissues melted away to expose radiation-murdered bone that is allowing fungus to grow and pass through into my braincase. 

(7) So named because it was invented by somebody named Peg, apparently.  By the way, if you have a gastrostomy tube, you may want to check out Amazon. They have (not kidding) several stylish options for belts to hold the outside end of the tube.  I want mine in black lace and silk. 

(8) There are exceptions.  In the early 20th century, for 20 years fake doctor John Romulus Brinkley was famous at first for implanting goat testicles in men to treat impotence and then in men or woment for a 27 different ailments, including flatulence.  He claimed consistent success and got very rich, but he died bankrupt from multiple malpractice, wrongful death, and fraud suits. (Wikipedia on J. R. Brinkley)  Interestingly, he also was extremely influential in the history of country music and radio.  Pope Brock (Pope is his first name, not his title.) wrote a fantastic and hilarious biography of him called Charlatan.  I highly recommend it. (See Charlatan on Pope Brock's webpage) 

(9) It's the equivalent of snorting plutonium powder every day for 6 months. 

(10) The ENT Surgeon of Steel is ahead 460 matches to 430. 

(11) K/BWE FedExed copies of my MRI all over the place, we await their reading. 

*                    *                    *

This dog is steeling herself for what's coming.*

 *Thank you, TCD for the excellent pun!
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