Step Back From The Abyss, Please...
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You got Jello???? All I got was something they called broth, but smelled (and looked) like pond scum. You're right about the pain - it's indescribable, and in my case when the thing burst there was no relief. The pulse went up, pressure dropped like a stone, and suddenly the blood count went ballistic. I was expecting the doc to use laprascopic ( I have no idea how to spell that) means, but woke with an 8" slice across me. He told me later that they needed the large opening to flush and vacuum the toxic stuff out of the abdomen. One thing (of many) I don't understand is, why don't they use the ultrasound technology more. I would think that any operator who can resolve an image of a baby growing inside a woman could have run the sucker across my belly and seen immediately whether the appendix was distended or burst. Why don't they use that more, especially for things involving soft tissue?
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
Roger Wright wrote:
why don't they use the ultrasound technology more
In my case they probably didn't have one 35 years ago at the crappy hospital we had to drive 45 minutes to get to. When my parents went in to see me after the surgery there was blood all over the bed, up the wall, on the floor. Apparently they had tried to put in my IV and "missed" or something and not cleaned any of it up before visiting time. From what I heard my dad nearly tore the place apart when he saw that. :)
"The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying." - David Ogilvy
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No, there were no symptoms, and never would be with this sort of cancer. No pain, no weight loss, nothing. The weight loss is strictly due to being contrained in a bed with nothing but saline for nourishment. It's always been very hard for me to gain and retain weight. Heck, it took 7 years of tae kwon do and two years of weight-lifting for me to reach 145 lbs. To be knocked back down to 118 lbs is a hell of a setback - I haven't weighed this little since I was 12 years old. If I'd had any other doctor, the normal course in this area would have been a year of chemo- or radiation therapy after the appendectomy. Both my father and step-father had their bouts with cancer; both beat it, neither ever recovered from the treatment. One had chemo, the other radiation, and neither ever was able to function normally again. Two close friends had cancer in the abdomen recently and received both radiation and chemotherapy. Both died anyway, after a couple years of agonizing treatment. The bottom line to me is, traditional treatments are barbaric, desparate last resorts, not an option if any other choice is available. This surgeon had the experince and wisdom to recommend immediate isolation and removal of tissue that may be affected - about a foot of large and small intestine, plus all the lymphatic network in the vicinity. It worked, and although it's taking a long time to heal, there is no follow-up required or recommended. It's done. :-D I'm no cancer expert, but I'd guess that pre-cancerous is a lot better than the other kind. It sounds like you may have a tendency toward developing these things, and that's why they want to keep a watch on things. It's a pain, but probably well worth the effort to prevent anything from getting out of control. Good luck!:rose: As to a Mediterranean diet, I have no idea what that may be, but if it includes belly dancing ladies, I'm game. :-D
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
Roger Wright wrote:
No, there were no symptoms, and never would be with this sort of cancer. No pain, no weight loss, nothing. The weight loss is strictly due to being contrained in a bed with nothing but saline for nourishment. It's always been very hard for me to gain and retain weight. Heck, it took 7 years of tae kwon do and two years of weight-lifting for me to reach 145 lbs. To be knocked back down to 118 lbs is a hell of a setback - I haven't weighed this little since I was 12 years old.
I don't suppose you'd be willing to trade metabolisms for a while? I'd be willing to go for upto 100ish pounds before switching back...
You know, every time I tried to win a bar-bet about being able to count to 1000 using my fingers I always got punched out when I reached 4.... -- El Corazon
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1. I am very glad you are back. 2. I am even more glad you are all right after what nearly happened. 3. Is healthcare that bad in the US?
Cheers, Vikram.
The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray.
Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:
Is healthcare that bad in the US?
Actually, that's one of the more benign American health "care" stories I've heard in the past decade or two. Back in my callow youth, I used to while away the non-coding hours as a volunteer EMT; if you'd told me then that by the mid-oughts, the late '80s and early '90s would be a Golden Age of patient care in comparison, I (and likely anybody else who was anywhere near what passes for a system in the US) would have laughed ourselves sick enough to need an ambulance. Which just goes to prove: Never say "things can't possibly get worse"; takes that as a direct personal challenge, and S/He has far, far greater resources than we can imagine. Be that as it may... One of the things that I have held most dear over the last 6 years, living in four different Asian countries, is the certainty that, should I need urgent care, it will be available and delivered by competent, motivated professionals working within a system that does NOT try to screw them over every single step of the way (and thrice when they sit down). In civilized countries, healthcare systems are run with a view towards providing benefit to patients, as customers. In what once was the United States, health care is run for the exclusive benefit of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies, and patients are merely a source of revenue. The big hospitals in Boston and Chicago may have fancy technology that costs more to equip a single hospital than Vietnam (say) spends on healthcare in a year, BUT.... 99 times out of 100, I'll get care that is at least as efficacious in the "third world" hospital, and, IMNSHO, the one time out of a hundred justifies neither the financial expense, the repurposing of the entire system, nor the collateral cultural damage sustained by a society that no longer believes in a universally accessible health system. One more thing.... Roger, you are a lucky b@$tard! And I mean that in the nicest possible way. You won the jackpot, and your post makes clear that you fully understand that. Family and close friends of mine in similar what-are-the-odds? situations came out nine-edge down.
Jeff Dickey
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Towards the end of my father's life, the doctor's were constantly amazed that his heart kept on beating and kept him alive. My dad always said it was probably the whiskey before dinner and the whiskey before bed time that did it. Next fall I'm going to Scotland for a week and I expect to learn first hand all about the medicinal purposes of scotch. :-D
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] Donate to help Conquer Cancer[^]
Chris Meech wrote:
Next fall I'm going to Scotland for a week
The doc gave me a tip about that. He said that every bar in Scotland carries an 8 year-old single malt called "Sheep Dip," and that it is one of the best scotches he's ever tasted. We can't get it here, but he told me that I can find it at the better liquor stores in Las Vegas. I think when I run out of Glenfiddich it'll be time for a road trip north. :-D
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Great to know you are well and that the worst part of it now is recovering and the boredom! Hope you get well soon.
Joan Murt wrote:
boredom
Oy Vay! Is that an understatement! I've read just about every book in my library again (and that's quite a total - more than the local city library has in stock), the backs of every grocery package in the house, and the complete collection of game & fish department regulations for Arizona. I've rebuilt a Holley carburetor for a friend, redesigned the landscape in my head, planned the house I want to build (I'm stuck on a good kitchen layout, though), and found myself this morning visualizing the aviary I want in the yard to raise quail and pheasant. Sheesh! I need to get back to something restful, like engineering.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:
Is healthcare that bad in the US?
Actually, that's one of the more benign American health "care" stories I've heard in the past decade or two. Back in my callow youth, I used to while away the non-coding hours as a volunteer EMT; if you'd told me then that by the mid-oughts, the late '80s and early '90s would be a Golden Age of patient care in comparison, I (and likely anybody else who was anywhere near what passes for a system in the US) would have laughed ourselves sick enough to need an ambulance. Which just goes to prove: Never say "things can't possibly get worse"; takes that as a direct personal challenge, and S/He has far, far greater resources than we can imagine. Be that as it may... One of the things that I have held most dear over the last 6 years, living in four different Asian countries, is the certainty that, should I need urgent care, it will be available and delivered by competent, motivated professionals working within a system that does NOT try to screw them over every single step of the way (and thrice when they sit down). In civilized countries, healthcare systems are run with a view towards providing benefit to patients, as customers. In what once was the United States, health care is run for the exclusive benefit of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies, and patients are merely a source of revenue. The big hospitals in Boston and Chicago may have fancy technology that costs more to equip a single hospital than Vietnam (say) spends on healthcare in a year, BUT.... 99 times out of 100, I'll get care that is at least as efficacious in the "third world" hospital, and, IMNSHO, the one time out of a hundred justifies neither the financial expense, the repurposing of the entire system, nor the collateral cultural damage sustained by a society that no longer believes in a universally accessible health system. One more thing.... Roger, you are a lucky b@$tard! And I mean that in the nicest possible way. You won the jackpot, and your post makes clear that you fully understand that. Family and close friends of mine in similar what-are-the-odds? situations came out nine-edge down.
Jeff Dickey
So which four Asian countries did you live in? I seriously doubt India is one of them.
Cheers, Vikram.
The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray.
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So which four Asian countries did you live in? I seriously doubt India is one of them.
Cheers, Vikram.
The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray.
I've visited India several times on parachute consulting gigs and you couldn't pay me enough to want to live there. Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune...I far prefer someplace that at least tries to approximate recognizable civilisation. For the record, the four contries I mentioned are: Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore.
Jeff Dickey Seven Sigma Software and Services Phone/SMS: +65 8333 4403 Yahoo! IM: jeff_dickey MSN IM: jeff_dickey at hotmail.com ICQ IM: 8053918 Skype: jeff_dickey
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Wow! :omg:
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
Indeed. The funny thing is: violating the law helped them survive. They were way too close to the first truck, and the second truck was just far enough, so they did not hit the first truck with much force, and the airbags did deploy without having an effect (as opposed to postponed deployment in a confined space). The second truck-driver was quick, but he did not manage to stop in time, since he, as well, was too close. The car was quite new, so a lot of energy was absorbed by the body, the sharp edges (and that is where luck came in) ending up on the outside of the car's body. The seats remained largely intact, and kept the roof from coming in further, and the back-sets just rotated forward (broken arm). However, there still were a lot of opportunities for them to get killed in the crash.
Cheers, Sebastian -- "If it was two men, the non-driver would have challenged the driver to simply crash through the gates. The macho image thing, you know." - Marc Clifton
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Michael Martin wrote:
Seems being related to me is not a good thing cancer wise.
My family doesn't "do" cancer, as my mother said. We do heart attacks, yet that seems to be the last of my worries. By the way, the day before this all started, I finally found a 6-pack of Cave Creek Chili Beer. I look forward to recovering enough to try it.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
Roger Wright wrote:
By the way, the day before this all started, I finally found a 6-pack of Cave Creek Chili Beer. I look forward to recovering enough to try it.
Work at that recovery. I drank all but two of the carton myself. the other two others tried, only one liked it. The beer contains all the Chilli heat, the Chilli itself is as hot as a capsicum. Awsom beer.
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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I've visited India several times on parachute consulting gigs and you couldn't pay me enough to want to live there. Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune...I far prefer someplace that at least tries to approximate recognizable civilisation. For the record, the four contries I mentioned are: Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore.
Jeff Dickey Seven Sigma Software and Services Phone/SMS: +65 8333 4403 Yahoo! IM: jeff_dickey MSN IM: jeff_dickey at hotmail.com ICQ IM: 8053918 Skype: jeff_dickey
Jeff Dickey wrote:
I far prefer someplace that at least tries to approximate recognizable civilisation.
I am far* from a blind patriot (jingoist?) but that comment is stretching it. * I suppose you would have figured that out from my previous messages.
Cheers, Vikram.
The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray.