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| This was taken October 4th. First Starbucks post surgery. It tasted weird. |
September 22nd
So....I doubt that you are going, but I might go to the store party tomorrow night if my body is being cooperative. Not sure who else will be there but it might be good to get out of the house to a place that isn't a doctor's office.
I drove my car today...just up the driveway and then down route 30 back to my house...it was terrifying! My surgeon cleared me to drive but I'm not so sure I'm ready. Maybe another week or so. My surgeon said he's like to see me a little more mobile than I am at this point...I'm still a little hunchy and tender. I walk hunched over clutching my stomach. I told him I'd be better if I hadn't had such stomach problems for the first 3 weeks! Hard to rebuild your strength when the food you're putting in is just coming right out!
September 28th
I stopped by the store yesterday to say hi to the girls. I drove all by myself! Woohoo. Slowly but surely (knock on wood) getting better day by day. Might try to go to target today to buy some pants that fit me. I've lost 20 pounds since surgery, but I'm starting to put some of it back on...maybe 5 pounds this past week. (that's good though!) I at least need to maintain my weight. I don't know where I lost it from, but everyone says I look like I've lost a lot of weight, so there you have it.
September 30
Just wanted to drop a line and say hello. I had surgery on August
23rd, and I'm busy trying to recover. I thought surgery was the hard
part, but it turns out that the recovery part is the hard part! I had
no idea! I thought I was going to have surgery and then be on
vacation for 8 weeks! I had plans to go to Vermont, Newport, and
Massachusetts but none of those has happened! I went to CT for 10
days to stay with my parents because their house was more conducive to
my recovery (no stairs, plus my mom is a nurse!) I slept upright for
the first 4 weeks because it hurt too much to lay flat. It never
occurred to me that in order to get to the things they had to take out
that they had to cut through my abdominal muscles! I'm pretty dumb
sometimes, or I was just in denial.
They removed 2 feet of small intestine (Luckily we have 22 feet!), 17
lymph nodes, my gallbladder, and some tumors on my liver. There were
2 tumors on the liver that they could not touch, because they were too
close to some blood vessels. They will be able to get those later
with a process called chemoembolization, where they go in through a
vein in the groin and shoot some chemo directly into those tumors.
Hopefully their close proximity to the blood vessels will be an
advantage. That procedure will probably be next year, because it has
a 4 week recovery time, and I'm nowhere near being ready for another
procedure yet. I lost 25 pounds in the weeks following surgery as my
body seemed to have a little trouble figuring out how to process and
retain food for any period of time.
I am doing a little better every day, but it has been rough going. I
never thought I'd be able to sit here and even write an email this
long. My attention span was shot and I just didn't have the energy to
do it. I finally drove for the first time this week, even though my
surgeon said I could drive last week. I was just too woozy to be out
on the road with other people (and I wasn't even on narcotics anymore)!
Anyhow, I really am in good spirits, I swear! I'm eating lots and
starting to gain some of the weight I lost back! I'm a little bored
of watching TV all day, but not bored enough to try my hand at
crocheting and knitting yet.
October 26th
I don't have too much news to report (or do I?). I started physical therapy on Friday of this week so that I can get into some sort of shape before returning to work. I worked on abdominal and pelvic exercises, and rode a stationary bike for .8 miles (which was a short 8 minutes on the bike). It was great....until yesterday when I could barely walk! It didn't seem like I was really doing much, but apparently .8 miles on a bike after 8 weeks of inactivity is enough to mess up my hamstring and calf muscle. How pathetic. (Honestly, I think most of the leg soreness was due to bad form...just one leg is sore.) I guess that just shows that I'm not quite ready to go back to work yet.
October 29th
MRIs are not actually that bad, but for some reason I get really nervous before them. For this one, I was afraid that the Titanium staples that they used to staple my intestines back together were going to come flying out because of the magnetic field. Never mind the fact that titanium is not even magnetic. So I basically have to talk to myself in my head and say "Kristin, they are not going to come out!" However, there is so much vibration in the MRI that it feels like the staples are vibrating out, but they didn't fly out. After 20 minutes or so, still worried that they were going to fly out, I said "Kristin!!! It's been 20 minutes! If they haven't flown out by now they are not going to!" I also have to say things like "Kristin! You know you are a head case so just stop thinking about it!" So yes, I have someone to keep me company, my own neurotic thoughts!
November 6th
I have carcinoid cancer, and they had to remove a whole bunch of stuff...2 feet of small intestine, 17 lymph nodes, gallbladder, and some tumors from my liver. Yikes! I was in the hospital for 7 days, and felt like crap for pretty much 5 weeks after that. Thanks for keeping me in your thoughts....I swear that the will of those around me was the only thing that kept me going.
I think those are the last of my messages from post surgery. I must have started feeling better after that!
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