Today's Hospital Visit Had Some Great News!

I had a CT scan this morning and it was relatively uneventful other than my feeling quite spacey from the Barium I had to drink last night and then two more times this morning. Fortunately, the folks doing my CT scan were kind enough to leave the IV (used to inject iodine into my blood stream during the CT scan) in my vein so I could then walk over to the vampires and let them do the blood draw required of me prior to my meeting with Dr. Allerton (my chemotherapy doctor).

I'm sure Daniela & I will receive the results of my CT scan tomorrow when we meet with Dr. Cagir. As far as my meeting with Dr. A, he said my counts were good and my protein counts were slightly low but nothing to be concerned about as long as I continue eating plenty of protein, as my body is still healing from the chemotherapy. Dr. A reviewed my ultrasound results and said there was no longer any cancer in the lymph node closest to my rectum. That was great news!

Tomorrow Daniela & I will meet with Dr. Cagir to discuss my upcoming surgery. We'll also meet with the Nurse Practitioner who oversees new colostomy patients. I did adhere the colostomy pouch to my abdomen and I also put a handful of small polished stones in the pouch to see what it feels like to have some weight in it. I am real clear at this point that there is no way in hell I'm putting oatmeal or applesauce in the pouch. Substituting food for feces? Sure no problem. Just let me go puke a couple seventeen times first! It is amazing what some people are capable of...and that some people ain't me.

And on that note, the colostomy isn't really phasing me right now. My concern is strictly about the final results of the surgery.

Anesthesia

I am happy to report that it's been three days and I have not had a bad reaction to the anesthesia I received for my ultrasound on July 2nd. The anti-nausea pre-meds did their job. What an absolute relief. And it was also quite a relief to not have the kind of next-day-pain that I had following my last ultrasound. Good things.

And it is still so strange to suddenly open my eyes and realize I am back in the recovery room waking up and the procedure is complete.

And that reminds me, I keep thinking of how weird it will be when I wake up to a stoma poking out of my abdomen and into a plastic bag. THAT is going to be WEIRD. Oh well. I imagine once it's all said and done, I'll have maybe a little something to say about it.