I woke feeling tired. I slept well, but woke tired.
I have a Surgeon appointment scheduled for 12:00.
I have to give blood for the weekly blood test.
I want to install the new grab rails.
I want to bind all the amputation papers into a book like form.
I have to fill out a prosthesis for and get it to the prosthetic guy.
I am out of cash.
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18:00
What a soul sucking day. I am so tired. Tired of chemo, tired of being sick, tired of being stupid, and tired of being tired. It is not just my body, it is my soul that is tired.
Sorry to bitch, but this blog's purpose is for me to express myself and not care what people think.
I could have slept the whole day. Fortunately my solar system is now ignorable. It could be much, much better, but at least it requires no maintenance or supervision.
I left home early in the beetle. I went to an office service to bind the Amputation papers. They did it. Next was to go to a place that helps refit cars for people with amputations. They didn't answer the phone twice, and when I drove there they were closed. They have exceeded their allocated time from me. Now they can go to hell.
I drove then straight to the hospital to eat something and take my morning pills. Usually I cook an egg or fish and broccoli, but I am out of all three, so I had nothing to take pills with. At the last chemo the oncologist gave me 2 new pills for allergy, and to stop me coughing up white chunks.
I was so stupid this morning. I was angry at me for being stupid. I take 17 pills every morning counting the 2 new ones. I only had 15 this morning. I spent a long time trying to figure out what I was missing. I read each paper that comes with the drugs, and found out that one is supposed to be once a day, and I had been taking it 3 times a day, and another was 3 times a day and I was only taking one a day. But I still only had 15.
At the hospital I asked the waitress to sped up a huge breakfast. He did good, and I ate a large breakfast, and took my 15 pills. Then I went to the Doctor rooms by 11:45. On the way all the pages fell out of my new booklet. Grrr!
My surgeon and his theater nurse were there. We talked about how the dietician was so concerned about an extra egg every morning, and sort of glossed over a leg amputation and cancer. He said that many cancer patient have to deal with people that just don't get what is really happening. Many people try to protect themselves by either ignoring another persons cancer, or by making light of it. This is an attempt to disassociate themselves from their own mortality. I guess he may be right. She is young, and still has a lot to learn about life.
The surgeon had the new PET scan results. They are magnified and have a tiny millimeter grid on them to tell exact distances. He says they show without doubt that he will not be able to do a below the knee amputation.
He says they had a team of Doctors go over the PET scans again. Now they were not looking for angiosarcom tumors, and whether they had spread, but they were looking for any thing that may be relevant to selecting the proper amputation procedure. Quite different things.
They found 21 sites they say are cancerous tumors in the leg, and one pre-cancerous high mitotic spot.
For many years I have had a small mole/wart behind my left knee kind of toward the inside on the thigh. I have shown it to all the Doctors, and they all say it is a wart/mole. The PET team said they were suspicious because it had high mitotic action. That means the cells are dividing fast. Sort of like cancer, but not being diagnosed as a possible cancer. They then measured closely and found that the mole/wart was not at the exact location of the place with high mitotic action. The mitotic action place is about 2-3mm deeper than the wart/mole.
Here is a picture from Day 40 - Leg Tumors.
The PET scan Doctors describe it as pre-cancerous activity. Is it from the Angiosarcoma spreading, or a different pre-cancerous tumor? Angiosarcoma will love to grow in any stressed body part. That is why it started in my swollen leg, that had been under stress for 30 years.
So now to be safe, the Surgeon needs a 5cm area around my knee wart/mole removed. This makes an above knee amputation necessary. :-( We talked about doing a biopsy first and then an amputation. He says that even if it not cancer, it is definite pre-cancerous and with known angiosarcoma, he would take the knee anyway.
So now the amputation will be about 6 inches (15 cm) higher. This will make a prosthesis much more expensive, and less effective. :-(
He then talked about when we could do the amputation. I asked if it was his child's leg, when would he do the operation. He answered "Tomorrow, or the next day." We scheduled it for Friday the 23rd at 06:00 . Today is Tuesday the 20th.
He said he had canceled tomorrows chemo, and therefor the blood test was not necessary.
I asked if Maddie being here would be worthwhile since I would be out for a few days. He said that there should be no need for her to be on hand, as I would not even know her for 3 days. He expects the hospital stay to be 4 days. He is guessing I will be released the afternoon of the 27th, or maybe the morning of the 28th.
Always with the tagline "if there are no complications"
So, so much to do.
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22:15
OK ...Maddie will arrive in Johannesburg on Thursday the 22nd at noon. We rented a Hyundai i10 for 8 days. She will collect it from the airport on arrival.
She wants to be here to take me to the hospital on Friday morning. Then for the next 3 days, she can stay with some of her friends in Pretoria, Or stay in my house. her choice. Then she will bring me home, and we will have the rental car until I can buy a car. The beetle is a wonderful hobby car, but not what I would call "reliable transport". I feel much better about her driving a rental car than the beetle.
I installed all the grab bars. Two to help get up from the toilet, and two in the shower.
I need to somehow arrange for a separate bed for me to sleep in. We have to be so careful not to bump or hurt the stump while it is healing. The occupational therapist recommends separate beds. So tomorrow I will buy a bed. There is currently no room for another bed. I must remove the TV table, and the computer desk tomorrow.
The guy with the Mercedes I like, sent it for it's pre purchase inspection by a company similar to the AA. For you Americans, the AA is the Automobile Association. In America you add an other A. Our AA is like your AAA.
He will send it to fix the aircon tomorrow.
So much to do, I better go sleep.
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