tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38437828690546718892024-03-19T04:16:14.802-05:00Cancer Light<b>Reflections and humor on the journey with cancer</b><br>
by Jean DiMottoJean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-46806038920338485922013-11-21T12:56:00.001-06:002020-01-18T11:29:39.000-06:00Epilogue<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
traveled north to beautiful <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Vieux</st1:city>
<st1:state w:st="on">Quebec</st1:state>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region></st1:place>,
for a vacation I yearned to take following a year of chemotherapeutic and
surgical treatment for cancer. As I readied myself for bed after a late evening
arrival, I discovered the unthinkable: I had forgotten to pack a tiny part that
connects a piece of medical equipment to the urine pouch attached to my body.
How would I get through the night without it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I managed
to wake up every two hours to accomplish what the medical equipment would have
done for me automatically. I spent hours the next day trying to obtain the tiny
part. <st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region> and the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>
do not use compatible equipment, and I came close to using duct tape for the
project before finding a more amenable solution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">My
dilemma highlighted not only the need to check my packing list twice,
especially for international travel, but also my need to truly come to terms
with my literal and permanent nighttime tether to things external to my
physical self.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">And so it
was that I came to ponder other tethers in my life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
reflected on the experience of being fettered to work. I was close to
retirement at that point and keenly felt the trussing of my freedom to my job.
The truss had several sets of ties: to the alarm clock and to pristine hygiene,
to work apparel and to make-up, to rush-hour traffic and to an unattractive
work environment. The fact that my job was well paying did not mitigate the
constraint; I felt like a songbird in a gilded cage, unable to sing where I
wanted to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I turned
the prism and contemplated the tether of obligation to my mother when she was
alive. We lived in different cities and no matter how frequently I visited, she
invariably remarked, “You should come more often.” The burden is heavy when the
standard is never enough. But this tether dissolved with her death. Without the
harness of obligation I feel free to need her as my mother. From the Beyond she
helps me. Our spiritual bond is profound.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Another
turn of the prism illuminated my connection to my daughter. Contrary to the
proverbial apron strings, this tether is never cut. Nonetheless she is 28 and
happily married, and I have stepped back so that she can live her adult life as
she sees fit. The cord between us has thus lengthened and attenuated, and this
is as it should be in the natural course of the maternal-child relationship.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 200%;">The last
turn of the prism refracted my relationship with my husband. During my
prolonged hospitalization after cancer surgery, I came to depend on him as
never before, and in the midst of the arduous recovery I discovered how much I
needed him. This newfound knowledge bloomed tenderly in my heart: I realized
that needing him arose from deep trust, itself a product of deep love. It is a
tie that binds, but one that is wholly welcome.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;">© Jean DiMotto, 2013 Website: www.jeandimotto.com</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-12692613793607204592012-08-11T10:12:00.000-05:002020-01-18T11:27:19.560-06:00Last Raps<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I returned to work in mid-May, halftime for about six
weeks. Although my physical therapist forewarned me, I was nonetheless staggered by how much energy I expended
just getting to work. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I had to shower <i>every
</i>day, brush my teeth <i>every</i> day,
fix my hair <i>every</i> day, apply make-up <i>every </i>day, get dressed <i>every</i> day, contend with traffic <i>every </i>day, and walk .2 mile down an
incline into a reverberatingly noisy tunnel and then back up out of it <i>every</i> day before I finally arrived at my
courtroom. Exhausting. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I had lived my life at home in a more relaxed, shall we say, manner. And before that, during the
first six weeks post-surgery, my poor injured mind couldn’t even conceptualize
teeth brushing (<i>see</i>, Bumpy Postoperative Course: Mental).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I was warmly welcomed back which I very much
appreciated. It was wonderful to again
see my judicial colleagues as well as the prosecutors and defense attorneys who
regularly appear in my court.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Still, I found myself longing for the pace and beauty of my
life at home. It took nearly two months
before I felt fully engaged again at work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I discovered painfully that my vulnerabilities from all
that I went through (<i>see</i>, Surgery and Bumpy Postoperative Course[s])
left me more sensitive and reactive than before. At times this made for tough going in felony
court. I noticed, for example, that when
a witness lied, I actually felt it in a physical way. I pondered this awareness in order to find
ways to regain dispassion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Despite the struggles and adjustments, I feel happy and have
zest for living. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I fought for that zest while I was ill and wrestled it
from the jaws of death.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I have it when my husband looks yearningly at me despite
my altered physical appearance. I have
it as I delightedly explore the craft of writing. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I have it when I awake in the morning, and I
have it when I retire at night.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">This is my last post on this blog.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Thirty seems like a good number to end
with. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">People from more than 75 countries have viewed this blog. </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Thanks for reading and for being with me on this
journey. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">©
Jean DiMotto, 2012 Website: www.jeandimotto.com<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-7773431585164740962012-05-16T13:28:00.002-05:002013-11-21T13:19:08.291-06:00Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I received my test results today. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">All laboratory tests were normal and my CT scans were
“pristine.”</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglmWTXALOKhGE9Leb6m1ayI6oRUT1qh5DOnKYdvkYY-_mQcPPLLWPFqmiy2dns_0C7u8kdU6ziG776pJNDZxvQdYr8CEh2GgQJdomBUfAi5XvBMkqcQb-3K2U-Kg8AHYTWabcektcfvTs/s1600/DSC01220.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglmWTXALOKhGE9Leb6m1ayI6oRUT1qh5DOnKYdvkYY-_mQcPPLLWPFqmiy2dns_0C7u8kdU6ziG776pJNDZxvQdYr8CEh2GgQJdomBUfAi5XvBMkqcQb-3K2U-Kg8AHYTWabcektcfvTs/s200/DSC01220.JPG" width="200" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px;">Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-a.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">My, oh my, what a wonderful day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Plenty of sunshine headed my way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-a.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">My deepest gratitude to each of you for being part of the team effort that helped me heal!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I take this opportunity to especially thank John for his
extraordinary vigilance, protectiveness and advocacy during my hospitalization,
and his deep, tender and abiding love before and since; Anne for her steadfast love, bravery and determination; and Thomas for his love and support. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">©
Jean DiMotto, 2012 Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-11455384622213064202012-05-08T15:15:00.001-05:002020-01-18T11:22:52.150-06:00Marking Progress<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Yesterday
marked 17 weeks since my surgery. At
times, my recovery has seemed slower than the flow of </span><st1:state style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vermont</st1:place></st1:state><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"> maple syrup on a cold day. On the other hand, there is a medical adage that
for every day spent in the hospital, one needs a week of recovery at home. Having spent 21 days in the hospital, I am a
little ahead of schedule because I am returning to work for half days in two
weeks, which will be the 19-week point. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">In
reflecting on these past 17 weeks I have contemplated how progress is
marked. That brings another adage to
mind: Everything a person recuperating from surgery does takes twice as much
energy to accomplish than for someone who is unimpaired. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Initially
I was winded after climbing a flight of stairs, or showering, or a meal, or doing five repetitions of a simple
exercise in each arm, even just </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 14.6667px;">getting into bed</span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 11pt;">. This was
discouraging, but also a powerful reminder of how much I had been through. And it made thrilling the accomplishments of
showering while standing (instead of sitting) and yesterday climbing two flights
of stairs without being short of breath.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Another
marker was being able to drive again, although I still tend to groan in
discomfort when I get in or out of the car. Yet another marker was not needing a narcotic to relieve my pain and instead
being able to rely solely on acetaminophen. Still another was making meals again, something I have not done for longer
than I can remember.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I began
physical therapy in April for up to eight weeks to correct my crooked left
kneecap and build my strength, especially in my abdominal muscles. I was afraid I would never be able to regain
any stamina, but they graduated me after only one month because I was doing so
well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">John
attributes my new-found energy to being well rested because I have faithfully
used my CPAP machine for six weeks now, including during my afternoon naps. I agree. Who could feel energetic after stopping breathing 147 times every hour because of sleep apnea? (The respiratory therapist said mine was the worst case they had ever
seen.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">It is
ironic that although I am much more energetic than I used to feel, I still need
at least 10 hours of sleep every day. But
everyone of <i>l'age certain</i> can be envious that I am able to drink a quart of
water within an hour of retiring and sleep peacefully throughout the night because
of my new drainage system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Yesterday,
a major marker of progress was getting my medi-port removed. This was the device used to infuse all
chemotherapeutic fluids (<i>see</i>, “So What’s Chemo Like, Anyway?” September 24,
2011). I hated that bump on my upper
chest and what it symbolized, and was grateful that my oncologist allowed it to
be removed. I was higher than a helium
balloon when the procedure was concluded.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I am
eager to return to work after moving through a mild depression at leaving
behind a rhythm of living that I have come to love. I now know that I will enjoy retirement when
the time comes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">©
Jean DiMotto, 2012</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span>www.jeandimotto.com</span></div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-10303554166477030142012-04-02T17:07:00.002-05:002020-01-18T11:17:58.340-06:00Bumpy Postoperative Course: Spiritual<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">When the
neurologist was evaluating my mental status, a woman who has been my
friend for some 30 years was in the room. I didn’t recognize her. But
on another occasion I did, and I spoke to her from deep within my soul. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">She came
to visit me and remarked on how much better I looked and how much better I was
moving. I replied, “But I am in the
depths of despair.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">She
recounted this to me several weeks after I was discharged home. I knew immediately what had happened. I had seen “the other side” and was deciding
to continue my life on this side rather than give in to death.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Steve
Jobs’ sister said that as he was dying he was looking ahead at a certain spot
and exclaimed, “OH WOW! OH WOW! OH WOW!” That’s how good it is across the veil and why the process of choosing to
stay here meant wrestling in the depths of despair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">It was a
brave decision in a certain sense because what lay ahead of me was six weeks of
the most grueling, painful ordeal I have ever endured. I did not turn the corner in my recuperation
until the week of Leap Day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">My belief
is that purgatory is actually lived out in whole or in part here on Earth
before death. Suffering is an integral part
of that process of burning off the dross of our misdeeds, wrongful thoughts and
sins of omission. Thus I also regard my
depths of despair and my rugged period of initial recovery as a purgatory. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Fortunately,
I cannot recall those excruciating six weeks in much detail. I know the Visiting Nurse Association (VNA)
had a nurse at our home the day after my discharge from the hospital and at
least weekly thereafter. I also had a VNA physical therapist and a VNA occupational therapist who each came twice weekly. And John would take me to at least two doctors</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 15px;">’ </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">appointments every week as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">All these
visits with healers buoyed me. The doctors
and the VNA women each gave me a compassionate ear as well as expert
information. They supported my progress as well as my sense of myself as a
worthy and worthwhile woman. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">It is a
genuine spiritual mystery to me how it was that so many people reached out to me with love,
prayers, good thoughts, healing vibrations, and other gifts and cards. There is not one scintilla of doubt in my
mind that this was absolutely critical to my determined drive to live and to rise up through the pain and sorrow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">“Feeling
the import of the possibility of cancer on the way home [from the doctor’s
office], I asked for a sign. I saw the
extraordinary: an egret standing by the pond in the parkway near my home. I felt soothed and grateful. This is all going to be okay” (<i>see</i>, “The Long and <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Winding
Road</st1:address></st1:street> to Diagnosis,</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 15px;">” </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 15px;">August 20, 2011</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 15px;">But I did not expect it to be the journey I in fact have been living, what with chemotherapy, surgery and a shockingly slow recovery.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 15px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 15px;">I did not expect to pay this price.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvMtYhU378eA7yD6ivSuvwDgKh8W5v6SFTtVqUO3MEkbG1N3ti20A9clrNVlyGkyIByT-jVDWLksON1z9Whk_OLRcQh7uEcdmvYEAX60Vg5J7ssE_6xWAuwuz743ARXfvxmY-S8Cct49A/s1600/DSC00998.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvMtYhU378eA7yD6ivSuvwDgKh8W5v6SFTtVqUO3MEkbG1N3ti20A9clrNVlyGkyIByT-jVDWLksON1z9Whk_OLRcQh7uEcdmvYEAX60Vg5J7ssE_6xWAuwuz743ARXfvxmY-S8Cct49A/s320/DSC00998.JPG" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 15px;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Then again I did not expect to receive such abundant grace and know this depth of maturity. I am renewed, refreshed, reborn. And optimistic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I appreciate the synchronicity with the great Christian remembrances of sorrowful Good Friday, restful Holy Saturday, and joyful Resurrection Sunday. I intend to meld all my suffering with the Crucified Christ on Friday, rest with Him on Saturday and rise to even greater spiritual joy on Easter.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">©
Jean DiMotto, 2012 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span></div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-2830827264898493352012-03-29T09:29:00.001-05:002020-01-18T11:15:01.416-06:00Bumpy Postoperative Course: Mental<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">“There are so many ways to be sick,” said the
anesthesiologist. One of these is mental. After all that was done to me in surgery, ICU, and the postoperative room, and with so many days in a windowless ICU and then
in a single postop room, my mind was injured.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">There was a round clock in each of my rooms which provided the
time but not whether it was AM or PM. Once
a team of four came into my ICU room and the woman on the team greeted me by
saying good morning. For some reason I had thought it was night, so her greeting perked my
attention. I did my best to look intently at her and then intently at the
clock on the wall, back to her, back to the clock. Several times. Fortunately she understood and said, yes, it is morning. That made me
happy – a simple certainty I could know and depend on in a 24/7 environment. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Nurses wrote the date out (e.g., January 14, 2012) on a whiteboard, but there was no
calendar to provide the context for the date. This is akin to looking at a digital clock; to understand the meaning of the readout, one unconsciously relies on the context of a round clock. Similarly, I
needed a calendar to make sense of the date.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">My initial fog was from being under conscious sedation for more than three days. I became much
more alert in ICU after that was discontinued. Still I had phantasmagorical dreams, one of which became a living,
breathing reality at one moment. I
thought I was at an exclusive birthday party for an exceptionally wealthy man
and then asked John and the respiratory therapist if being where we were (right
outside the main party room in a wheelchair, I thought) was interfering with
the party. Holy smokes!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">This continued in the regular postoperative room even though I had many lucid hours in the ICU. I know I did not experience the transfer
because I was sedated. So I just woke up
in a new room. But I was dreaming
fiercely and vividly, and I have distinct memories of five different
rooms! I have clearer memories of what I
dreamt than of consensual reality; at least half of the days in that postop room
are lost to me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I dreamt my experiences. Seven days of arm restraints in ICU? Two dreams of being restrained in a room with others similarly restrained in
beds. Electrocautery in surgery? A dream of a young man dressed in blue
scrubs abusing me with an electric gun of sorts. Several ordinary, even ugly, IVs? Dreams of my IVs as clear little bottles, each a
different and vibrant color of the rainbow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">As some of these dreams signal, I developed full-blown
paranoid ideation, a form of “ICU psychosis.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">My doctors called it delirium, attributing it to the pain
medications, one of which I was surprised to learn I had been receiving because
it has adverse effects on me. It became
so bad that when I was again placed under conscious sedation for a procedure to
stop a urine leak, I had what is known as a paradoxical reaction to one of the
drugs: instead of sedation I became very agitated and loudly insistent that
they stop the procedure before it was started. To avoid accidentally injuring me because of my state of arousal, they
did, in fact, stop the procedure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">There was a psychiatric consult, a neurology consult, an EEG, a CT
scan of my brain. No “functional defect”
was found, just a mind in search of its moorings at the same time that it was
sure it was moored.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">My first clue that something was amiss was when a nurse began
asking me if I knew where I was. Oh-oh. She repeated the question
about three or four times then switched to, “Are you at home?” Whew! A clue. “No.” “Where are you?” repeated several more
times. Finally I figured out it was the
hospital. “Which one?” Oh no! Right answers are bad; they bring more questions! I managed to figure out the health care system. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 15px;">“Which hospital?” </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I gave an answer based on one of my dreams. At least I was told the right answer after
that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I usually incorrectly answered the question about what year it was. I finally put together, however, that it was still
January, not February, because the Super Bowl had not yet been played. Where all my goofy birth dates came from I’ll
never know. And when asked who the president was, I gave the name of any president during whose administration I had lived.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">It took much longer than my hospitalization for me to slowly come
to terms with the fact that what I thought had been reality was
dream-based. Well into late February I
was asking John whether a particular event actually had happened. Since he was there with me in the hospital
for all but three hours every day, he was an excellent resource for these
reality checks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoSpUXU658MAXk47whW1YygCh5TSlRizVC83ztHPEVuLM4Cze5B0v-3NoyM9n1bsRQfT36ecSjqG9Z1SJ8EO-rRrWJZAANWkeEksjPzIBydtLKpBMJoV8CnMIYX9mu_KCgqscMH8ZaVLA/s1600/DSC01057.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoSpUXU658MAXk47whW1YygCh5TSlRizVC83ztHPEVuLM4Cze5B0v-3NoyM9n1bsRQfT36ecSjqG9Z1SJ8EO-rRrWJZAANWkeEksjPzIBydtLKpBMJoV8CnMIYX9mu_KCgqscMH8ZaVLA/s320/DSC01057.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The care and healing of the mind is subtle and takes a long
time. It cannot be concentrated on;
that’s how a body heals. A mind prefers
to be left to its own devices as it self heals. There’s no rushing it. There
aren’t exercises with ten reps each. There
aren’t special foods.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Still I did notice some improvement when I worked over a period of
two weeks filling in the blanks (e.g., email or address) on my Smartphone
“Contacts” list, checking them against some of John’s, adding some missing ones,
proofreading the changes and editing them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">And finally, after nine weeks’ recuperation, I am able to write again.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">©
Jean DiMotto, 2012 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
</div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-57213771342360196242012-03-28T10:14:00.000-05:002020-01-18T11:08:31.431-06:00Bumpy Postoperative Course: Physical<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I did
well throughout the lengthy, complex surgery.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">So it
must have come as a surprise upon my being wheeled out of surgery into ICU that
my blood pressure immediately plummeted. My kidneys were unhappy but my heart was really upset and showed its
distress by leaking troponin, a cardiac protein. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">That was the beginning of an extremely complicated
postoperative course where it seemed that nothing went smoothly. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">My
heart’s troponin leak led to monitoring by a cardiac team as well as several cardiac testing procedures.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Since the
hypotension was both volume and anemia driven, I was immediately given even
more IV fluids than had been given during surgery plus two units of blood to
counter the anemia. Later two additional
units were infused to stabilize my red blood cell and hemoglobin counts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">So much
fluid is given during surgery, especially an extensive surgery, and with the
additional amounts given to me soon afterwards to bring up my blood pressure, I
had an enormous amount of fluid onboard. By my sixth postoperative day I had eliminated 25 pounds of water weight. If only that much body fat weight could be shed in six days!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Within
hours of admission to the surgical ICU I developed a fever of 102 degrees. Not surprising since the three “dirtiest”
fluids were all in the surgical field: urine (bladder removal), bile
(gallbladder removal) and fecal fluid (bowel cutting). The source of the infection was apparently my
kidneys. More antibiotic troops were sent
in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Pain was
expected to be an issue given how extensive the surgery would be, so an
epidural catheter had been inserted into my lower spine before the
surgery. But my pain management team also placed me under conscious sedation for several days after surgery
given at the least the extensive adhesiolysis (cutting of the scar tissue). Even the pain of being turned in bed, a
necessity for healing and preventing bedsore development, was
excruciating. I was in a fog during such
prolonged conscious sedation, and it was weaned by the fourth postop day in
favor of IV pain medication.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I remained intubated and connected to a respirator for a week.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">When they first tried weaning me off the
respirator my own breathing was too labored because of the fluid overload and
continuing low blood pressure and high heart rate.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Hand
restraints are protocol when one is on a respirator because it is believed that
a person’s innate instinct is to try to pull the tube out. I don’t ever remember feeling like pulling
out the tube, but my hands were restrained for seven days. I have no conscious memory of this. I do know that one nursing aide always
removed the restraints when she was in the room. She also gave me memorable foot massages when
she and a nurse gave me a luxurious bed bath.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">One
cannot talk when on a respirator. Communication was almost as challenging as pain relief. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I asked with
hand signals for something to write on and got a clipboard with paper and
pen. This helped a lot except for how
small my writing was. I don’t know why I
couldn’t make it bigger although as I made physical progress I could.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">When a
lab tech came in to prick my finger for a blood glucose level check, I motioned for
the clipboard. On it I drew a giant “Y”
because I am not diabetic. It turns out it is now recognized that the glucose-insulin balance is often disturbed after
major surgery. Thus this is standard protocol as is the subsequent injection of the appropriate amount of insulin. And I did receive a plethora of insulin shots in my thighs during my
21-day hospitalization. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">What was
terribly disappointing to me is that John could never figure out where I was
going with something I was writing on the clipboard until I’d written it out
completely which was often exhausting. Anne, the nurses, perfect
strangers got it before he did. I
wondered how someone so close to me couldn’t see where I was going with a
thought or request. But it taught me how differently his mind and my mind work, which I am sure attorneys figured
out long before I. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I remember
the day they removed my endotracheal tube. The respiratory therapists had been increasing the amount of room air I
was breathing in on my own until it was 100%. Just after a woman told me it might immediately need to be reinserted, the
tube was withdrawn only to be immediately reinserted. It was only momentarily disappointing, though, because it
was withdrawn a second time minutes later and this time it worked. I could whisper but my voice got stronger
almost as fast as my smile got bigger. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I asked
for water. Only ice chips, but I had a
child’s glee in crunching those as loudly as I could. Then sips of water. Heavenly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">My
nursing administration friend had copied and enlarged my self description and a
photo and taped it to the ICU whiteboard and the door so when I was able to talk
again, people knew who I was other than a foggy ICU patient. A precious gift.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I spent
three more days in ICU (for a total of ten). These were transition days when, for example,
I was observed and tested for my ability to handle solid food post endotracheal
tube. This meant that a beautiful young
woman came with several cold treats (e.g., finely pureed applesauce) and fed me
spoonful by spoonful. She gently felt
under my chin to see if I was processing the food properly. It was a much appreciated sensory experience for someone who hadn’t eaten since January 5 (11 days).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZOV65B4W53VaMTencxwBArkR9ujHI-ShgzvxeHAIFFOzP-gncRHCdHBd9BrAXhHQjI96XpQHrvUpo0XLWefsregX49qGBcFC0aK6Vt_wmjbPiremBCBZb3920FWMtHH8u2qcZmeRtx7w/s1600/DSC01087.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZOV65B4W53VaMTencxwBArkR9ujHI-ShgzvxeHAIFFOzP-gncRHCdHBd9BrAXhHQjI96XpQHrvUpo0XLWefsregX49qGBcFC0aK6Vt_wmjbPiremBCBZb3920FWMtHH8u2qcZmeRtx7w/s320/DSC01087.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I was
transferred to a surgical postop unit under sedation so I didn’t experience the
transfer. Despite two different
antibiotics, my white blood cell (WBC) count increased and I was confused so my
medical team embarked on a full infectious workup to discover the source of the infection. They discovered an abdominal fluid collection
and placed an abdominal wall drain. This
gradually resolved the WBC problem. T</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">hey also
discovered a urine leak, but fortunately this was self healing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">When the epidural catheter for pain medicine was discontinued, I experienced three days of uncontrolled pain, drowsiness and
irritable behavior toward physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT)
folks. Some of the pain meds I was given
were not ones that work on me and actually have an adverse effect on me, so that contributed to the roller coaster ride.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I stayed
in the step-down unit for 11 days. There was a window in my room but the view was forgettable. Despite my resistance, PT and OT worked daily
with me to help me learn to “launch” up from a chair to a standing position and to walk with a walker. And they supervised me on my discharge date as I dragged myself by the handrail up and
down a staircase. Being able to do this was a condition of my discharge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">As much
as my mouth wanted to eat food, my bowels just weren’t good at processing
it, so I suffered too-many-to-count episodes of diarrhea while in a chair or in
bed. It is humbling to be cleaned up by nursing
staff but they were whizzes at it and I remain grateful for their practicality,
their tricks for minimizing the soiling and their consistently positive,
nonjudgmental attitude.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">On the
day before what became my discharge date, I underwent a cardiac catheterization because of the troponin leak. I cannot remember when I have prayed a “Hail
Mary” as earnestly as I did on the way to the Cath Lab. The team who did the test was wonderful and
so were the results: no ischemic damage, no abnormality of any kind. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">One of my
anesthesiologists happened to see me dressed and waiting to go home.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">He stopped in his tracks and came into my room
to tell me how wonderful it was to see me alert and bright-eyed.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I told him it had been a difficult few
weeks.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">“There are so many ways to be
sick,” he said.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Indeed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">©
Jean DiMotto, 2012 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-9929082738043073882012-03-27T11:11:00.000-05:002020-01-18T11:01:15.522-06:00Surgery<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I read
the 12 single-spaced pages of operative reports to find out what happened to me
in surgery on January 9, 2012. This was
important to me in part because of the aftermath of the surgery and also because
of the natural curiosity that comes from having my professional roots in
nursing. In one respect the surgery was quite
sad.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">As a
safety measure, once everyone was on hand, the nurse in charge in the surgical suite called a timeout
before the first incision was made. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">During
the timeout, the surgeons, nurses, assistants and technicians were identified; I was identified; my allergies were
identified; the various procedures to be performed on me during the operation
were identified; and written consent for each procedure was identified. What a great way to prevent confusion and
mistakes.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I was
surprised to learn that my urologist made the incision (I thought the general
surgeon was going to start the operation). It was a midline incision starting a bit below the bottom tip of my breast bone
with a detour to the side for my belly button and then straight to my pubic
bone. The size of the incision signaled the
magnitude of the upcoming operation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">My two
urologists then worked in tandem to dissect from the skin down to the bladder because
the first order of business was to remove my bladder. They stopped at “the discovery of severe
scarring with electrocautery” in the area of the tattered first mesh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">This is
the part about which I feel very sad. This scarring by electrocautery (a method to stop bleeding) is from a
summer 2007 surgery to place a mesh for an abdominal wall hernia. The surgeon was represented to me as an
excellent technician. Ha! I referenced him in my blog
entry, “A Tale of Two More Surgeons” </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">(</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 15px;">December 2, 2011) </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">as one who was disrespectful and uncaring
and had left his bad attitude and energy all over my poor abdomen. Now I see he caused even more damage and I
feel angry.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">My urologist’s partner scrubbed out and the
general surgeon, who is an abdominal reconstructionist, scrubbed in. He spent more than one and one-half hours using
a scissors and other cutting instruments to cut apart the scarring and
adhesions and free up my bowel. He
also removed the remnants of the synthetic mesh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">No wonder
my pain postoperatively was described as excruciating. My mental consciousness was “asleep” during
surgery but my anatomy and physiology, which was experiencing so much cutting and being moved around, was awake. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">This
brings to mind the anesthesiologist(s) and the wonderful work he did in
tempering the pain during surgery and keeping me under anesthesia so
skillfully for eight long hours, a very lengthy surgery.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The
general surgeon scrubbed out and the second urologist scrubbed back in. My bladder and pelvic lymph nodes were
reached. These lymph nodes were
removed for examination by pathologists and all came back clean. It is reassuring to know that no small cell cancer
invaded them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">My
bladder, however, had evidence of not only the initial tumor destroyed by chemotherapy but also a second tumor. The
nerve! What this means is that within 10
weeks of my diagnosis, a second tumor formed and grew but then was annihilated
by the poison of chemotherapy. What an
aggressive cancer! Thank goodness chemotherapy was more aggressive. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">After my
bladder was removed, the urologists turned their attention to creating the
ileal conduit. After they finished the
majority of this work, my urologist scrubbed out and the general surgeon
scrubbed back in to remove my gallbladder. Then with my urologist’s help they finished the ileal conduit and repaired my abdominal wall hernia by placing a new mesh made of biologic material. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">My
abdomen was sewn back together by the general surgeon and the skin was stapled
shut. As a result, my incision looks
like a vine winding its way up my belly. Other views are that it looks like a railroad track or a map, but I’m
sticking with a vine.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I did
well throughout the surgery.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">A
remarkable, complex surgery performed by a room full of remarkable
professionals and technicians.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">©
Jean DiMotto, 2012 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span></div>
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Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-4976906479862139112012-03-09T08:59:00.000-06:002013-11-21T14:02:28.944-06:00Physical Activity and Cancer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">This post is a collaboration with David Haas who is the Family
Hospitality Coordinator at Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Syracuse</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">New York</st1:state></st1:place>. He has an abiding interest in exercise and
its positive connections with health</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">. But he also has gained some surprising
insights from the research literature about the benefits of exercise in
reducing susceptibility to some cancers in the first instance as well as for
helping those coping with or recovering from cancer. Read on for David's research summary and then my experience with physical activity while recovering from surgery.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><br />
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Colon</st1:city></st1:place> cancer: </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Research has identified a link between exercise and a
significantly reduced risk for colon cancer. In order to achieve the maximum risk
reduction, however, one must engage in 30-60 minutes of moderate to rigorous
physical activity daily. It is thought
that exercise protects against the development of tumors in several ways, including
regulation of insulin and other hormones. In addition, physical activity reduces the
time the colon is exposed to carcinogens by maintaining proper body
functioning. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Breast and uterine cancers: Studies show that these cance</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">rs can be reduced through exercise. Particularly in women who have not yet reached
menopause, exercise can lower hormone levels, improve the body’s immune
response and control weight. Studies
nonetheless indicate that the connection between exercise and breast cancer may
depend upon a woman’s weight and whether she received hormone replacement post
menopause. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Lung cancer: Research shows that men
have reduced their susceptibility to lung cancer through exercise. (The results are less clear in women.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><br />
Turning to those men and women who have developed cancer, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">studies indicate that physical activity can be beneficial. At least one study demonstrates that exercise can
help slow the progression of prostate cancer in men aged 65 or older. Women who have been diagnosed with breast
cancer may experience less fatigue and more energy through moderate exercise. One study even showed higher survival rates
among these women. Physical activity also appears to reduce the chance of
recurrence and increase survival in those with colon cancer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">When possible, therefore, the victims
of <a href="http://www.mesothelioma.com/mesothelioma/">mesothelioma</a> are
encouraged to exercise in order to help them deal with the effects of
treatment. This statement seems to apply
to anyone fighting or recuperating from cancer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">NB: </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">A public statement released in 2010 by a panel of 13 researchers focused
on the benefits of physical activity in dealing with cancer. The panel lauded the preventative and curative
effects. The results of numerous studies
on this issue are included in a report entitled <a href="http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/prevention/physicalactivity">Physical
Activity and Cancer</a> available from the National Cancer Institute at <a href="http://www.cancer.gov/">www.cancer.<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">gov</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I am glad
that David interchanged the terms “exercise” and “physical activity.” As a former couch potato I still hate the
word exercise. But the term physical
activity has taken on a whole new meaning for me – one I actually embrace – in my
recuperation from cancer surgery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">My
Visiting Nurse Association physical therapist (PT) and occupational therapist (OT) had me doing some kind of physical activity during each of their visits
despite my extensive and complicated abdominal surgery. It was as little as raising my arms above my
head, doing exercises with my legs in bed or making shoulder-shrugging
movements. All were very difficult at
first.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Then they
gently but firmly prodded me to use my walker to walk along the hall and around the free space in my bedroom. These are pretty confined spaces. But walk back and forth and around I did, first for one minute (I was so weak), then for three minutes and finally for a whopping five minutes. I would be breathing hard, a good sign that my heart rate was up which made other physical activity easier.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">And – get
this! – those 3- or 5-minute walker walks count toward the 20-30 minutes of daily exercise we
are all recommended to log in. I thought
I had to exercise for the full 20-30 minutes all at once. Plus, my doctor, my PT and my OT each told me
that doing five repetitions twice a day was more effective than doing ten just once. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">These are
sweet treats for recovering couch potatoes because they make physical activity
doable. Thus I gradually got more active around
the house, albeit it gently and to the extent my body allowed. I now putter around which gets me walking and going
up and down stairs and from chairs. I reach
into places and do arm exercises with cans of soup as weights. All of this is done slowly but definitely
actively.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">While this may seem like minor activity, all of it
has incrementally helped my body as well as my mind to heal from my rugged,
complicated surgery and its aftermath. So thanks, David, for reminding us that physical activity is every bit
as good as exercise!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">©
Jean DiMotto, 2012 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span>Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-86219596893335439342012-02-12T20:39:00.005-06:002013-11-21T14:05:32.437-06:00Valentine Vignette<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I am mentally back in my writer’s chair and
will be adding many entries over the next several months to tell the middle and
final parts of my story. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Meanwhile, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">given the date, I offer this vignette
of my Valentine.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Not long after my discharge from the hospital and soon after we smoothed out the contours of an icky at-home procedure, I was wearing my “adult diaper” and a pajama top with hair tufts growing out all over my head post-chemo.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">My husband was wearing pajamas and kneeling at my bare feet sorting out medical bandages, bags and tubes.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">He paused for a slip of a second, looked up at me and said, “You are so beautiful.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Jean DiMotto, 2012</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span>Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-33751444027565697142012-01-05T14:41:00.002-06:002013-11-24T19:21:07.062-06:00Surgery’s Comin’ ’Round the Corner<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 81.0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">On Monday, January 9, at 5:30 AM, I will be entering Aurora St. Luke’s <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Medical</placename> <placetype w:st="on">Center</placetype></place> for surgery. They like us there early; surgery is not scheduled to begin until 7:30 AM.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">On tap: Removal of my bladder (source organ for my cancer) and my gallbladder (because of gallstones) as well as my abdominal mesh. Then creation of a urostomy (the urinary equivalent of a colostomy) and sewing in a new and improved, premium mesh to prevent herniation of the incision. Anticipated length: Five to six hours.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I have been thinking about the contrasts between my two treatments for cancer, chemotherapy and surgery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Chemo came in stages – four rounds of three days every three weeks. Surgery is one day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Chemo got progressively harder and more challenging (the cumulative effect of poisoning). Surgery itself is the hardest day and every day after it is a little better with a measure of healing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Chemo came in autumn as we approached the winter solstice and the darkness grew longer each day. Surgery comes post-solstice as the daylight lengthens a little more each day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Chemo was dying and death (of cells). Surgery is healing and life affirming.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I sometimes wonder if depression and grieving are inevitable effects of chemo given all the cell death it causes. Each cell has a consciousness which is somehow – a mystery to me – part of our larger conscious experience. So how could one not be depressed and grief-stricken to some degree and at some level while immersed in these innumerable deaths?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I am getting my “Five Wishes” document in order. This is an unusual form of Power of Attorney for Health Care developed in concert with the American Bar Association’s Commission on Law and Aging. It is effective in 40 states, including <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Wisconsin</place></state>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">It not only allows me to specify health care preferences and an agent to make my health care decisions for me should I become incapacitated, but goes into realms emotional, spiritual and palliative.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">For example, Wish 3 deals with comfort and identifies ten different comfort measures. I simply cross out any that I don’t want. The measures range from “I want my lips and mouth kept moist to stop dryness” to “I wish to be massaged with warm oils as often as I can be” and “I wish to have my favorite music played when possible until the time of my death.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Wish 5 (What I Want My Loved Ones to Know) includes wanting family and friends to respect one’s wishes even if they don’t agree with them, wishing for mutual forgiveness, and wanting “my family and friends to look at my dying as a time of personal growth for everyone, including me. This will help me live a meaningful life in my final days.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">There are also blank lines for writing preferences for music or prayers at a memorial service, and for writing how one wants to be remembered should someone ask. That one is hard! Completing the pages is certainly an interesting and thought-provoking experience.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Sometimes when it is dark and I am alone, I feel my fear about the surgery. I cry. And then I focus on another of the song’s verses, “She’ll be riding six white horses when she comes.” My six white horses will be my three surgeons, the anesthesiologist, the nurse in charge of the operating suite and the surgical tech. What a team! I let go and let them take the reins.</span><br />
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Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-18611498488576243682011-12-17T23:29:00.000-06:002020-01-18T11:37:39.676-06:00When It Rains, It Pours<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: center 3.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Or perhaps, when it snows it pours since we have a partial ground covering of snow today (“It’s beginning to look a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bit</i> like Christmas….”). My Aussie son-in-law was thrilled to see it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">So much can happen in 24 hours. In one 24-hour period this week – just as my hair was beginning to grow back (I note with chagrin that the hair on my chinny chin chin raced back at a pace far exceeding that on my head and legs), just when I was beginning to feel more energetic, just when I abandoned my daily attire of bed clothing (to remind myself to reserve my energy for healing) and began wearing regular clothing – just then I was given three new diagnoses. My mother told me life wasn’t fair, but really.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The path to discovery started when one of my crack surgical team members did two scopes. The first was an esophagogastroduodenoscopy. (My daughter remarked, “Holy Mother of Mercy, that is a mouthful.” Myself, I like a good 12-syllable word.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">It means that under conscious sedation with fentanyl (a narcotic pain reliever) as well as versed (a sedative and amnesic which – thankfully – makes one sleep and forget), a lighted tube (scope) is inserted through the mouth down the esophagus into the stomach right up to the duodenum (the beginning of the small intestine). The entire upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract is thus visualized.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">This scope showed that I have a bleeding ulcer in my upper stomach near my esophagus. A bleeding ulcer! I have felt nothing. I drink strong coffee, albeit with cream, and have felt nothing. Or, with my luck of late, I felt it and mistook it for hunger pangs and ate. </span><span style="font-family: "wingdings"; font-size: 11pt;">L</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Never having had this scope before, I don’t know how long the ulcer has been there. But I suspect it is related to the muscular steroid Decadron that I received with each of my twelve chemo infusions and for a few days afterwards in pill form. And did I mention stress?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Next the colonoscopy was done. This involved the insertion of a larger scope in the rectum up through the large intestine to the ileocecal juncture, the joinder intersection between the large and small intestines. This scope showed that I had a large polyp near my bottom end. Honestly, how much more can be wrong with my body?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The surgeon believed the polyp to be non-malignant. This is corroborated by it not showing up on the PET scan in early September because a PET scan only shows “hot spots” – areas of increased metabolic activity (e.g., cancer). <span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">We’ll </span>know for sure when the pathology report comes back.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Then I went in for a sleep study at a sleep medicine clinic. I stayed overnight in a lovely, sedate room done in hushed tones of blue. The technician fastened about two dozen electrodes with attached cords to my head and face and a few more to my chest and legs. When I moved my head I felt and sounded as though I had beaded strands of hair. For some reason I felt young again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Then I laid me down to sleep and within a couple of hours the tech woke me up. This is because she had tracked at least 20 episodes of apnea (not breathing) in just one hour. Good gravy, that is lot of not breathing going on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">What causes the apnea is my tongue lolling back against my throat. This closes off the airway between my mouth or nose and my lungs, and prevents my lungs from getting air (an apnea episode). This causes me to wake up just enough to take a nice, loud breath, resulting in major-league snoring, baby! (I am considering making a CD of my scary snoring sounds and selling it during the month of October.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">This cycle goes on at least twenty times an hour! That’s an average of once every <em>three minutes</em>. No wonder I take so many naps – I am not really sleeping during most of the night.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">So the tech hooked me up to a CPAP machine with a mask over my nose and mouth that pushes in humidified air with pressure. The pressured air stream competes with the tongue lolling and the pressured air wins. After that I slept for the better part of four hours straight and woke up – are you ready? – refreshed!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Thus my third new diagnosis: sleep apnea, a condition shared by ten percent of the population. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">So now I carry more diagnoses </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">than Carter's got liver pills. Don't be</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"> jealous that I am </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">way </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">ahead on this score.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">© Jean DiMotto, 2011 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
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Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-4200598398404825972011-12-10T01:35:00.001-06:002020-01-18T10:40:18.957-06:00Chemotherapy Remembrances<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">These past few days would have been my chemotherapy treatment days if I were still receiving it, and I found myself reminiscing about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Several vignettes came to mind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The senior nurse at my new infusion center who gently and matter of factly counseled that this was a time to be kind to myself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The young nurse at my first infusion center who was injecting the diuretic Lasix directly into my IV line saying it would “tap” my kidneys.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The 80-year-old man at that center who had tumors in his liver, lung and brain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was the gregarious, erstwhile owner of an insurance agency and would tell his life story to anyone who would listen but loudly enough so most of us heard it, repeatedly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was the only patient who had the same chemo recipe as I did, so we were there for the same five hours and usually headed for one of the two restrooms at the same time – about 15 minutes after the Lasix “tapped” our kidneys.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">A middle-aged woman at that center told me she had breast cancer and already had undergone surgery and radiation therapy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She said she cried like a baby when she realized she could not return to work in September as an art teacher for all grades in an elementary school because, given her compromised immune system, the risk of getting sick from exposure to the kids’ ubiquitous germs was too great.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">A woman with lung cancer referred to one of her chemo drugs as “Cis-poison” (Cisplatin). Some breast cancer patients refer to Adriamycin, a clear red chemo agent, as “Red Devil.” But a young pathologist chose to call it “Red Sunshine” (also the title of her 2011 book) to reflect her positive attitude toward treatment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">A woman at my new infusion center told me she had lung cancer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Asked how many more treatments she had left, she responded, “This better be the last one!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Later, a</span>fter a new bag of IV fluid was hung, she wheeled her IV stand out the back door and smoked a cigarette.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">A couple came together to my new infusion center.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was a <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Vietnam</place></country-region> veteran, and telling me that was enough to briefly bring those memories front and center.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was a large man who reminded me of a retired farmer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She looked like a pixie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> He confided one day </span>that she was “just skin and bones.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She slept during her chemo infusions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He sat next to her the entire time, no book or magazine, just his hands and his thoughts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They also serve who only stand and wait.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt;">On His Blindness</span></i><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt;">John Milton</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">P.S. My high school friend’s energetic, I’ve-got-so-much-living-in-me-yet sister: <a href="http://www.pantagraph.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/cancer-patient-knits-away-through-chemo-treatment/article_bc404a3e-21e9-11e1-8555-0019bb2963f4.html">http://www.pantagraph.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/cancer-patient-knits-away-through-chemo-treatment/article_bc404a3e-21e9-11e1-8555-0019bb2963f4.html</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">© Jean DiMotto, 2011 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-92169769534423838562011-12-02T00:39:00.001-06:002013-11-21T14:46:00.190-06:00A Tale of Two More Surgeons<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">A man who reads my blog emailed me (</span><u><span style="color: green; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">jeandimotto@gmail.com</span></u><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">) naming the reconstruction surgeon at the <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Medical</placename> <placetype w:st="on">College</placetype></place> about whom I'd written on November 20<sup>th</sup>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He recognized him from the surgeon’s lack of respectful and compassionate interaction with him and his wife as well as the computer screen cuing him to convey all the “informed consent” information.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I have heard from women who told me they guffawed with other women about Dr. Your Vagina is the New Urethra or were deeply dismayed that someone like him exists in this day and age.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Meanwhile, my husband and I met with another <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Medical</placename> <placetype w:st="on">College</placetype></place> physician who would be the one to remove my bladder (not one of the two who do the reconstruction).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had read my records and respectfully listened to me and my husband, clarified information, answered our questions and offered his opinions about my surgical options for a new bladder (the neo-bladder would not be an option because of my incontinence; he has seen good results with the Indiana pouch).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I then asked, “Assuming I have the surgery done here, who would do the reconstruction part?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why, Dr. Your Vagina is the New Urethra, of course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Considering how obviously we had expressed to him our utter dissatisfaction with that surgeon, this was a remarkable answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, a deal breaker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it belied his next, practiced, glib statements that he regards each of the two reconstruction surgeons equally and has no preference for one over the other.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">What surgeons like these two at the <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Medical</placename> <placetype w:st="on">College</placetype></place> fail to understand is that many patients are not looking for </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px;">just</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">a skilled surgeon.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">They also want one who is a good doctor.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">A good technician does not a good doctor make.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">A surgeon who cannot relate respectfully to a patient as a mature human being is going to leave that icky attitude all over the patient during the surgery.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I know.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">It happened to me with the surgeon who placed the original mesh in my abdomen.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">There is a gulf separating him from my first surgeon who was both a great surgeon and a great doctor, as well as a gulf separating the kind of healing I experienced after each of those surgeries.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Journeying on, we next met with the surgeon whom my urologist wants as part of the team who would operate with her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(So many doctors, so little time.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">His assistant scheduled a full hour for the consult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After shaking both of our hands, he touched my hand or arm periodically during the consult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was energetic, animated, sat in close proximity to us and made eye contact with us throughout the consult. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">He</span> himself has had two abdominal surgeries, so he knows the experience of being a patient.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">He is one of about 100 surgeons in the <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">U.S.</country-region></place> whose skill set is dealing with complicated abdominal surgeries where the risk of bowel injury is higher than normal and where the abdomen needs reconstruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">He talked about my current mesh, and after a physical examination told me it needs to be removed both because it is no longer functional and also because of the high risk of infection if it is left in after this surgery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He asked permission to remove my gallbladder (with its gallstones) as long as my abdomen will be open and the mesh replaced afterwards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He indicated that he will use a new and improved quality of mesh. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">It was easy to like and respect him as both skilled surgeon and good doctor. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">And so I chose my urologist, Dr. Chesrow; her partner, Dr. Wood; and this surgeon, Dr. Armstrong; as my surgical team.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each of them is affiliated with <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Aurora</place></city> Medical System.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I cannot describe my relief and sense of peace not just with finalizing my choices but also with putting myself in the hands of these three good surgeons and doctors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Surgery is scheduled for the early morning of </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Monday, January 9, 2012, at Aurora St. Luke’s <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Medical</placename> <placetype w:st="on">Center</placetype></place>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">And so I have five weeks to continue recovering from chemo (my nausea even at the end of the second week of my final round is fierce and unrelenting) and begin the pre-op preparation and procedures.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">© Jean DiMotto, 2011 </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span></div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-39927338688550435582011-11-23T21:45:00.001-06:002013-11-21T14:52:11.301-06:00Under My Spiritual Umbrella<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">As a body suffers from illness, as illness wreaks havoc on emotions, what happens to the spirit?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what happened to it in the first place such that disease became a physical reality?</span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">A spirit cannot take care of itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It needs to be nurtured, gentled, uplifted, strengthened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is interconnected with all spirit, which pervades all matter, and so it cannot exist in the illusion of separateness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could not and cannot continue to manage during these months without the spiritual sustenance of family, friends and colleagues, whether here or across the veil.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">It comes at any time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Several weeks ago as I began to slip into bed, I “saw” a white cloud about two inches thick spread out on top of the sheet for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I feel it in my husband’s steady breathing and peaceful quietude as he sleeps, and as he holds me when I just can’t take any more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I have awoken with a smile and the distinct sense of a hand on my upper arm near my shoulder and know it is my mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My daughter sacrifices her energy for me when mine is spent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My son-in-law checks several times a day to see if I need anything.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Spiritual sustenance is being "surrounded by dozens of thoughts each day” from my beloved college friend in Baltimore, the various prayer groups who regularly petition for me, the three women who periodically send me cards of encouragement, those who pray daily for me, the aunt who has taken me under her loving wing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Support came in the healing circle which my friend and former colleague from <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Marquette</place></city>’s nursing faculty created for me in her home so that I could receive affirmation and wisdom as I slog through the low, muddy ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This circle was joined by friends of my husband’s family in <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">North Carolina</place></state> who together prayed aloud for me during that same time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Every word of encouragement given directly, through John, through cyberspace or the mail helps to keep me afloat and the water warm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I need every ounce, every gram, of this thoughtfulness because it is a long and bumpy journey, not least negotiating the health care system itself.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ-n_HRg66I_80HWFQQeNzF9qMHR7sSj9P5z2AQOwVx2pH7DxzZ3IgGvp5ii6YAIcBu48j9vpA2KaOy6DlhBMpPbJkUazNWLwJAxqSKLdN3gvLc8_lJcrsy_X4EU43e6NNXiHsoRXb2jk/s1600/DSC01160.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"></span><br />
<span style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ-n_HRg66I_80HWFQQeNzF9qMHR7sSj9P5z2AQOwVx2pH7DxzZ3IgGvp5ii6YAIcBu48j9vpA2KaOy6DlhBMpPbJkUazNWLwJAxqSKLdN3gvLc8_lJcrsy_X4EU43e6NNXiHsoRXb2jk/s320/DSC01160.JPG" width="320" /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Now the second question: What happened to my spirit such that cancer became a physical reality in me?<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">My spiritual umbrella is large with a</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> variety of transcendent beliefs existing harmoniously under its protective halo. One belief is that illness is not solely physical but also a spiritual manifestation. Another is that trauma suffered by an ancestor can pass down the generations until healed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I can describe a peach as juicy. I can describe it as fuzzy (at least the ones I ate in my youth). I can describe it as sweet. Each is accurate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I can describe my cancer physically as limited disease small cell cancer arising in my bladder. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">But how do I describe my cancer spiritually?</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I have not been able to identify this in contemplation.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I needed someone who could describe my illness to me in spiritual terms so I could heal at that level as well.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I chose a shamanic healer, Myron Eshowsky of Madison, Wisconsin, an internationally renowned trauma healer and author of </span><u style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Peace with Cancer</u><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> (2009).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Both physically and spiritually cancer is an unhealed wound. With his spirit guides, Myron described my cancer as generational, related to the unhealed trauma of an ancestor who was raped and subsequently banished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Who can argue but that this is the ultimate injustice – being banished because you were the victim of a brutal criminal act?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have I suffered banishment in my own life, he asked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, I suddenly realized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Four banishments immediately leapt to mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Myron removed the spirit of my cancer, sang its song, then sang a healing song to it and took it into peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have work to do to provide a spiritual safe place for my ancestors now, which I gladly undertake.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">But this did not completely obviate my suffering around banishment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wept for myself that I suffered banishments through no fault of my own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wept the pain of banishment for all my ancestors who were affected by it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Then I wept in a self pity that I was the one who was asked to suffer it for my ancestors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> I</span>n the midst of such human tears I remembered the garden in <place w:st="on">Gethsemane</place> and allowed a greater Will to guide my own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I became grateful that I could be the one to heal those who have come before me and those who will come after me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Thanksgiving attitude of gratitude.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">© Jean DiMotto, 2011 </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-50822787622365986262011-11-20T20:00:00.001-06:002020-01-18T10:31:57.369-06:00A Tale of Two Surgeons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPkerHIEX69-eBQJ4Dd8nex8VllWKsVnyygrUFlJAN_-PQsdaiTtKmdNOHVZIvWLeU5MDCYRwHMI90nuNNY0gofu3c53-Ocr_6o2oKY99VtDF-X1oHO2gc0b_MKtVA6XGTAn-fGOaD5WY/s1600/DSC00960.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPkerHIEX69-eBQJ4Dd8nex8VllWKsVnyygrUFlJAN_-PQsdaiTtKmdNOHVZIvWLeU5MDCYRwHMI90nuNNY0gofu3c53-Ocr_6o2oKY99VtDF-X1oHO2gc0b_MKtVA6XGTAn-fGOaD5WY/s320/DSC00960.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I finished my chemotherapy (YES!!!) last Thursday and am bearing with the unpleasant sequelae for one more week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">But no time to waste.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is time to get my bladder, the source organ of my cancer, removed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The exact extent of the operation is unknown because there are three options for replacing the bladder from which to choose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I followed my urologist’s advice about feeling free to seek a second opinion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After research, it appeared that my two most reasonable options are Aurora Medical System (because my urologist and all my other doctors are there) or Medical College of Wisconsin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The first appointment my husband and I had was with one of the two reconstruction urologists at the <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Medical</placename> <placetype w:st="on">College</placetype></place>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has been there for ten years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">He began by naming the first option.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The name went in one ear and out the other because he immediately followed with, “This option means you will have to catheterize your vagina.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“My vagina?!” I exclaimed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Well, down there,” he said, opening his legs and pointing at his groin area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“There are actually two openings there but one is just a little (showing about one and one half inches with his thumb and finger) further up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s actually called the urethra.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I am a woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did he really think I don’t know my own anatomy?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if he had such a ridiculous thought, why would he explicitly mislead and so profoundly patronize a patient?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In all events, and for reasons I don't recall him articulating, he decided this option wasn’t the one for me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">He asked about my prior surgeries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I of course had detailed these in the multi-paged forms I was required to complete before coming to this appointment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I reiterated the salient ones: two abdominal surgeries, the second to place a mesh because the original incision herniated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said that made my case complicated and put me at higher risk.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The second bladder option is the urinary equivalent of a colostomy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A short conduit is created from the ureters (which carry urine down from the kidneys) out onto the skin where the urine would dribble through an “appliance” attached to the skin and into an external pouch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">He decided this probably was not an option for me either because he believed it would be hard to find a flat place on my abdomen for the appliance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> He said this</span> while looking disdainfully at my abdomen, swollen with chemo-related, steroid-induced weight gain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, he added, “I’ve operated on people bigger than you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Thanks, pal.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would it help to delay the surgery so I can lose some of this weight now that my chemo is ending?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ask the cancer guys, he responded.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">He believed the best option would be the most complicated: the creation of an “<place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">Indiana</state></place> pouch.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although this was the option I was most interested in hearing about, our attention spans were waning at this point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The surgeon had his crib sheet of information displayed on the computer screen so he was constantly cued to convey all of it to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it made it challenging to interject our questions and absorb all that was being conveyed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The moment we left I turned to my husband and said, “I will not let that man touch me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He agreed wholeheartedly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Two days later we met with my <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Aurora</city></place> urologist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She said she wants my bladder out as soon as possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That way, if any of those cancerous small cells actually managed to hide out during chemotherapy, they don’t have a chance to escape! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">She has been carefully planning for this surgery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She pulled out a large, blank sheet of white paper and began drawing and explaining.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">As to the second option (the short conduit from the ureters out to my skin and into a bag) she saw no impediment to finding a place for the appliance on my abdomen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is also the medically healthiest option (low risk of infection and other complications).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nonetheless, my family and I don't cotton to it based on the “ick factor.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">As to the Indiana pouch option, my urologist already had arranged to bring in a superb general surgeon highly reputed for operating safely and skillfully on patients with potential bowel issues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have this potential because of my two prior abdominal surgeries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Suffice to say that after an operation, things inside can adhere together forming scar tissue which, in a subsequent surgery, can then tear away from unscarred tissue it had attached to - like bowels - which injures the bowels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During the bladder surgery, my bowels need to be moved out of the way after the mesh is dealt with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So this surgeon will begin the surgery, prepare the way for the other two surgeons including moving the bowels aside safely, stay on-site throughout the entire surgery so he can be called back in immediately if needed, and be the one who “closes” me up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My urologist and her partner will create the <place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">Indiana</state></place> pouch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">She further has planned for an approximately five-day recovery in ICU before moving me to a general post-op unit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She listened intently when I told her how quickly I metabolize pain medicine during surgery as well as which pain medicines work and which don’t work for me postoperatively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She made notes of this as well as her ideas for dealing with this important issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(The other surgeon told me to tell that to the anesthesiologist.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Easy choice: My urologist and her team.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Then the hard news: She and her partner do not do the first option, called a neo-bladder, the one that may require catheterizing through my urethra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This option may turn out to be best if there is a chance a surgeon may not need to go into my abdomen where all those adhesions and bowels are, but instead confine the surgery to the pelvic area below the abdomen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That would reduce the risk of the surgery for me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Next step, consult with a different <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Medical</placename> <placetype w:st="on">College</placetype></place> physician who can do a neo-bladder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since my urologist wants my bladder out sooner rather than later, she offered that if a surgeon at the <placename w:st="on">Medical</placename> <placetype w:st="on">College</placetype> can schedule either surgery (neo-bladder or the <state w:st="on">Indiana</state> pouch) sooner than she can get surgery scheduled, then I should have the surgery with the <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Medical</placename> <placetype w:st="on">College</placetype></place> surgeon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> (</span>You can understand why I have such faith in my urologist.) Then we will meet again with her as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">To be continued….</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">© Jean DiMotto, 2011 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span></div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-76956379057064937152011-11-01T21:12:00.001-05:002020-01-18T11:33:23.063-06:00To Sleep, Perchance to Dream -<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Shakespeare's Hamlet anguished about sleeping and dreaming. Obviously he had devils to deal with but chemotherapy could not have been one of them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Fatigue and exhaustion are well recognized side effects of chemotherapy. The easiest way to describe my chemo-induced exhaustion is to note that after a three-day round of chemotherapy, I sleep 15-18 hours a day for the next seven days. Yesterday, after having gone to bed at 10 PM, I awoke at 10 AM and went downstairs to make myself a strong mug of coffee. I took it into the living room to enjoy and woke up three hours later in the same chair, the mug half full in my hand. An hour later I took a two-hour nap.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">It's no use fighting it; a body needs what a body needs. Perhaps more importantly, a soul needs what a soul needs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Dreams are a currency of the soul. I facilitate dream groups, where those interested in their dreams come together weekly during fall or late winter (on hold, of course, until fall 2012) to share dreams in order to find the soul-directed meaning for their waking lives. Thus, for someone like me who so deeply values dreams, these lengthy, luxurious periods in which to dream are gifts indeed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">In some long dream sequences I am working things out. I no longer regard what are still daily episodes of weeping as pity parties but rather as times of grief about something I am letting go of. I have found that if I don’t shed the tears, the grief remains. If I let my tears fall, then I move through whatever it is, and rather quickly at that. I have stopped trying to figure out what it is I am leaving behind. Working alone in this level of the unconscious is a journey of trust in my guardians and spirit guides.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">In other dreams, those internal spaces I have wept clean are filled with something new. Again, I keep my mind out of it and just receive. Sometimes, I am graced with the presence of white-lighted beings. How can I keep from singing (as the hymn inquires)?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">End note: My ayurvedic friend and gardener is a vivid dreamer and avid participant in my dream groups. She dreamt a dream for me early on after my diagnosis: She and a number of women were in her van and I was to drive behind them in my white car. But my car wouldn’t work. So the women got out of the van and raised the hood and tinkered under it to fix things and then my car worked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 11pt;">How can I keep from getting well?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">© Jean DiMotto, 2011 </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
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Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-78755946059615890102011-10-26T16:16:00.001-05:002020-01-18T11:40:47.498-06:00My New Infusion Center<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">In an email to a judicial friend up nort’ (as we Wisconsinites say) I included my observation that the nurses at the Infusion Center rarely if ever smiled or talked to us during the time we received our chemo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t say more than that to him, and suffice to say here that I perceived a lack of compassion and interest by the nurses in us patients, including how we felt or what we thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The atmosphere lacked vitality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The result for me was a sense of being discounted, a diminishment of my personhood, a subtle dehumanization to the point where I felt I was simply a body with a medi-port to which an IV could be attached.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">A few argue that the nurses need to use distance as a defense mechanism, but from what?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not a hospice or an in-patient hospital unit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are not dying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> This is a chemo clinic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>We are there to get better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To live!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">My friend responded that he was “incensed’’ <span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">to hear this about the nurses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His response had </span>a transformative effect on me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He seemed to feel the anger that I couldn’t rouse from within myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was as though he rode in as my knight in shining armor. So I let him take me up on his horse and we galloped off to a different <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Infusion</placename> <placetype w:st="on">Center</placetype></place> which just happens to be less than two miles from my home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I hadn’t noticed it before since I wasn’t in the market for one.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked my oncologist to transfer my treatments to the closer clinic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Done.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Having Round 3 of my chemo at the new center has been better than having a plastic pumpkin filled with my favorite Halloween candy bars.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">It is lighter colored with windows from floor to nearly the ceiling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The view is lovely. There are closely planted trees, each one’s leaves turning its own color – yellow, deep purplish red, bright red, orange. Birds fly in to nibble from the feeders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And off in the distance a copse of old trees reminds me of my childhood: <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Colburn</placename> <placetype w:st="on">Park</placetype></place>, just one block from home, where we spent our summer mornings, afternoons and evenings. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">But best of all at my new <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Infusion</placename> <placetype w:st="on">Center</placetype></place> are the nurses.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">They look at me when they talk to me or ask me questions. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">They know the chemo drugs inside and out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">There is a nursing station but they understand that this is where they chart and that we patients are of primary importance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">They apologized on the first day that they had been too busy to come over sooner just to talk and get to know me and my husband.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Despite it being a smaller center, they work harder and more efficiently.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">They seem to like their work and – gadzooks – us!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">They carry out their work as though their philosophy is to make everything as easy and as comfortable as possible for us, that we are the ones who are suffering and need our energy for healing, and they are there to help us in every way they can.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">These nurses are genuine healers who maintain an authentic healing space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They do all nurses proud.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">© Jean DiMotto, 2011 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-62181102109859243832011-10-23T22:32:00.000-05:002020-01-18T11:45:10.079-06:00Depression Central a/k/a The Devil's in the Decadron<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Last week my college friend in <place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">Virginia</state></place> who has been looking after me from a distance sent me an article by a food critic recounting his two-year journey with a virulent brain cancer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> The author's </span>comments about the wildly varying, powerful emotional effects of Decadron hit home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Decadron is a fiercely strong steroid given to lessen the side effects of chemo, especially the nausea.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">It was responsible for my feeling completely wacko after my first round of chemo. </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">(<i>See</i>, “So What’s Chemo
Like, Anyway?” </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 15px;">September 24, 2011.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">My oncologist reduced the dose by one-third for my second round of chemo. Perfect. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Completely forgetting that steroids need to be tapered down over several days, I quickly stopped taking it orally as well – and just as quickly sank to the bottom of a lake in Decadron withdrawal.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">At supper I said such things to my family as, “If I was gone, you’d miss me but it wouldn’t last too long.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone’s ears perked up but they camouflaged their alarm and instead checked in on me throughout the evening and gave me heartfelt hugs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s what helped me become aware of how deeply depressed I had become.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had hit my nadir.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">What to do about a drug-induced emotional state?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I learned about ten years ago that while a medication may intensify an emotional response, a mood or the vividness of dreams, they are nonetheless <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">my</i> responses, moods and dreams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So while it is true that the devilish Decadron is partly to blame, the spiritual path of growth requires me to work through whatever has presented itself under the medication's influence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">After a good bit of pondering, I first concluded that I had nothing to look forward to for months but more chemo with increasingly pronounced side effects followed by major surgery with an extensive recovery period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> "It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future...." <span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt;">Victor E. Frankl, <u>Man’s Search for Meaning</u>, p. 73.</span> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">To solve that part of the problem, I asked my husband if he was interested in an early December (before the holiday rates kick in) trip to <place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">Vermont</state></place>, one of my favorite places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would be a chance to relax together, linger over candlelit dinners, shop in little boutiques and celebrate the end of my chemo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He jumped at the suggestion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We booked using the airfare from my canceled trip to <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">Spain</country-region></place>.</span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Still, one doesn’t sink so low merely because there is no vacation in sight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What else did I need to wrestle with at deeper inner levels?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More pondering that night and then hashing it out with a skilled doctor (so many doctors, so little time) with whom, synchronistically, I had an appointment the very next day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I discovered is that at age sixty I was still living every single day under my long-deceased father’s “shoulds” and “oughts” together with the inevitable, inescapable guilt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The enduring influence of parents!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">“Are you able to just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">be</i>?” my doctor asked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her question brought me up short.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It exactly identified the nub of my existential quandary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Must I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do</i> and achieve to feel worthwhile, or is it okay to revel in just being?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whoa, it sounds almost – well, sinful.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I suppose I owe Decadron a nod for plunging me down so far down that I had to find new strength to surge back up again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But my two-year-old self sometimes prefers to stamp her foot and say to Daddy Decadron, “You big meanie!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hate you!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">© Jean DiMotto, 2011 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span></div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-28262088192653507602011-10-18T22:46:00.000-05:002013-11-21T15:24:01.944-06:00Young Intimacy, Old Intimacy<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">On a recent sunny morning, my son-in-law sat in a chair on one side of the small, square kitchen table. His new wife sat kitty corner from him on an adjoining side. He turned his chair to face hers, took her hands in his and focused his clear hazel eyes exclusively on her big brown eyes with those lovely long lashes. He created an intimacy so sweet, so ardent and so real that I lowered my eyes, as one does when in the presence of luminous beings. I began noiselessly to edge out of the room, but not quickly enough. In his endearing Australian lilt I overheard him declare gently to her, “I will not participate in the Polar Plunge into <place w:st="on">Lake Michigan</place> on New Year’s Day.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">My husband came home Monday night thoroughly worn out from a challenging day at work followed by an evening obligation. He arrived as I was finishing the second load of laundry. This is an ongoing if obnoxious daily ritual: two loads of laundry occasioned by my urinary incontinence. No matter what I have done to prevent this, every morning for at least a month I have awoken with the sheets, my nightwear and two towels meant to absorb the outflow soaked through. I was too tired – whoa, not a strong enough word – utterly exhausted </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px;">–</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> to begin the laundry before evening. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I carried the warm sheets from the dryer up the stairs to the bedroom. Then we took turns trying to get the fitted sheet onto the bed. Two people running on empty struggling to literally figure out which end was up. Despite our 0-to-60-in-3-seconds frustration, we said nothing lest we bark at each other, and we did not make eye contact lest we glare. Finally we accomplished it. Then we draped our weary arms around each other and our lips found each other’s, as they have for 40 years. It was tender affirmation that our restraint, our kindness and our respect in those trying minutes were intimacy of the most valiant kind</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">© Jean DiMotto, 2011 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-28273012629383081082011-10-06T18:30:00.000-05:002013-11-21T15:29:06.422-06:00Leaves Fall Down, Hair Falls Out<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS-G6Mx_yfGOK3iUpNspmcJJesfj9vpRtN6BN1y_U_LCwBC5rUy6JeZTz_pdXnVq-EKswMlLl7Rm5G9ql1UfEMYgwAFyPqFeapoHcRUl253K0YHCcJTjXyrpTWvKG6iP1vzYIqHoG9Sww/s1600/DSC00769.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS-G6Mx_yfGOK3iUpNspmcJJesfj9vpRtN6BN1y_U_LCwBC5rUy6JeZTz_pdXnVq-EKswMlLl7Rm5G9ql1UfEMYgwAFyPqFeapoHcRUl253K0YHCcJTjXyrpTWvKG6iP1vzYIqHoG9Sww/s320/DSC00769.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">On Tuesday I needed to go into work to take care of some of my cases that only I can handle. I start the day with a lovely hot shower, first shampooing my hair then coating it in a luxurious (yep, expensive) conditioner that my sister’s friend said helped prevent her hair loss when she had chemo. As I remove my hand from my hair, there are quite a few stands of hair on it. What?? I thought this wasn’t supposed to happen until <i>after</i> my second round of chemo which doesn’t begin until the next day.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Sure enough, there is more. Quite a bit. I am afraid to towel off my head after the shower and instead brush it right away. Scads of hair cling to the brush. I am afraid to see how I now look, but you can’t tell really. It is more of a thinning of my hair making my part a little wider, rather than clumps or handfuls leaving vacant areas of scalp. Whew! I was supposed to go wig shopping on Friday ahead of all this, but didn’t because, as the song goes, I got so damned depressed.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I make it through the day at work and in time for an appointment at a very caring and dignified little shop with a hairdresser who has had breast cancer. The first wig works. Now to get the right color. We sit in the natural light of the sun by a large window to match my hair to sample hair colors. I let John and the hairdresser decide because they can see more of my hair than I can. We order the wig for pick-up in a few days. Meanwhile I get a head scarf that sets off the unusual color of my irises: a blue inner rim surrounded by a green rim.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">The next day during chemo, I let my fingers glide through my hair and ten strands come out. Again; 30 this time. Then 25, then 20, and on and on it goes. I saw “50/50” over the weekend (a good movie: good acting, good story, good balance of humor with heart). But the guy did not look better with a shaved head. I cannot go that radical. I can’t think why John and Anne can’t cut off some of my hair tonight at home. Then again, I <i>can</i> think why and decide I deserve a professional haircut because, as the commercial goes, I’m worth it.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">My hairdresser has broken her arm so I am assigned to a young woman about Anne’s age (mid-20s). I tell her I have cancer and my hair has begun falling out, and would she please cut all my hair down to about one inch from my scalp. She says that she wants to make it look feminine. Good luck with that, I think.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">She massages my head with oil and I am grateful that she even wants to touch it. She washes it thoroughly and gently. She coats it in luxurious conditioner (yep, expensive) and covers my head with a hot towel. Then she rinses my hair, carefully towels it partially dry and begins to work her magic. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">My medi-port shows partly through my salon gown and I say what it is. I'm about to explain it to her when she says, “Oh, I know all about those ports. My grandmother has one.” I immediately age ten years.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">She finishes the cut, blows my hair dry, primps it, and gives me the mirror. I cannot believe what a cute and practical cut she has given me, all the time treating me with respect and dignity. I tip her well.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">John is delighted with it. Anne approves of it as well. On Tuesday, Tom finally was allowed into America on his immigrant spousal visa, and came home to his wife and to America. He and Anne are living with us until they can get on their feet financially. When he sees me this evening, he says my cut is “becoming.” I love my son-in-law.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">And here’s the best part: My hair has stopped falling out; just a strand or two here and there. Who'd have thought that even chemo can be killed with kindness!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">© Jean DiMotto, 2011 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span></div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-63523339693886154132011-09-30T11:00:00.000-05:002013-11-24T19:13:43.180-06:00The Fragility of Emotional Balance<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I met with my oncologist Wednesday morning. There is one thing I still don’t understand so I asked: If I have limited disease, locally-confined cancer with a clear PET scan, why am I undergoing chemotherapy? Is it because of the type of cancer – small cell? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Yes, she replied. This cancer is rarely found in the bladder, most often in the lung. Small cell cancer has only two classifications: limited disease or extensive (metastasized) disease, but it is always considered a systemic cancer. This is because the “small cells” are neuro-endocrine carcinoma cells. Embryonically neuro-endocrine cells form into all the glands as well as the neurological system. So it is possible for there to be lots of these microscopic villains hanging around which cannot yet be detected by a PET scan. Thus, chemotherapy to poison them wherever they may be lurking.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">For some reason, this information caught me completely off-guard. It brought home to me the seriousness of my cancer. It doesn’t alter the optimistic prognosis one iota. But somehow this more explicit information took the wind out of my emotional sails – again! I was planning to go to work, but I could not get ahold of my tears.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Denial is a nice companion. Then another rock is upturned and I see what is under it. Smash! Those are my emotions splat all over the place. No physical pain, no nausea. But the daily bouts of weeping are exhausting.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">That is the thing about my condition: it’s the emotions that are the trickiest part. Similar to grief, they surface whenever they feel like it. Unannounced. And they don’t drive away on the freeway. They meander on winding back roads so that regaining even a small measure of emotional balance is elusive. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Part of it is so many utterly new experiences in the span of just three weeks. Another is the intensity of the experiences. Yet another is the unpredictability of the experiences and the information. And I </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">don’t have cigarettes anymore; I have long viewed smoking as helping me manage my emotions.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I am surprised that I cannot talk about my experiences or emotions with anyone other than my husband. Even with a sister who calls frequently and ends each call with, “OK, honey, love you.” I let her calls go to voice mail and ask John to let her know how much I appreciate her thinking of me but that I just cannot talk about this.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Instead I stay awake late into the night to find the necessary stretch of solitude to come to terms with my emotions, to ponder, to pray, to write. And then I am like a newborn who has her days and nights mixed up. “Oh, Mama, I wish you could hold me and rock me,” the infant cries plaintively.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3OtR4UFqgvLaybmyTKWQwywCXVeygS_GYJGjOKyXDPw0qJPdXvR1lZfezaMR1z8trWo0C2WwqLKRRuT8w3WgYt0gEV6GDZMron_bpAgkMzV7iFj2XnEt1aXzTFMBD592L4Fat4pxQmAI/s1600/DSC01263.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" rda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3OtR4UFqgvLaybmyTKWQwywCXVeygS_GYJGjOKyXDPw0qJPdXvR1lZfezaMR1z8trWo0C2WwqLKRRuT8w3WgYt0gEV6GDZMron_bpAgkMzV7iFj2XnEt1aXzTFMBD592L4Fat4pxQmAI/s320/DSC01263.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">© Jean DiMotto, 2011</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: www.</span>jeandimotto.com</span></div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-1858649297778590662011-09-27T05:55:00.000-05:002013-11-21T15:37:41.226-06:00Monday's Pity Party<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">My Monday pity party went like this: After I actually showered - yay Jean! - I headed off about 1:30 to the oncology clinic to give a urine specimen because I had burning with urination. My nurse last week said come when you can so I came when I could. Oh horrors, no doctor's order! The receptionist, a woman about my age, said my full name and spelled my last name three times in front of the other patients in the waiting room while on the phone to someone else in the clinic. HIPAA, schmipaa. Finally she got the order.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I took my teeny tiny container into the restroom and opened it, opened the wipe, lowered my pants, used the wipe, let a little urine flow then tried to stop it (right!) and then positioned the teeny tiny container.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> But </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Pavlov’s dogs were with me the entire time and so I </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px;">“</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">peed up a storm:</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px;">”</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> on the toilet seat, in the toilet, in my adult diaper, on my pants, down my leg, onto my shoes and the floor - everywhere but in the teeny tiny container designed only for men and for skinny young women without bellies who might actually be able to see what they are doing down there. I turned on the faucet for any assistance running water might provide but all the urine was out and Pavlov’s dogs were long gone. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I began to clean up myself and the room, and to cry. Which apparently cancer patients are not allowed to do if I gauged the receptionist’s response correctly. I thought I had my tears under control but when I came out of the restroom with the empty container I started crying again. I said to the receptionist, “Sometimes having cancer is a real pain in the ass.” She looked at me while glued to her chair three feet away and asked if something was the matter. Should I have said “urethra” instead of </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px;">“</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">ass?</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px;">”</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> I don’t know what I replied to her incisive question because by then I was bawling. Fortunately she got the lab woman back, also a woman about my age, who was wonderful, “got it” immediately and said soothing things without patronizing me. She noted that men have it so easy with their apparatus. She gave me a new teeny tiny container and told me to return it when I had an inch of urine in it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I started to head home but determined that I was not driving all the way there and back, that I was going to park in the lot shared by a nearby coffee cafe and pasta place, drink the pint of water in my car and get this done with. After 45 minutes of no response I figured I’d eat at the pasta place and take in some more liquid - a pint of really tasty lemonade! </span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">After another 45 minutes I felt an urge - yay! - so I took my bag of goodies which now included a plastic “hat” to put under the toilet seat if needed to catch my errant urine. But I thought if we are looking for bacteria here, urine from the hat will be <em><span style="font-family: Verdana;">per se</span></em> bacterial so maybe I’d do it the intended way. But I couldn’t get the door closed before Pavlov’s dogs raced in and so I had urine in all the same places as at the clinic. </span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I didn’t cry this time. Big girls don’t cry. Cancer patients don’t have sudden, unexpected expressions of emotion just because they are urinating everywhere.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I came back to finish my delicious pesto pasta only to find the bottle of lemonade standing in lonely sorrow because they took my pesto to the mass pasta grave. At least I’d eaten the chicken. But having been toughened by Ms. “Is something the matter?” and motivated by the grieving lemonade, I called attention to my plight and they immediately made me another dish of pesto pasta. Things were on the upswing. I changed tables to a booth nearer the restroom so I had a better chance of beating the Pavlovians. Upswing, schmupswing. The configuration of the booth bench to the booth table was perfect for allowing the pesto to plop right onto my newly washed linen-colored (hmmm, maybe egg-shell white) sweater.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I went home, what was the use. After three tries and by 5:30 PM and with the help of the hat, I finally provided a worthy sample in the teeny tiny container designed only for men and for skinny young women without bellies who might actually be able to see what they are doing down there. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Anybody ever thought of a sterile little funnel for women to hold in the general vicinity and aim down into the teeny tiny container? How about the configuration of my husband</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px;">’</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">s mousse container: two inches across and two inches deep? Doesn’t anybody remember how much easier it was to fill a wide-mouth canning jar than one with a regular-sized opening? Aren’t there any women in these design departments?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">© Jean DiMotto, 2011</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span>www.jeandimotto.com</span></div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-15625108485769252802011-09-24T19:00:00.000-05:002013-11-21T15:39:41.603-06:00Autumn Chrysalis<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">So many friends and family members have been doing things for me. </span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Every loving act, email, gift, joke, morsel, card, intention, flower and prayer has reached and enriched me. It is no longer 1 + 1 = 2 but 10 x 10 = 1000s. I not only feel uplifted but spiritually protected as if I am ensconced in a beautiful, etheric, diaphanous chrysalis woven of the very finest strands of white light in an exquisite pattern of holiness so sublime that words cannot describe it.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW9ZIz5XMORtzTxN7_2Z-4kJEfZA4YRblmNqwSS-DS_-73pAwwR7k1uczlpsqOIgxSSBUzXIOocSUC738IZe9ajUhlB5VXOsmbJK0MjTaCyuDfW_gLgILBw5_lPTkJr3LQhpRUPX36_Fs/s1600/DSC01023.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW9ZIz5XMORtzTxN7_2Z-4kJEfZA4YRblmNqwSS-DS_-73pAwwR7k1uczlpsqOIgxSSBUzXIOocSUC738IZe9ajUhlB5VXOsmbJK0MjTaCyuDfW_gLgILBw5_lPTkJr3LQhpRUPX36_Fs/s320/DSC01023.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">There is much to celebrate and for which to be grateful:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 9pt;">°<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">John looks after me in every way, accompanies me to all treatments, does almost all of the housework, makes meals, heats up gift meals, loves me awake and loves me to sleep. To see myself through the eyes of his love is a powerful gift. “What have I ever done to deserve...?” (Kris Kristofferson)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 9pt;">°<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">My cigarette smoking (off and on since I was 16) could have resulted in lung cancer, a <span style="font-family: Verdana;">much</span> worse situation. Instead I have limited-disease bladder cancer (a cancer also associated with smoking) which can be cured.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 9pt;">°<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">My disfigurement will be limited to the lengthening of my abdominal scar and a little stoma.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 9pt;">°<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I have a beautiful autumn day like today: good rain for the flora followed by sun in time for the UW Badger football game.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 9pt;">°<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I am down to only one pity party a day.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 9pt;">°<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I have figured out how to take my as-needed meds effectively.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 9pt;">°<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">My lab results this week were great.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 9pt;">°<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I only have to have one needle poke a week. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 9pt;">°<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">I am increasing the profits of the manufacturer of Depends.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 9pt;">°<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">My dear son-in-law will be here with us in ten days. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">© Jean DiMotto, 2011 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3843782869054671889.post-84089159900065354952011-09-24T15:30:00.000-05:002020-01-18T12:02:30.115-06:00So What's Chemo Like, Anyway?<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">As preparation for chemotherapy, a medi-port was placed 10 days ago during conscious sedation about three inches below my right collar bone. (The nurse said that during the entire procedure my mouth was slightly open and I was smiling.) </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">It is akin to the placement of a pacemaker only my device is shaped like a heart (awww) and is the size of my thumbprint. It has a tough plastic center into which a needle can be inserted. From there blood can be withdrawn for my weekly lab tests. </span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">As importantly, all chemo liquids infuse through the needle into a catheter attached to the device which courses under my skin into my descending jugular vein in the side of my neck. The catheter continues into the descending vena cava, that part of the huge vein which receives all the blood returning to the heart from the upper parts of the body. The catheter continues downward into the opening of the right atrium of my heart. Thus, all IV fluid that flows in from the port pours into a gulf rather than the creek of a regular vein, saving injury to the lining of my veins from the caustic chemo drugs.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">My first three treatments on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were fine. The infusion room is on an upper floor of a medical center. The room is large and shaped like an “M.” The nurses’ station is in the middle of the room and along the outer walls are six areas each containing six easy chairs so that at any one time 36 people could be receiving chemo. I have never seen more than 10. There are strategically placed artificial but attractive greenery to provide additional privacy between the six areas. But it is a solemn and serious place. The nurses don’t interact much with us. Few people smile or even return smiles. On the other hand, maybe I am one of the blessed few who has such a strongly positive prognosis. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I choose a chair in the farthest area along the last side of the “M” facing northeasterly. Through the large and plentiful windows I can see the lake, the basilica, the largest four-sided clock in the world (take that, Dubai), the downtown buildings which form our skyline and the top of the courthouse, plus hundreds of treetops. Not many people sit this far back so it is quite private. Being steps away from the restroom doesn’t offer me any benefit because I can’t ever get there in time.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I take along a rosary we got last year in Rome that looks quite similar to one of the rosaries my mother had while she was alive. I keep it in my pocket which is in the vicinity of my second chakra (within which the bladder is physically located) and imagine it as an antenna to receive the blessings I know she is giving me from across the veil with her rosary.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I sit in my eggplant-colored chair and an RN comes to get me started. My regimen (everyone’s is different):</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 9pt;">°<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">1 hour to infuse1 liter of normal saline (NS). (NS has the same concentration of saline as in the blood, 0.9%). My liter of NS is fortified with potassium and magnesium because these tend to be washed out by the chemo agents.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 9pt;">°<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">After half of this bag has infused, 60 seconds to push into my IV line 20 mg. of Lasix, a diuretic. This is to make sure the fluids are perfusing all of my body and being washed out through the kidneys, so that there is confidence that the chemo drugs also will perfuse my entire body but will then be washed out through the kidneys before they do damage to other organs. Calling all Depends!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 9pt;">°<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">½ - ¾ hour to infuse Aloxi in 150-250 ml. of NS followed by Emend in 150-250 ml. of NS. These are anti-emetics that last for three to five days (yippee!). One of my chemo drugs has a reputation for being very emetigenic. (Isn’t that a great multi-syllabic word?)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 9pt;">°<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">½ - ¾ hour to infuse in 250-500 ml. of NS which has a very strong steroid (10-20 times more powerful than prednisone) in it called Decadron. Its purpose is to lessen my body’s reaction, including nausea, to the chemo drugs.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 9pt;">°<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Ah, finally the chemo drugs: one hour to infuse cisplatin in 500 ml. of NS followed by one hour to infuse etoposide in 500 ml. of NS.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "symbol";">°</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></span>Ten</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 9pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: small;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">minutes to rinse the line with NS.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Then I am disconnected, my port is bandaged and I am done.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Since the two IV anti-emetics each last at least three days, I only get them on Wednesday and therefore that day is a five-hour affair, Thursday and Friday a little less long.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The anti-emetics are good. The steroid is fierce! It makes me crazy by Friday: emotionally overwrought, manic, irritable, grumpy, crying for cigarettes. This wacko feeling goes on for a couple of days. Plus I am all swollen up and feel quite pathetic overall. By far the worst experience of the cycle.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Then I feel a low-level nausea for a several days: 1 on a scale of 1-10. As has been the story of my life, this does not prevent me from eating. Nor does the episodic heartburn. Nor the odd taste in my mouth.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I was able to go back to work a week later for three days. That was really good for me, feeling part of the stream of humanity again.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">To go back to work and feel this good after only one week is wonderful. I wasn’t supposed to feel good until later next week. It bodes well for the next three rounds, although I know it will become progressively more challenging. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">© Jean DiMotto, 2011 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Website: </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">www.jeandimotto.com</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
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Jean DiMottohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09276712504268993122noreply@blogger.com0