Emory Day Spa

12/17/10 – Just another day in the hospital.  Not much new happened today.  I slept well and felt a lot better this morning.  For the first time I did not have any nausea in the morning.  I am loving being able to eat real food.  I had some vanilla yogurt and a cheese omelet – it was delicious!

I spoke with my surgeon in the afternoon and he said that I was looking good but it would probably still be best for me to stay one more night.  I was still on my pain IV with the supplemental pump for break through pain.  He and I were concerned about how I would do once I got home.  He decided to take me off the IV and only do the oral pain pills to see if I could hack it at home.  I am now only on an IV to keep me hydrated and give me my blood pressure meds.  I am taking oral pain pills for any discomfort.  So far I am feeling good and am confident that I will be able to go home tomorrow.

I spent a lot of time napping and reading my Kindle today.   It really was a great relaxation day.  A little after noon Bekah called and asked if I would be interested in a pedicure – like that is even a question – sign me up!  She came over around 1:00 and had all the essentials.  She soaked my toes, filed my nails, cleaned my cuticles, and got ready to polish.  I chose between a pretty pink, cancer survivor lavender, and colon cancer sparkly blue.  I chose the sparkly blue.  The actual name of the polish was called “Dorothy Who?” – I love to look at nail polish color names, it always makes me laugh.  They are so much more fun than crayon color names.  My toes look awesome.  She even added some snow flake designs to keep things festive.  I now have my peppermint and Shea butter spa socks on and am feeling fabulous!

Funny parent story of the day… today I am picking my mother-in-law.  So, every day my surgeon comes in to the room and wants to look at my incision and make sure that everything is healing properly.  I have mentioned to all of you how I want NOTHING to do with my incision or even talk about what it looks like.  Well, he comes in and says “ok, Sydney, let’s take a look at your incision today”.  I say “you, can but I am not.”  Mrs. Janet is in the room and quickly stands up and says “well, you may not want to look, but I’m going to.”  I say, “No, Mrs.Janet, you will look at it and you will just start talking about it, which defeats the purpose.”  - I say that I said that because either the universe stopped working and my voice did not travel through that space or she just completely ignored me because she came over there and stood over me as my surgeon inspected the incision. – I wonder if mothers-in-law just have selective hearing that grants them immunity from appearing to over look something you say? – I didn’t really care, but as soon as the surgeon looks at it I say something about the wound seeming stiff today.  Mrs. Janet quickly pipes up and says “Is that because of the staples?”  Aaaah!  STAPLES! I use staples at work.  In papers!  Not in me!  I have often feared accidentally stapling myself and now I know that I have a staple in me.  “Mrs. Janet!  This is why I did not want you to look. I did not want to know this about my body.”  Fortunately I did not pass out, and I’m doing ok with the staple news.  I just can’t think about it a lot.  I have to pardon my mother-in-law this once, but I have to warn anyone who thinks they can talk to me about my staples going forward, you are sorely mistaken.  I will invoke the power of the shrimp kick on anyone who brings up the subject.  Period!

Getting to the serious stuff.  Today I met with the oncologist.  My surgeon had told me yesterday that the pathology came back and the cancer had spread into some of my lymph nodes.  The oncologist broke down what everything really meant for me on personal level.  He said that based on the progress of my cancer outside of the colon wall and the movement into my lymph nodes,  I would be classified as stage 3 colon cancer.  50% of people who have colon cancer can have surgery to fix the problem.  Unfortunately there are no blood tests to determine if I am in that 50% or not, so I will have to have chemo.  Basically what will happen is my surgeon will put in a port under my skin (yep, you read my mind, I am so not thinking about that!) and when I go to the oncologist he will run an IV through the port for about 3 hours and then I will have several rounds of pills to take over a couples weeks or so.  After that is over I will have a few days off and then start all over again.  I will have to do this 8 times.  This should take around 6 months to complete and I should not lose my hair.  After that I will have to go into the oncologist to make sure I am good, but the chemo will take my chances of the cancer not coming back from 50% to around 70%.  The oncologist said that generally if colon cancer is going to come back it returns within 3 years.  After I hit the 3 year mark I will not have to be tested as much, but I will still go in to make sure I am clear.  For those of you who think I missed a real life experience not getting a colonoscopy before my surgery, you will be happy to know that I have been informed that I get to have one, just so I don’t miss out – hahaha ha… sigh….

So, basically I have a long road ahead, but not an impossible road.  The oncologist said that during treatment I should be able to continue a normal life and still be able to work.  I will probably be more tired than normal and not function at 100% - truth be told, I haven’t been functioning at 100% for awhile.  Don’t worry about me.  I’m ok.  I’m going to be ok.  I am loved by lots of people and if the world thinks it’s gonna get rid of me this easy, I have 3 words – not gonna happen!  Smile people, I am.

I have had lots of good food today – cheese omelet, dinner roll, ice cream, chicken noodle soup, pasta with olive oil and parmesan  - yum!  I think, I would still like a cheese burger – I am happy to hear that I have made so many of you crave a good ol’ burger and fries!  I also would like a diet coke.  I haven’t been able to have carbonated drinks for a while and that sounds refreshing.  My song of the day is “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands, If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands, If you’re happy and you know it, then your face is gonna show it, if you’re happy and you know it clap your hands!” CLAP!