Major stress
The past two weeks have been crazy. In the night of Thursday going on Friday I found myself at the first aid department because I thought I had broken my right arm. They did not find anything, but the next day I was told that the snap that I heard in the middle of the night was probably the last part of my first rib breaking off, giving me pain in my upper arm. Friday a week ago I had a meeting with Dr. Welvaart a general surgeon. He was asked to look at the tumor in my back and give an assessment for the new surgery of my back. Dr. Welvaart did a great job in telling me the most horrible news. 
It hit me like a ton of bricks. He explained that in order to remove the tumor, they need to approach it from the front, implicating that I will have to have open chest surgery (usually associated with heart operations). This is a very invasive method and has many risks ranging from bleeding to infections to paralysis. He explained how the procedure would take place and then asked me if I wanted to go through with this. A strange question if you are the subject. I do not really have an alternative except for waiting for my vertebrae (t1) to collapse. I suppose that some people give up at this point. There is no question that I am ready to give in to the cancer. I spent the weekend telling my family about what was going to happen and decided that the risks are so great that I do not want to go through with this before April, giving me a little time to do some things which I have wanted to for a long time such as going away for the weekend with Marcus, and taking Kiara to the musical of Tarzan, and visiting my neice and my brother. When you are this busy getting better you just don't find the time to get around. Then there's my friends in Zevenaar. I have to see them. So Tuesday when I had my talk with the orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Jiya, I had two things on my mind. Postponing the operation and some hope that they would manage to do the operation from the back anyhow. I got both but it was a much less than satisfactory converstation. Dr. Jiya had not read the recommendations from the general surgeon and didn't have a clue what I was coming for. He approached the matter like an orthopedic surgeon would and decided that he was not interested in removing the canceric matter. His interest was to stablize the vertebrae and to try to free the nerve which is giving me trouble in my arm. It was a horrible conversation in which he strutted his ego, making sure that we knew that Dr. Pluymakers was his assistant. He also retracted the deal made with Dr. Lips to monitor my bones in the orthopedic department. I was devastated as Dr. Pluymakers had arranged this for me and I believe it was the best decision made since the beginning of my treatment. I was frustrated and Marcus told me to give up talking to Jiya as he wasn't listening to me anyway. So we left. I took this story to Dr. Lips on wednesday. Dr. Lips agreed with me that this was not the way to go about things. He will be talking to the other guys soon. Dr. Lips agreed that we should try to reduce the cancerous tissue. So all I know now is that I need an operation. I still don't know what they are going to do. I hope to hear from Dr. Lips this week.
It hit me like a ton of bricks. He explained that in order to remove the tumor, they need to approach it from the front, implicating that I will have to have open chest surgery (usually associated with heart operations). This is a very invasive method and has many risks ranging from bleeding to infections to paralysis. He explained how the procedure would take place and then asked me if I wanted to go through with this. A strange question if you are the subject. I do not really have an alternative except for waiting for my vertebrae (t1) to collapse. I suppose that some people give up at this point. There is no question that I am ready to give in to the cancer. I spent the weekend telling my family about what was going to happen and decided that the risks are so great that I do not want to go through with this before April, giving me a little time to do some things which I have wanted to for a long time such as going away for the weekend with Marcus, and taking Kiara to the musical of Tarzan, and visiting my neice and my brother. When you are this busy getting better you just don't find the time to get around. Then there's my friends in Zevenaar. I have to see them. So Tuesday when I had my talk with the orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Jiya, I had two things on my mind. Postponing the operation and some hope that they would manage to do the operation from the back anyhow. I got both but it was a much less than satisfactory converstation. Dr. Jiya had not read the recommendations from the general surgeon and didn't have a clue what I was coming for. He approached the matter like an orthopedic surgeon would and decided that he was not interested in removing the canceric matter. His interest was to stablize the vertebrae and to try to free the nerve which is giving me trouble in my arm. It was a horrible conversation in which he strutted his ego, making sure that we knew that Dr. Pluymakers was his assistant. He also retracted the deal made with Dr. Lips to monitor my bones in the orthopedic department. I was devastated as Dr. Pluymakers had arranged this for me and I believe it was the best decision made since the beginning of my treatment. I was frustrated and Marcus told me to give up talking to Jiya as he wasn't listening to me anyway. So we left. I took this story to Dr. Lips on wednesday. Dr. Lips agreed with me that this was not the way to go about things. He will be talking to the other guys soon. Dr. Lips agreed that we should try to reduce the cancerous tissue. So all I know now is that I need an operation. I still don't know what they are going to do. I hope to hear from Dr. Lips this week. After a week of major stress Marcus and I left for Ijmuiden for a luxury weekend. We went to the Sauna in Santpoort and stayed there all day and watched a movie. Then we spent the night at the Holiday Inn in IJmuiden. The weather was horrible so we stayed close to the hotel until the evening. We ended the weekend at a terrific fish restaurant called De Meerplaats.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment