Be Careful What You Ask For

For years, I have been asking for a little surgery instead of chemo, chemo, and more chemo.

Now, I am getting surgery. Big surgery. Double surgery.

Today we saw the tumor at L5. It has basically eaten away all my precious little L5 vertebrate. They are going to have to scoop out the mess, put in a cage to replace L5, fill the cage with bits of bone from a cadaver, and then come in 5 days later in a second surgery to put in a metal rod screwed to L2, L3, L4, and the sacr-something down at the bottom so that everything is nice and secure for my long happy future.

Surgery is next Friday, May 4.

It's actually not a bad double surgery, not terribly technically challenging, which is nice.

But the tumor is insane. Radiation is sort of off the table because it would take a huge dose, and I already got quite a big dose 3 years ago.

Dr Jaikumar was pretty clear that we can't just leave it alone and hope for the best. Why wait till I fall down paralyzed in 3 months before having the surgery? Better to have it now while I am still in okay shape.

I am so exhausted. I would be asleep, but my right leg is killing me. But I have to go to sleep so I can get up early and go back to UNC to meet my vascular surgeon, Dr Ford.  Oh, and have a CT Scan to guage the density of the bones where the screws will go in. Another fun day.

Plus, this evening I sent off mail to work letting them know that the worst case scenario is me out of work for more than 6 weeks. Good thing I work at the best company on the planet.

+ + + + +

Somebody remind me to ask whether they can test removed tumor bits to make sure that it is leiomyosarcoma. It's just grown so quickly; LMS is more slow growing, or so I thought. Maybe it's something else. Maybe if they can identify it as something else, they will say "Oh, XYZ chemo will kill off any little redisidual cells that escaped!" On that happy note, I will go to bed now.