Hi there lbj! Glad to see the posts from your sister and now from you.

From the description of the stuff they took out of you it sound like the Crush are no longer missing that football from inventory. Bet the equipment manager is glad to have it back.

My dad turned 88 this year and is now an 18 year survivor. Still plays golf and walks a mile a day. He felt like shit after his surgery and chemo. Never thought he would feel good again. You will come back from this. You will get your strength back, you will get your weight back, and you will get your energy back. It may suck at times, but live through it and work for a better tomorrow.

God bless, good healing and good luck!

lbj you WILL be a survivor, look forward to the 5 year cancer free get together and to meet you face to face.
Para is right

quote:

Originally posted by lbj:
My energy levels suck right now, and at 5ft11, I am weighing in at 159lbs.

I look like a cancer patient or something, I cannot imagine why.

It isn't the weight - it is the vitality behind it. I'd bet you could still put one of your football team down for the count with a pointed stare.

Rooting for you!!!!

T4N1M1? Grade?

When I see the oncologist, I will have more information.

quote:

Originally posted by thomjb:
lbj you WILL be a survivor, look forward to the 5 year cancer free get together and to meet you face to face.
Para is right

I will join that get together.
Going on 6 years Cancer free from Lung Cancer.
At 6'1" I went to 160lbs during treatment. Now I am at 230. Need to lose some weight.

Glad to hear you're making progress, lbj. Keep up the fight.

quote:

Originally posted by lbj:

My energy levels suck right now, and at 5ft11, I am weighing in at 159lbs.

I look like a cancer patient or something, I cannot imagine why.

Good think I wasn't drinking when I read this. Would have ruined my keyboard.

Glad to hear the good progress.

Hopefully soon you can go down to Senior Jalapoenos hand have one of their delicious breakfast burritos.

You are a survivor man, a warrior. Keep fighting.

Keep up the fight.

LBJ you are always in my thoughts and prayers.

Hoping for the best for you lbj. I didn't have cancer but when I was sick at your same height I got to 124. Wishing the best of luck to you and your family. If you need someone to talk to feel free to.

Prayers and thoughts to all. And we are ready for those nurse stories.

We saw the oncologist today.
The news is mostly the same.

Although the brain CT Scan was clear, and they see no abnormalities, they want and will do a brain MRI.

Then I go to Cancer Camp next week for an hour, then off to see a different oncologist, the top in the area.
She has been reviewing my case for the past week.

The treatments are all immuno therapy, and we will start with oral tablets in a 3 weeks with some sort of enzyme blocker essential for tumor growth. If that doesn't work we have 2 other immuno therapy tablet options.

It seems certain that the best we can do is perhaps shrink these masses a bit or hold them steady and at bay. Remission is not a viable option from any known treatments.

The concern now is one lung nodule, all others are specks, and the one lymph mass that is 2cm.
The other lymph masses are tiny as well like the lung nodules, with the exception of the one.

There were no surprises.

The oncologist thinks 3 to 5 years for my lifespan like the urologist said.

Treatment will begin in about three weeks.

You have our prayers, LBJ.

lbj

Not cancer but me being here today and functioning normally (for a 69 year old) was the result of a higher power intervening.
Miracle plain and simple..

Since I read your first post I have been praying for you and your family and while others may have doubts,

I and my family don't.

Doctors only know so much, hang in there,

Beer is on me in TEN YEARs when we get together.

Thank you for the update, lbj. We will continue our prayers for you.

Don't "believe in" the quoted survival rates. In April I reach my seventh year since my original diagnosis. At this time I remain in remission, and this is after being declared in remission once before and then relapsing.

Stay positive and fight.

The hospital stay and subsequent surgery last month was a horror story.

Originally, the kidney removal was supposed to be robotic and aside from a few holes for cameras and such, a 2 inch incision was to be made and the whole thing suck or vacuumed out.

Based on the size of the mass once they got in, a 9 inch incision was necessary and they had to reach in and remove it by hand. I was told later that when the mass was placed on a table, it expanded to the size of a football. It was 10cm in length, about 22.5 inches.

Next up was the hernia surgery which went normally. However, the incision for that was about 4 inches long, from the top of the left testicle upwards in the V of the crotch.
They used glue to hold everything together.

Prior to the surgery, I told the anesthesiologists that I have a history of waking up in the middle of procedures which is called anesthesia awareness.
In the recovery room, the assistant anesthesiologist told me that when I went under, the machine showed my brain activity actually increased under the drugs, so it has now been confirmed that I really do have anesthesia awareness.

The 9 inch incision sits about an inch below my navel and went to my left all the way to my side and somewhat around the curve of my left side. Talk about painful, man, it was bad.

I got to my room late afternoon and was well until about 1AM. That's when I had one of my patented asthma attacks. Me and anesthesia do not get along well.
The asthma attack resulted in coughing fits for me as I tried to clear my lungs.

The thing that bothered me was the lack of treatment for it for about 4 hours, and as I could talk, the nurses seemed to think I was OK.

I have had asthma since I can remember, and I will forever be the that 5 year old child who thinks he's dying waiting hours for pills to work on my asthma back in the early 1960s. I will never get over that.

My typical inhalers I carry were not allowed for me to have at the hospital, so I had no self remedies available to me, the hospital staff had absolute control of my breathing. For those with asthma, the absolute worst thing in our world is for someone else to have control over our breathing.

At one point my oxygen levels went as low as 70, not good.

Back in the 1980s, I was surveying an old golf course and a footbridge collapsed I was standing on and fell feet first 35 feet. That impact was pretty painful.
I swear though that with the 9 inch incision and that asthma attack at the hospital that first night there, I must have coughed a hundred times attempting to clear my lungs and each cough was more painful that the impact of the fall from the bridge. Imagine that pain repeated a hundred times. I was not a happy camper and got a bit verbally aggressive with the nursing staff regarding the delay of treating me properly.

Eventually, about 4AM that morning, a portable x-ray machine was brought in and almost immediately after it was read, a scurry of activity resulted in proper treatment to help me breathe. The x-ray showed what I had tried to tell them, that my lungs were full of fluid.

Geez, that time frame was such a horror story and one if not the worst night of my life.
For the next 3 days, the pain every time I moved or coughed was unbearable.

I was on fentanyl drip with a push button the first 2 days, and while I got me high, it did not do much for the pain. I was switched over to dilaudid drip which was somewhat better.

Those of you who have been hospitalized in the surgery unit know that you get almost no sleep while there because every 2 hours, someone is coming in to your room and doing something with you. While necessary, it still bites moose.

I conjure up images in my mind of Nurse Ratched every time I think about that 1st night when the nurses seemed to think I was OK during the asthma attacked when I knew I was in dire straights wracked with pain, unable to breathe and nothing was getting done until the x-ray 4 hours later.

About the only humorous story I have is the second day when 3 young female physical therapists came in, helped me up and I went for a walk in the hallway with the aid of a walker. All went well until we got back to the room.

At that point, the young girls had me still standing with my back to the edge of the bed. They asked me to sit down first so they could place me onto the bed. Then, something happened to me that in all my life had never happened to me before.

As I bent my knees and kind of fell backwards towards the bed, I literally ended up falling onto my butt on the bed and literally sat on balls with great force. If your are a male, you know how that feels.

There I was, in my hospital gown, sitting on my balls, in great pain, surrounded by 3 attractive young women therapists smiling and being cheery while I attempted to hide my rather pained facial expression with my balls feeling like they were exploding.

That was an experience I won't forget.
It's funny now, but at the time I was completed embarrassed. It's possible that in real time, they knew what had happened, and if true, that would be even more than embarrassing.

But even in retrospect, it really was funny and part of life's rich full pageant, fantasy completed I suppose.

LBJ,

Thanks for the update.

I can relate to your stories about the pain meds.
( I had oral pain meds, and they make me puke.) Not a good thing when you have broken vertebrae,and are flat on your back.