Past the Platform Again

You can tell I’m struggling with the roller coaster analogies with these titles.

A quick update to alert you about my surgery. It is scheduled for the middle of March. I’ll be admitted on Wednesday, March 11 and go into surgery on Thursday, March 12th. The plan is to remove my bladder (cystectomy), create a new internal one out of a section of my small intestine (neobladder), and plumb me back up. The muscle control isn’t quite like original (kind of like having one less shut off valve in a water line) but folks get used to it with training. The operations will be at Virginia Mason Medical Clinic in Seattle.

As I said previously, I expect to be in the hospital for 7 to 10 days. I’ll then be healing up at home for another 7 to 10 days. I expect to be taking infusions of clotting factor the whole most of the two weeks. Full recovery will take me two or three months.

My doctors and surgeons are excellent. They’ve done this before many times with great success. I have to admit, I’m still anxious about it though, it’s major stuff. There’s also a chance they’ll find something unexpected when I’m opened up. That chance to very small; the scans and scoping in January showed nothing.

At Dr. A advice, I completed another round of chemo on Thursday & Friday this week (just two days this time). I worked all day yesterday and even went to the gym to play a couple games of racquetball and work out. Today is Saturday and I feel fine.

Take care & have a fun Valentine’s Day!