Laurie White’s Blog

Since I haven’t been to Pennsylvania to see my father since I started working at Info Tech in September and since plane tickets were cheap and snow wasn’t in the forecast, we flew up to Williamsport yesterday.  Dad looks good, all things considered (growing old in not a task for the weak or cowardly).  We had a good visit and two more days here.

But that’s not the point of this post.

We flew out of Gainesville despite all the problems we had there when we came back from Greece.  Please don’t take this as any sort of endorsement of Gainesville Regional Airport because it really is a po-dunk one-horse place.  But maybe because it is a po-dunk one-horse place, the flight crews that come into it are, shall we say, more relaxed at times.  Every time I fly, I remember the flight announcements from an Eastern flight a million years ago, just as Eastern was failing.  The crew knew they were all losing their jobs soon and decided to go out with a smile:  “Okay, if you’ve been living in a cave for the last 20 years, I’m going to show you how to use your seat belt.”

Delta’s Connection isn’t going under quite as soon (probably) so the crew was a bit more circumspect.  Still, the flight attendant included prayer as one of the things to do as you were putting on your oxygen mask and even included it as she acted out how to don the mask.  But more interestingly was the announcement from the pilot that we would be given priority into Hartsfield because we were carrying a heart.

Okay, so there were 53 other hearts on board, but those were in bodies, not in coolers.  And, since I wasn’t sure quite what I’d see in Williamsport, I welcomed the opportunity to think about what having a heart on board meant (beside landing with no circling and getting a gate with no waiting).

Two families were dealing with significant emotions…one at the loss, probably sudden, of a loved and the other at the chance for new life (and you just  know the phrase “Christmas miracle” was bandied around that hospital waiting room more than once yesterday).  Hey, it helped to know there were people who were bigger emotional basket cases than I was.

But then I started to wonder, is it really the case that the loss was sudden?  Who are these heart donors anyway?

The Internet is an amazing place and http://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/latestData/rptData.asp has all the answers, some of them a bit surprising.

There were 6,011 heart donors last year.  The largest number of them died of stroke (2,471), but a lot (2,340) died of blunt injury (only 942 of these were motor vehicle accidents though).  There were 539 gun shot wound caused deaths.

What I find peculiar is there were 736 who died of cardiovascular causes.  So, the heart didn’t work in one person, let’s try it in someone else?  And there were 243 deaths caused by drug intoxication.  I guess the  drugs caused fatal damage to something other than the heart.

One thing that did come out is that almost all donors died of something sudden.  And getting into Atlanta so quickly was no fluke.  The shelf life of a heart is only about 5 hours.  You have to figure it was still in the guy’s chest when we left for the airport at 4:30 AM, since we didn’t get to Atlanta until a little after 7:00 AM.  What with rush hour traffic, surgical prep, etc. they didn’t have much time.  (That may explain why gate checked baggage took a while to come off the plane.)

And so ends today’s distracting thought.

You’ll meet some amazing people there.

We had lunch at the Olive Garden, which shares a parking lot with Macon’s only remaining clothing-fabric store and the blood donation center. On the way out, I decided to run by the fabric shop and see what was new. But first I figured I’d drop in at the blood center. Last week, Maureen, the volunteer coordinator, called me, out of the blue, to let me know she was thinking about me. She wasn’t trying to get me in to give; I’m ineligible for at least two more years. She just wanted to see what was up.

So, Maureen was there and came up to hug me and we spent an hour catching up. I’ve only seen her at the center and even during my most frequent visits, I was only there for two hours every two weeks. And her office isn’t in the donation center, so it’s not like we spent those two hours in the same room. She even remembered IkeGetDownFromThere. Ike’s a memorable cat, but really, to remember the pet of a donor. I’m so blessed with these people in my life.

Of course, Maureen had pictures of the latest children receiving platelets and knew all their stories. So, please go give blood and there will be another amazing person there.

(See, isn’t this better than an ad for celebrity photos?)

So, a year ago today I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Yesterday I saw my surgical oncologist after my first post-treatment mammogram and it was a dull, routine meeting. Nothing at all to report, the mammogram (which took twice as long as they used to pre-cancer, but I’m not complaining) showed nothing.

Sometimes dull is very, very good.

And Charlie and I are back to our routines, such as they are. I’m in Princeton at an AP Meeting, he’s in Maine at the TUG, Last year at this time (or soon thereafter) we were doing much gnashing of teeth about whether or not we could attend these meetings. He ended up attending a few days of his (worrying the whole time that he should be home, I think) and I called in to mine.

Sometimes routine is very, very good.

Of course, it doesn’t leave much to blog about, but…

So, surgery is over, I’m home, and while I won’t call it easy, it wasn’t that hard.

THe folks at the Medical Center were great, as usual. I’m feeling a little pain around the middle (belly button) incision and that one doesn’t even have a bandage.

And I’m very tired, so this’ll be short, but wanted to let whoever is reading this that all is well. And I’m getting to drink wanter again!

Charlie here. Laurie’s been in the OR about 30 minutes now, but the surgery hasn’t yet started. I’ll post updates as the status changes.

Well, she’s out of the OR! I just talked to the surgeon, who said it went very well, and she’s just got three little holes covered with band-aids to deal with. She should be essentially ready for normal physical activity by the end of the week, or perhaps the beginning of next week. Laparoscopic surgery is a lot easier to recover from than the other options. I should be seeing her in 30-60 minutes, and we should be going home about an hour after that. Unless something changes, my next update won’t be until after we get home.

Okay,

So I haven’t posted much lately. But then again, I haven’t had cancer lately either, so what’s there to post?

I did start creating entries off-line about our last vacation and life in general and such, but we were in Europe and it costs a lot to access the Internet from a cruise ship there (all together now “Ah, poor baby stuck on a cruise ship in Europe’), and so it didn’t get posted. And now, posting stuff backdated over a month ago seems silly.

But, I’ve done silly things before and just might do them again.

Now, the “Blog Comment Spammers” have been out in full force, so if you’re a real person trying to post a comment or a trackback to this blog, it might not get up immediately, since I’m approving postings.

So, they reminded me I have this blog and I am going back into surgery tomorrow, so I figured I’d get an update out before whining about a lousy trip to Capri. (Yes, there can be bad trips to Capri. It was hard, but Vastours found a way to do it…so don’t use Vastours. More later, or earlier if you go by the posting date.)

Surgery tomorrow. Not directly cancer related. But, becuase I had cancer at a young age and my mother did too, I had genetic testing. The testing found I have a greatly increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Breast cancer can be detected fairly easily (and yes, I do have my next mammogram scheduled…do you?) but ovarian cancer is typically detected at the point at which it’s terminal. Terminal sounds bad, so I’m having my ovaries removed tomorrow, which will greatly decrease (but surprisingly will not eliminate) my chances of getting ovarian cancer.

The surgery is being done laparoscopically, so I wasn’t too concerned ’til preop last week, when they told me I’d have general anesthesia. (Now, there’s a good thing to come from having cancer…I can spell “laparoscopic” and “anesthesia.”) I don’t like general anesthesia and it doesn’t like me. But…

All shall be well, and all shall be well,
And all manner of things shall be well.

Alleluia!

So, cancer treatment can seem like a never-ending process. But, if this treatment is to ever end, today marks its ending. I had my final radiation treatment today. That’s the end of the planned treatment for my cancer.

Yeah, okay, so I need to do all sorts of monitoring (every 3 months is the current plan). I need to have my ovaries removed (August 8). But that’s all to prevent/detect the next cancer. This last one, well, it’s over and done with.

I don’t even have a doctor’s appointment for over a month. Sure, last summer, that would have been no big deal, but there have been weeks where I’ve spent more time in doctors offices than in mine. I’ve had weeks with 10 different appointments. To go for over a month. Simply amazing.

And very, very welcome.

Charlie and I went out to celebrate this evening. It was good to have him here for this…after all, he’s been here through all the treatments (and didn’t get the good drugs afterwards like I did). We went to our current favorite local restaurant, the Grits Cafe. (And, for my friends up north, yes, they do do grits a dozen wonderful ways. The Grits Cocktail is especially nice.) We had a wonderful bottle of wine and great food.

It’s very good to have this phase done.

Amen.

Now really, do you think I have enough energy to do the whole “Neurontin” cheer?

If so, you haven’t had shingles and radiation therapy. Thankfully, the semester was over last week and I got paperwork out for the CCSC:SE conference this morning. So I can continue with life as I’ve gotten used to it. I get up around 6:45, take a Neurontin, and go back to bed to read for a few minutes (I’m rereading Little Women after reading March). I wake up 2 hours later and start my day.

But, the great news is the Neurontin seems to be working. I haven’t had a PHN attack since Sunday night.

Rah! Rah! Rah!

My doctor increased my dosage from 1200 mg to 1800 mg. The initial 1200 mg dosage was prescribed as a prophylactic measure. I used to dislike taking prescription drugs, but I could learn to love prophylactic drugs.

I got lots of anti-nausea drugs prophylactically during chemo. And it really did make more sense to take drugs rather than wait to get nauseous. I was given Neurontin just in case I might get PHN. It takes a week for it to work, so it made sense to start it and see if I needed it, rather than wait ’til I needed it and then have to wait a week for it to help. It did take a while for the increased dosage to stop the attacks and I won’t be devastated if I get another, but the increased dosage does seem to help.

Now, I still got all sorts of strange pains and itching and quirks all over the affected areas, but, eh, I can live with that.

Other than not getting sick, not much is happening. Charlie is getting ready to come home from Poland and should be here within 24 hours.

Ike is getting too durned smart. He was chasing the dog Linus around the den. Linus started circling the sofa there. Ike stopped running, turned around, and crouched to get the dog. Sure enough, the dog ran right into the attack.

I’d love to get a picture of them wrestling. But they’re just a little too fast for my camera. And fights stop with no notice…it’s sweet. Somehow they can communicate to each other that it’s time for the fight to end and it does. You’d think one of them would run away to stop the fight, but it can stop with htem standing next to each other. There’s some sort of strange territorial marking going on. Ike will not get on the bed when we go to bed; I think because Linus has laid claim to it. But if I get up in the middle of the night, Ike will come back to bed with me.

Of course, neither of the animals sticks around when I start screaming. It’ll be good to have Charlie home!