Sorry I didn't update the site yesterday but to be honest, physically I am hurting pretty good right now. My surgery to remove the new mass went as well as expected. I am a man who considers himself "up with technology" but the ability for a doctor to pull me in for surgery, cut me open, remove body parts, close me up and have me home for lunch is simply amazing. It takes me longer to fix most computer problems then it took this doctor to perform his surgery on my body. I couldn’t believe that I was home in less than 6 hours. They checked me in, prepped me, knocked me out, cut me open, did the surgery, closed me up, woke me up, and sent me home in less time then a day of work.
Yesterday and today I have been hurting, and I mean hurting, a lot. Today has been one of the toughest days, physically, for me. Personally, I have been in more pain these last couple of weeks but especially yesterday and today than I ever care to be in. Today went well beyond discomfort; it out and out hurt, and hurt bad.
I’ve taken a lot of time to make sure I thank every one helping out my family in this time and there are quite a few people lending their hand from dinners to helping out around the house. But a couple of people who I might not have given the just desserts are my wife, Rebekah and my sister, Theta. I don’t know what I would have done this morning if my sister wasn’t here. She has been helping out with the girls when Bek has been working and running around; basically keeping our world spinning. Theta also has been looking after me and I really needed her today. I will never be able to completely let her know how much she is appreciated. And then there’s Rebekah. Like I said she has been doing everything to try so hard to keep things as normal as possible. She’s been working and then coming home, taking care of me, getting normal errands done, and still managing to spend time with the girls. And the girls themselves, Emily and Alyssa, have been absolutely wonderful. Although we are trying to shield them from a lot of the things going on they are smart kids and know there is more to the situation than they are being told. So much of our life lately has been “out of the normal” routine and the girls have been great about it. From staying with friends, to respecting an Aunt they hardly knew, to not being able to jump up and down on Dad they way they normally do, the girls have been great and continue to be wonderful. Bek and Theta are working so hard to make sure they have a normal summer vacation.
So, let’s talk about this website. You know, I decided when this first happened that I was going to be completely honest while posting to this website. It was more of a diary for me to go back through in a few years to reflect on what I went through. Obviously, it became a great channel of communication to everyone wanting to keep up with the situation and of course, I am good with that. Over the past couple of weeks I really started to get an understanding on how much my website is being used and it makes me feel good to know that so many care. I just wanted to reassure everyone that I was going to try and be brutally honest on my site as far as how I’m doing. I won’t just candy coat posts every week and tell everyone that everything is fine and not to worry about me. If I feel like crap I will post I feel like crap (in case you weren’t keeping up today, I FEEL LIKE CRAP :- ) If things are going well I will post that they are going well. This is going to be important going into chemo. This is therapeutic for me and I want to make sure everyone has a good understanding of what they are reading and how I will really be trying to tell you exactly what’s going on, when it’s going on. I hope everyone can appreciate this.
Now boys and girls it’s time for the weekly diagnosis. One of the more frustrating parts of the recent events is how often my diagnosis changed. It was so hard relaying the information to everyone as far as what the doctors thought I had and why they thought it. Fortunately, that has all hopefully come to and end with my first surgery. As mentioned before, the tumor was a “Yoke Sac Tumor” which in itself didn’t tell me much. But now with the results from that tumor the doctors have officially (remember everything up to now has pretty much been preliminary) diagnosed me with Testicular Cancer. Yes, the same thing Lance Armstrong had but his tumor was on his brain and he was staged further along than I am so his cancer was a lot more advanced. I’m not exactly sure what “stage” I am in but I am definitely past the “early discovery” stage that would have saved a lot of this pain but the doctors do feel I have a high chance of survival/cure.
That’s about it for now, time to take some more pills and try to knock out some of this discomfort. Keep the emails and post coming, it really is a great pick me up to read them.