Pam Shor

The kidney tumor was entirely contained with no node involvement.  It was cured by the surgery. This is good news and I am looking forward to a good night's sleep.
Hooray for me.

I swore to myself I would write even when I didn't want to and today, I really don't want to.  I'm not really sure why.  Maybe it's because I didn't sleep all that well.  Maybe it's because I'm still waiting for the path report on my kidney.  Maybe it's just the accumulation of a month's worth of unbelievable life adjustments.  But today, I just want to sleep. 

I have loved dogs for as long as I can remember.  In the fourth grade, the serious pleading began.

Please, can we get a dog.

I'm an only child.   Both my parents worked.  We moved a lot.  I was a lonely kid.  I did crafts.  I had puzzle books and one-person games.  But seriously, how much solitaire a person play.

Please can we get a dog.

So here's the choice, watch Desperate Housewives or write something for the blog.  It's a tough choice, I know.  

Hope not to be back for a while.  I enjoy the nurses and the doctors, but the rest ( or lack there of) I can do without.  Looking forward to my own home and family and dogs.
 
Now I just have to recover for the big push.  Chemo will be long and challenging, but hopefully it wii help me turn the page on this chapter of my life.

The hospital is quiet.  This will be my second night after the surgery.  I am down to injectable Tylenol now which is a whole lot easier on my system than the dilaudid.  Not sure why people would ever seek out such drugs particularly for recreational use.  They make me feel weak, they make my vision blurry, and they kind of dull the pain, but not really .  Maybe. I don't take enough, but I can't imagine more would be better.  Having my wits about me means l know when it's time to go to the bathroom.  It means I can walk the halls.  It means I can write.

Up at 3:40 am to be at the hospital by 5:30 for this second surgery. Why are things so much scarier in the middle of the night?
Anyhow, the doctor just came down to tell us that the surgery went well. There were some problems getting to the kidney, due to the bleeding from the biopsy, but after they worked through that everything went just fine--very little bleeding, no nicking important things like the bowel, etc.

Its malignant.  But you knew that.  It never dawned on me that it could be malignant.  Dying from a kidney tumor isn't really the problem.  Most of them aren't deadly unless they are really advanced.  But to remove the tumor, you most likely have to remove the kidney.  

How can I go through chemo with one kidney?