Expendable Organ

Ready

"Inspection!" I say, and stand aside so that my mom and my ex can look in the toilet bowl to judge the clarity of my stool.  Yes, seriously, and yes, clarity.  I've had about 3/4 of a gallon of GoLytely, the purpose of which is to clean out one's intestines to the point at which one is, forgive me, shitting clear liquid.  I can't be trusted to judge it myself, because if I see one more drop of GoLytely, I'm going to cry.

"That's not clear!" 

I pout, and go back to the couch for the few minutes I have before I have to run back. 

Yes, I'm a grown man.  There's no such thing as a grown man doing "bowel prep."

Today, I lay in bed for a while, reaching around my side with my fingers, trying to imagine the scar, thinking about whether they'd have to take off one of those little bottom ribs.  I'll find out early enough tomorrow.  I'm to report at 5:45am. 

Thanks for all the good wishes.  They tell me I'll be in the hospital for 4-7 days after surgery, but I'll try to get someone to post an update here as soon as possible.  See ya!

Done

Ouch! But alive. It was cancer, but hadn't gone anywhere, apparently. More in a few days.

Blah

Still in the hospital, as my blood count keeps falling. Since I'm young, they're giving it some time to recover on its own. If it doesn't, I'll get a transfusion. Not feeling too bad, but super low energy. Thanks for the gifts and good wishes.

Oxygen

No transfusion. My hemoglobin is creeping back up, so it'll be a week or two of feeling like I have altitude sickness, but that's manageable. Might even go home tonight.

Home

So sweet.

In the past week, I've been in derationalizing pain, immobile, nauseated, lightheaded, sleepless and basically miserable. But for me, all this will pass. Tonight, think of the people who endure these things as part of normal life.

Later this weekend, maybe gory photos.

Sitting

This is the first time I've been able to sit up long enough to type on a real keyboard; all the other post-surgery posts were pecked out on my phone.  So it's a milestone of sorts.  Of course, the screen is swimming and I'm breathing hard.  Red blood cells: you need them!

For those of you into the gruesome, here's a picture of my incision scar (the black spots are where they had attached the "drain."  For some reason, surgery bloats the abdomen, so I look about twice as thick as I normally am.  Apparently, it was all much more gruesome a week ago, but no one thought to take a picture then.