Sunny Saturday

Morning Report

Another beautiful-looking sunny day.  At sunrise the hospital smokestack outside my window glows a golden colour.  By now it is just white.

I was pretty sore and groggy after the operation yesterday but at least the stent is in.  It drains out through my side into a bag so far.  My urine and bowel movements (if I ever have one again) go where they are supposed to but the bile duct still goes to the stent and into the bag.  When they are satisfied it has drained enough they can make it switch to my intestine without any more surgery just by putting a cap on it.  Then if everything works OK after a few weeks they will remove the part that sticks out through my side.

It is still quite sore and I think it is just the morphine keeping me from whining.  It is less sore than yesterday and they are letting me walk around again this morning.  I guess time and patience are what I need.  That and rest.  I think I'll lie down again.  Don't let the word "tired" scare you away from visiting.  I can visit lying down if I have to.  I hope to see some of you today.

Yesterday I was visited by two groups of specialists.  The first was the palliative care group.  Somehow the name is a bit depressing.  However, two of the three doctors in the group were extremely nice and had useful advice, most of which I promptly forgot.  Anne will remember more.

Then while I was still in a postoperative fog a Doctor whose last name starts with B came.  He is the chemotherapy specialist assigned to me.  Very impressive.  I guess he designs and monitors my therapy but it will actually be done in one of Peterborough, Cobourg or Belleville (at least most of the time) so that we will not have to drive so far.  Anne now knows how to get to the hospital in Kingston but she is much more familiar with those three closer cities.  It will mean that a chemo session will take only half a day vs a whole day if we have to come to Kingston.

Evening Report

Chris Smith was in this morning for a while. Then just before lunch Anne and Stephen came with a surprise, Stephen's friend Cal came too. Cal was very good company - he actually seemed to like hearing stories about teaching in Campbellford and even laughed at the right times.  Cal is a high school math teacher at Appleby College in Burlington.  Remember Peter Thompson who taught at CDHS for a while in the 1980s or so?  He teaches at the same school Cal does.  Then my brother Ken and his wife Bridget came about supper time.

I'm a bit fuzzy about which doctors were in today.  We had been thinking about having the chemotherapy done closer to home in Belleville, Cobourg or Peterborough.  Then the doctor, I forget which one, said that the chemo would happen at about 2 week intervals.  We think that if it is that infrequent we can just come here for it where we already have a support team available.   We will likely have that sorted out on Monday.

My biggest job today was to have a bowel movement.  After a rather uncomfortable couple of sessions I have manged two so I feel I have made progress.

Jim and Pat MacDonald and Doug and Marilyn Keene cleaned up the winter debris from my lawn and cut my grass.  My rough and tumble lawn must have been a comedown for both of them.  Thanks, everybody.

Nurse Kelly just fed me my evening pills.  Time to brush teeth and go to bed.