Surgery questions

Tomorrow I’ll be set free.  Unless I collapse tonight, all wounds open up or my reconstituted gut ruptures, I’ll walk out of the hospital tomorrow by 10.  This matches exactly the prediction made by the doctors right after the operation.  The nurses and carers have done a great job getting me there.  I’m grateful to them and glad that I’ve met their expectations.  What was extremely tough at the beginning has now turned into...

Relaxing time

The weekend shapes up very differently to the days before.  It’s quite a bit calmer.  There are fewer doctors around and less activity.  When the morning rounds are done, the patients that don’t require constant care are on their own.  Freed of Fred and all outward frills of a patient beside the wristband and my shameful sweatpants, I can go wherever I please and do what I like.It’s important to be back for lunch at half past eleven and the inspection that comes with it.  Blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, oxygen...

Hard work

Around the operation, I didn’t eat any food for nearly 90 hours.  For a good ten hours before I was rolled into the anesthesia room and 75 hours afterwards, all that entered my body was saline solution through two intravenous drips and sometimes further solutions with painkillers.  Towards the end of this enforced fast, I was allowed still mineral water, first safely spaced individual sips, then larger gulps.  My stomach, an innocent bystander not only in the surgery but also in the entire colon cancer tour, must have been empty...

Convalescence

It’s silly to speak of convalescence when the cancer is raging unimpeded.  All transformed cells that survived the surgery on Monday, microscopic chunks invisible to the naked eye and thus too small to be removed by knife and individual cells floating around aimlessly are still around and are as menacing as ever.  The cancer has not been stopped.  The cells will keep growing and do the damage that all cancers eventually do.  There...

Live strong

Despite wearing my LIVESTRONG wristband, I can feel the difference between me and Lance Armstrong all the time.  When the nurse leaves me with a little plastic contraption to exercise my lungs, I do it only when she’s around.  Lance would be glued to this thing, thinking of L’Alpe d’Huez and Arcalis with every inhalation.  When the physiotherapist encourages me to move and I trundle along the hospital corridor, Lance would have already...

Day zero

Eleven days after my diagnosis of advanced colon cancer, I have already turned into a different person.  This is very hard to make sense of.  Two weeks ago, I was as healthy a person as I knew, a bit short of breath when climbing stairs, suffering as if I were at 1400 m when playing football all out, and a bit slower on the bike than in the past, but without any troubles or problems.  The stings from my belly that would pierce me occasionally drove me to the doctor, but for the rest of my symptoms, I blamed age.Now, two weeks later,...

Knife therapy

A Spanish colleague at work had earlier this week spoken about his impressions of the Swiss health system.  Whatever the problem, whyever you’re seen by a doctor, a blood sample will be taken.  Common cold?  Blood sample.  Twisted ankle?  Blood sample.  Headache?  Blood sample.  A blood sample is the answer to everything, and impossible to avoid.  It’s probably also a good way for doctors to make money with very little effort.Yesterday, I had my fourth or fifth blood sample taken during the current miserable...

Three deaths

You die the first time when you get the initial diagnosis.  Cancer.  That’s it.  Out of nowhere, unexpected, inexplicable for the most part.  One day you’re healthy, with a few curious issues maybe that you don’t take too seriously, but healthy.  Nothing that requires medical attention, and it’s been like this for a while, but you finally go have these curious issues checked out.  A couple of days later you sit in the hospital and chat with a doctor with a serious face who says, I’m sorry, just a few times too many. ...

Time passing

Since the devastating diagnosis, five days have passed.  It has been a strange time.  Even the word devastating in the first sentence doesn’t quite seem to fit.  My diagnosis is clear.  Colon cancer.  If untreated I will die soon, and it won’t be pleasant.  If treated – well, I have no idea.  The doctors are not that far yet.  Tomorrow I will undergo a PET-CT scan, the results of which will shape the conclusions the Tumor Board will reach on Thursday.  There’s also the in-depth histological analysis...

Tedium

On the third day in the hospital, routine sets in.  I am familiar with the flow of things and have adjusted to the environment.  Nurses come to give me remedies for soft stool and more blood.  My blood pressure is regularly checked.  This morning, it was abnormally low.  I insisted the nurse try it again.  The second reading was in the range of prior experimental values.  A third repeat was not deemed necessary.  This was not science.  I also had more blood drawn.  A lot of what happens concerns...

Nine eleven

At six in the morning, the night was over.  The nurse stole into the room and plonked yet another bottle, the third, of Gwyneth's finest onto the bedside tray and ordered me to finish it within an hour.  On the upside, I was allowed to stay in bed and watch the light slowly crowd out the darkness.  The view from my room on the eleventh floor of the hospital, due south, is staggering.  When the air is clear, the Alps are in touching...

Bottle empty

Many years ago when I still followed football, back in Germany in another millennium, the most accomplished German club, Bayern Munich, recruited Giovanni Trappatoni, an Italian manager with a dubious reputation but a history of success.  He was passionate, chaotic and a slave to his emotions – in many ways the total opposite of German structure and discipline.  Bayern probably took the gamble because the previous season hadn't gone well.  Fresh blood was needed.I don't remember how the season went.  I'm guessing almost no one...