The real problem

It’s Saturday now.  I’ve just been moved from the observation room.  It wasn’t most comfortable to sleep with all those wires and cables attached to my body, but it wasn’t too bad either.  Nurses entered periodically to do what they had to do to us three patients, and the blood pressure monitor came noisily alive every hour, but I hadn’t done much beside doze the day before.  I don’t feel sleep-deprived or tired.

The intervention took place as planned on Friday morning.  Everything went all right.  The doctor didn’t see anything obviously wrong with the stent.  It was still in its place and open.  But there must have been a blockage.  He swapped the original plastic stent for one made of metal, longer and more stable.  It covers most of the gall duct now and will hopefully preclude further emergencies.

The intervention was done under full anesthesia.  In addition, I got a number of drugs to suppress an allergic reaction against iodine, which was used as a contrast agent.  As a result of this, I spent the hours after the intervention up until the night in a bit of a haze.  I couldn’t even be bothered to watch anything.  The only thing that kept me awake – and painfully so – was hunger.  Since a small breakfast on Thursday, I hadn’t eaten anything.  You know that I don’t mind fasting when I control it.  It’s a different story when it’s imposed on me.

In the early afternoon, I hadn’t eaten for 30 hours and hadn’t had a sip of water for 24.  With the saline infusions running at a good pace, there was no risk of dehydration, but they’re not really effective against a dry mouth.  At three o’clock, as promised, I got my first meal.  It was nothing much, just bits and pieces, but it added up to nearly 700 calories and got me going until dinner.  Dinner was substantial but light, exactly the right thing for my stomach.  I was feeling better afterwards.

This morning the doctor reiterated how well the procedure had gone, and that I’m making good progress fighting the infection.  It’s easy to be overcome by feelings of relief, optimism or happiness at this point.  Things are going well.  But they’re not.  The intervention was pure maintenance, keeping my body from falling apart.  It was peripheral to my disease.  It didn’t do anything to stop or slow the growth of the cancer.  I can’t even take my chemo pills at the moment.

I have long learned that the hospital is always a source of bad news.  It wasn’t any different this time.  The CT showed that the metastasis in the liver has grown further.  Something to discuss with my oncologist the next time I see him (on Thursday?), but it’s not good.  In addition, the endoscopist thought something was pressing against the colon.  Nothing dramatic, he said, but surely not good news either.  The more the tumors grow, the more they’ll restrict the organs that are in their way.  This is the real problem, and it’s not going away.