Saturday October 11 2008

Thus ends the 3rd week of treatment. Monday Doc Baranda is going to see if I can return to chemo--the radiation has been continueing. Met with the surgeon yesterday. I would be lieing if I said I wasn't a little taken aback by the extent of the surgery. It is a 6-8 hour procedure where they remove most of the esophegus and 1/3 of the stomach and pull the rest of the stomach up to attach to the esophegas. They usually try to do this 6-8 weeks after I finish chemo and radiation. They have a 95 to 98 % survival rate---you don't want to have the dubious honor of being in the minority. He has done about 125-50 of these procedures and averages about 20-30 a year. According to what I can determine that is a pretty good track record. He will not agree to the surgery until after all of the other treatment and then an evaluation as to the condition of my heart and lungs after that (evidently chemo and radiation can affect them---gee who woulda thought of that). It also takes about 4-6 weeks for the tissue around the tumor to heal enough to allow the surgery. I have to admit that not having the fanny pack has been kind of nice---the area of radiation is getting very tender because it is burning out the tumor and leaving an abcess---now that's a pleasant thought. I have been able to eat and swallow with an occasional "gulp". If all of this detail bothers you think what it does to me--actually it helps because one acquires a certain detachment---at least until the cutting starts. Having gone through a couple of major surgeries in the past I have no illusions but as I understand it, if they can determine during surgery and studies that the cancer has not gone any further then, and if I survive the surgery I have and 80% chance of beating this---
I would much rather play blackjack but my odds are better in this "casino". My friend Chuck from San Carlos sent me this:
Something you need to know with winter coming on!
It was necessary to keep a good supply of cannon balls near the cannon on old war ships. But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck was the problem. The best storage method devised was to stack them as a square based pyramid, with one ball on top, resting on four, resting on nine, which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem -- how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate with 16 round indentations, called, for reasons unknown, a "Monkey". But if this plate were made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it in the sea air and water environment. The solution to the rusting problem was to make them of brass -- hence, "Brass Monkeys". Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally, cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. And all this time, you thought that was just a vulgar expression, didn't you?