Nate vs. Tiny Cells Blog

just waiting on insurance to see if they’ll pay for it or not.  The surgery has tentatively been scheduled for the 21st.  Kinda surprised it’s so quick, the Dr. told me to expect weeks waiting for an open opportunity, but i’ll gladly take an earlier time.  They keep me overnight for this surgery so it must be a bit more serious than the others, plus they need to adjust drug levels to make sure i’m not over/under dosing I suppose.  I hope it works as well as the test trial did, it will be great not feeling pain every movement and step of the day.  Kimberly also got me a handicap tag, makes me feel pretty gimpy, but it sure is handy when my work parking lot (or wherever) is full, I whip that thing out and take the closest parking spot.  I always joked that I wanted to be able to do that, karma wasn’t supposed to sneak up on me and smash me upside the head, anyways I am very glad to have it.  Now if only I could get this drain to dry up, it’s been happily churning out gooey water this last month and shows no signs of letting up, sheesh.

Update – Insurance is dragging their feet approving this so there’s a good chance i’m going to miss getting it done monday.  The next opening for an operating room to do this is several weeks away

Update2 – After my wife called and harassed insurance for a couple days, we suddenly got approved by insurance and surgery has been set and confirmed by the doctor!  Monday afternoon they’ll be cutting me open and inserting stuff.  Weird to think about, but I really need it.

So on top of chemo (which appears to be switching to Thursdays now instead of Fridays), I did the test trial for the pain pump to see if I was a good candidate for it or not.  It was pretty much the same thing a pregnant lady gets (Epidural).  They numbed my back a little then jabbed some needles into my spine and squirted a small amount of pain killer into my spinal fluid, just like the pain pump would do. Felt strange in the legs and arms for about 5 minutes, then things settled.  Wow, what a difference it made!  It was the first time i’d been without pain in the last year.  It actually felt strange feeling normal, that’s how used to pain i’ve become. Unfortunately it wore out in a couple hours, but I think i’m pretty much sold on getting one installed now.  I forgot to mention a big thank you to Emily, Jeremy, and kids, who sent us a giant fruit basket that our kids gorged on for days (ok, me and kimberly might have gorged a bit too, heh), fresh strawberries, grapes, cantaloupe, honeydew, pineapple, yum, delicious stuff.

Had a post op checkup by the pain doc, the cancer is -not- in my spinal bones, thank goodness, it was probably an old injury that got reaggravated and set off all this pain, although it is unusual it got soo angry when I didn’t do much of anything to set it off again.  He offered to up my pain meds, I said no thanks for now.  Things are definitely healing up, I can walk without wanting to scream out now.  I got Kimberly’s grandpa’s old cane today, makes me feel like an old man, but it helps with walking so I don’t mind the stares too much.

The doctor also recommended something called a Pain Pump, it’s about the size of a hockey puck (A touch thinner) and they put it under your skin in your belly (i’m amazed something so big fits under your skin), and it slowly releases pain meds all the day and night long. You can press a button on it to release more if needed and once a month they stab a needle into the thing and refill it.  It’s supposed to make the drugs a lot more effective because these liquid drugs bypass all the usual routes drugs normally go through  (stomach, intestine, brain, liver, etc), and goes straight to all the main points in the area.  So not only is it easier on your body, but it’s fairly well targeted (other drugs go all throughout the body and are wasted except the stuff that happens to reach the pain points).  Another good thing about it is you use a lot less drugs since it’s targeted.  Supposedly 300x more effective, say you’re taking 300mg of pills every day, this thing supposedly only uses 3mg to achieve the same results.  It’s really tempting, I wouldn’t have to worry about taking pain pills anymore (you get them wrong and you are in la la land or the land of sorrow and misery!) but i’m not sure I want another ‘thing’ inserted into my body that shouldn’t be there, a pretty large ‘thing’. Thank you to Valerie who watched the kids today, it’s awesome my kids love to play with each and every one of their aunts and uncles.  Now if I could just decide what to do about the pump.

So after being rushed by Huntsman to get up there ASAP for a back surgery opening around 3 in the afternoon, they finally got me in for surgery around 6 (Thank you Carson and Julie for showing up so quickly for us!).  After jabbing the metal bars and cementsy stuff into me they had me finished sometime around 7.    Now I sit recuperating today, back is wound up reaaally tight and it’s sore, but I -think- deep down the worst pain in my back is now gone *crosses fingers*.  Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers sent my way.

So the pain doctor I visited with looked at my xrays, catscans, and petscans then immediately said “has anyone ever told you you have a compressed disk fracture in your back? In fact you might have two looking at it closer”.  As a matter of fact, no, no one has ever told me this, good to know!  So he’s been trying to set up surgery for me on my back, it’s called kyphoplasty. For this type of surgery they go in with two metal bars/poker thingers, they stab into the sad misshapen disc, fill it up with cement until it’s a nice full normal rectangle looking vertebrae, seal it off, and call it good.  I guess the cement dries fast because they let you go after a couple hours of recovery and you’re supposed to be able to feel the results immediately, if the pain is lessened/gone then you did have a compressed disc fracture, if there’s no change, then you probably didn’t have a fracture and it’s something else annoying your back.  The problem with this type of fracture is there’s only a few causes of it -

1) Osteoporosis, you’ve gotten old and your bones are deteriorating (hopefully not me)

2) Physical trauma of some sort, I can’t remember any big hits to my back since this started, although it can be an old injury reaggravated by a new physical hit.

3) Cancer, there’s cancer living in the bone and it’s eating at the bone making it brittle weak and -pop- your vertebrae loses it’s internal jelly and it gets misshapen.  Unfortunately this is probably the most likely.

He’s going to take some biopsies before he inserts the glue to find out for sure.  It’s been somewhat difficult for him to get an operating room equipped to handle this procedure, seems like there’s plenty at the UofU hospital next door, which my insurance won’t cover, and fewer at Huntsman.  It’s looking like my surgery will be on the 30th of April or 1st of May.  I can’t wait, i’m back to barely being able to walk because of the pain and I have to go to zombie levels of pain pills if I want to even begin reducing the pain.  It’s weird i’ve gotten excited about surgery and people jabbing things into my depths, this would have caused all sorts of fear and anxiety a year ago.

Here’s a look at what’s happened:

Ouch

Update – all operating rooms are in use Monday 4/30, but they want me on standby just in case someone cancels or one of the surgeries gets flubbed up somehow and they can put me in their time slot.  Yay for not being able to eat all day on the small chance of surgery, heh.

Update – an opening, they just called (3:30ish in the afternoon) and said get here now. Wish me luck.

Ugh, nothing funner than driving 50 minutes only to find out the appointment you thought you had today they have you scheduled for next week same day same time, but have no way to fit you in today.

good thing, yet bad, heh.  My back is still killing me. It has let up slightly by using a lot of heat pads, back rubs, and taking it very very easy.  Chemo doc has set me up with a pain doc, pain docs go in and semi-permanently deaden nerves in an area by releasing drugs into and slicing at central nerve points throughout your body.  Not quite sure i want to go that route yet, but pain relief does sound quite nice.  Thank you to Tera for watching our kids again!

Between my back pain and this new drain pain, I can barely move around.  Owwwwww.  On the plus side he finally nailed his placement of the drain, I think, lots of blood and peanutbutterish fluid came out, well not lots, but more than the past drain did for sure.  If I could just move i’d be a happy camper, hopefully i’ll loosen up as the day goes on, he gave me pain pills but they haven’t done much to help.  Thanks to Tera for watching our kids during the procedure yesterday!

Edit – Oy!  Back reaaally hurting, it’s like this drain has magnified the pain double or triple in my back, hard to even stand up.  Think i’m going to call my IR surgeon tomorrow and gripe at him a bit, cause I can hardly function this way.   May need to get this drain pulled back out, adjusted, or… something, which is bad because I think he’s finally nailed the placement of it, i’m getting good drainage and think it’ll be done in a week or two.  Anyone have some good remedies for deep lower back pain to tide me over til I get something done?

after looking over the CT scan from yesterday, the IR surgeon says he wants to put the drain back in. He said nothing has changed from when he took the last one out a couple weeks ago, there’s a little pool of about 2″ of liquid just sitting there doing nothing, and he wants it gone one way or another, even though the last drain failed to get it out.  If this drain doesn’t get it, he’s not sure what to do, he says he’s never had an abscess be so stubborn, maybe full on surgery to open me up and scoop out the liquid in there manually or something.  He apologized for having to do this again (this’ll be like drain number 3 or 4?) but really I just want to get this taken care of and done with once and for all.  Rash is mostly gone but now my lower back is causing me some serious pain, and I have no idea what started it.

Not much going on, other than the usual unfun of after-chemo.  Actually I guess i’m not done chemoing since i still have this ball o death hooked up to me dripping it’s juice in slowly.  The stingy needles seem extra bad this time too, it’s warmed up a bit and i’m still getting them just walking around and touching things.  And i’ve picked up the rash from heck on my torso somehow, doctor looked at it and had no clue, haven’t really been eating new things or using new detergent or anything so i’m clueless.  Any time I scratch it it flares up, spreads, and gets even itchier. Blah.  The IR surgeon wants me back in for yet another CT scan this tuesday, and a consult on wednesday so he can decide for sure for sure whether or not he puts the drain back in.  So my not having it may be short lived -sigh-.  Thanks to Barbara my sister in law, who watched our kids, she brought a bunch of activities and treats to keep them occupied, they hadn’t missed us at all when we got home.  I don’t think I could have a better group of sister-in-laws, they’re all awesome!