Time Out

I'm off to hospital tomorrow, Monday. If things go well, I'll probably be there a couple of weeks.  I'm taking the ambulancel taxi to save Nick the trip.  His taking me involves a drive of 2 and a half hours and then being thrown out of the room immediately I check in.  Not useful.

Nick is going to post on the blog  to give updates.  If you have any comments, could you direct them to the blog, please?  It will be much easier for him than trying to go through my email.

On the dog front, Van-Ly has had her X-rays and they've been sent off to Paris to be processed, for some reason.  When they come back next week, they'll go to the CCF  (ChowChow Club de France) vet.  At first glance, her hips don't look perfect, but not bad.  We'll just have to wait.

See you soon.

Good Day in Hospital

My doctor is on vacation, so I had to see another one today. He was lovely. (He is, actually.) First he said, "Everything seems to be working for you, doesn't it?" That was cheery.

Then he said, "You're 70, aren't you?" "In July," I said. "You don't look it," he said. See? Lovely. "I've got the good genes and the bad genes," I said. "That's how it goes," he said, or some French equivalent.

My big toenail on the left foot is almost off. Infectious nephritis. I'll recover when the chemo is finished. The good part is that my left food doesn't hurt so much now. Now if the right one would go.

Hubris & Nemesis

Hospital food. I shouldn't have bragged. The clinic has a new cook. Cuisiner (cook) in French. A chef is the boss. Chef de cuisine is the boss cook. O.K., probably a new chef de cuisine. Actually, probably an outside service. I am avoiding the issue. The food was terrible!

Good news. I didn't get to eat for 4 days.

Bad news. I didn't get to eat for 4 days.

The doctor kept asking if I'd burped. I kept saying "No." After four days I realised he meant gas at either end. (Last August, I remembered, he'd asked me if I'd farted. Someone must have told him the English find the word offensive.) They were waiting for a gas eruption before feeding me. So I lived on broth until I had sense enough to tell him I'd passed gas.

Then I got a little more to eat. A "cheese" course. A slice of packaged cheese so rubbery that you could bend it in two without its breaking. Tasted like a pencil eraser.

Eventually, the dietician came around and asked if I'd had a bowel movement (Vous avez fait des selles?). Even my pronunciation of "Oui" must arouse doubts about my understanding because she repeated it in baby talk (Vous avez fait kaka?). Like I understand baby talk better. The answer was still, "Oui."

So I got dessert, my first fruit. Compote. It's sort of an apple sauce, sometimes flavoured with other fruit, which only makes it worse. It comes in a little container like a one-person jelly tin. It's awful and I didn't eat it. However, if they'd wanted me to make kaka, why had I not had a vegetable since I'd entered the hospital?

The last night I got my tray and, under the plate cover, was green! "Vegetables? For me?" I asked. The serveuse had no sense of humour. I was desperate; I ate half: overcooked, watery, unseasoned courgettes (zucchini). Yuck.

The good news: I lost 2 kilos, but that includes the fat and tumours lifted from my stomach, an event no more gross than the meals I was eating. Or not.

The American Patient

Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts and even your jokes.

And thank you to my blogger replacement who has done sterling work, as always. (I married him, didn't I?)

On March 31, we arrived at the hospital reasonably on time and were promptly seated in front of an in-take person. Good. She immediately got a telephone call, evidently from a friend. Bad. After 5 minutes, I was muttering to Nick. After 8, I interrupted her to ask, loudly, if someone was available to take care of us. She hung up. (Credit where due, many others would have continued nattering.)

She had no record that I was being admitted. She had no file. She had no private room. That's when I exploded. It was a loud explosion. (Poor Nick; he does put up with some stuff. I have never been able to get the hang of the stiff upper lip, mustn't complain, let's find a queue and join it attitude.) It got loud enough to have the entire waiting room's attention and, better, a supervisor. We sat down with the supervisor.

Gosh, my file was exactly where I'd said I'd left it (on the surgical floor). And, son-of-a-gun if there wasn't a private room for me, too. Breathe in, breathe out. Lower voice.

I was scheduled for surgery at 10:30 the following morning. Priority, even! And yes, Jane, the cute orderly was there to take me to surgery, again. That's all I remember. Boy, that anaesthetic works fast.

Woke up in less pain than last time, probably due to the extra drip and the extra pump. The rest of the stay went pretty much as usual, except that my platelets were low, so they had to give me a different kind of anti-coagulant that required 2 shots a day, rather than 1. Picture of right leg. Left leg is the same with bigger bruises.

Normally, I have to continue the anti-coagulants when I come home, but my platelets are too low.

Platelets are what make the blood clot, right? Why was I getting anti-coagulants at all? Anyone?

Between my inability to formulate questions until after rounds, and the surgeon's "you don't ask; we don't tell" policy, it took until this morning for me to get the report straight. Maybe. The tumors on the ovaries seem to be connected to other tumors on the bladder and intestine. Or the tumors on the ovaries are also connected to the bladder and intestine. One way or another, they couldn't take them out.

But -- get this -- he did drain my abdomen and remove some fat that came with the cancer (?) and had tumors in it. Liposuction -- the hard way.

I will be going back into chemo, probably with a change of drugs or protocol and we will try, again. Appointment with the oncolgist is scheduled for April 27.

This stay was good for lots of blog material. More to come.

Second Try

Off, again, tomorrow for the hospital. I'm scheduled to be there 8 to 10 days.

I've loaded Gmail Off-Line and we're going to test it. Nick is going to bring my laptop to the hospital in a few days and I should be able to answer my mail.

If it doesn't work, you'll hear from me later.

Short Stay

Where to begin... the beginning?

Got to hospital last night. They now have a form for you to check off anything you don't want to eat. Hooray, didn't have to look at ham. Green soup, pork cutlet, mashed potatoes, cheese and apple/strawberry sauce.

The first bad news is that I'm scheduled for surgery the next day at 3:30 in the afternoon. I can have a light breakfast at 7:00 a.m. ("toasts" and tea) and then nothing further to eat or drink. After my breakfast, I went back to sleep, which got me through most of the morning.

At 1:00, I took my second Betadine shower and put on my fetching navy blue hospital gown. About 2:00 I was given a sedative. I read for a couple of minutes, then the next thing I knew I was being wheeled to the surgery floor by a really cute guy.

He left me and I nodded and dozed until the anaesthetist, Dr. Koala, came by to say hello and drop my folder on the bed. Then the surgeon, Dr. Latil, came by and did the same.

Then all hell broke loose. A surgical nurse was running down the hall past me with a phone to her ear screaming, "Dr. Latil! Dr. Latil!" Other people began running. They kept running.

This went on for quite awhile, although, occasionally, someone would stop next to my bed and say, "We didn't forget you." I wasn't worried about being forgot. I was worried about my surgeon having killed someone.

Eventually, Dr. Latil came by and explained that all the anaesthetists were called into surgery and he was having to wait for information. At least it wasn't his patient that had had the relapse.

An hour or so later, bored out of my mind and having finished reading my medical records that they'd left on the bed (I'm doing very well), Dr. Latil returned to explain that there was no anaesthetist and they'd have to reschedule my operation. Like, in two weeks!

I asked if I could go home and he asked if I didn't want to stay for dinner. How kind. No, I wanted to go home. All the surgical staff dropped by with apologies and the cute guy wheeled me back to my room.

There, the staff wanted to know if I didn't want to "stay and have dinner with us," and, when I declined, insisted upon a snack, so that I wouldn't leave with an empty stomach. All the nurses came by to say sorry, wish me luck, and say goodbye.

Nick came to get me and I'm home. Tomorrow morning, I'll call for a new appointment. Stay tuned.

Behind Me

As in "I am behind."

We've had a lot to do this week and, as we're running around, we've been running errands for Polo and Nadine. Then, when we get home, we go up to their house to make deliveries and Nick works. I provide moral support. Anyway. . .

Monday I saw the cardiologist and had an electrocardiogram, as you have to do here before surgery. I am fine. (I knew that).

Today, I saw the anaesthesiologist, as you have to do here before surgery. He is fine. His name is Dr. Kaoula, which I can remember because I call him (silently) Dr. Koala.

They're going to give me a morphine pump this time. I hope I don't get hysterical and start crying the way our friend, Philip, did when they gave him one.

Here's the schedule: I go in at 4 o'clock in the afternoon on Monday. The operation is Tuesday. I stay in the hospital for 8 to 10 days. The recovery period -- I finally read the papers the surgeon gave me last week -- is reckoned to be 45 days.

I have a fuzzy head; I think my hair is growing. So by the time I start chemo, again, I should have some more hair to lose. Really, losing your hair once is O.K. Losing it twice is annoying.

It also appears that it's going to be growing in white. It must appear that way to the hairdresser (wigdresser?), too, because she told me she can colour it a little with some kind of vegetable dye. And she gave me a card for the first appointment free.

While running medical and construction errands today, we bought an expresso machine to be built in to our new kitchen. When we have one. The budget for the new kitchen is considrably reduced now. But it was on sale.

Not Hospital Bound

I'm back!

Wouldn't you just know it? Perfectly packed, didn't forget anything, and all for naught. Dr. Latil has given me a date for the hospital of March 16. He says I have to regain my strength first.

Upon being questioned, he says he can't really know from the scan if he'll be able to operate successfully this time, but the results look good enough to unzip me, again. Smaller tumours, no ganglions. ??? After examining me, he said my stomach is supple, too. I have no idea what that means, but it seemed to please him.

As we were out by 9:30, we drove down to Marseilles and Ikea. The furniture all looked kind of tacky, so I guess we won't get our kitchen there. I got some sheets, a couple of mirrors and a new meat tenderiser thingy in metal. Much heavier than the wooden one I have.

Time to hit the dog food.

Hospital Bound

I'm not sure when I'm going in, but in case it's tomorrow, talk to you next week. If it's not tomorrow, talk to you sooner.

A goin' and a comin'

So I called my GP for a new pain killer yesterday evening and she said to call the oncologist, but, of course it was too late to call the hospital by then. For heaven's sake, I just want a pain killer!

(Du calme, Margot Carol, du calme.)

This morning I managed to get through to the hospital on the fourth try. Not bad, I think. And for those of you still worried about Dr. Litor, she'll be back on Monday.

Meanwhile, I talked to her replacement, who asked me if I'd talked to my GP. "Y-e-e-s; she said to talk to you." Asked me a couple of more questions and then said to come in. Sigh. I just want a pain killer! However, it's nice of him to squeeze me in. Let's hope he doesn't keep me there.

The meds list is a good one. We pause in this complaint to go make one.

Did I mention it's an hour and a half to Montélimar? What the hell; we're on the last tape of our Spenser novel.