Well, I guess a little update might due. So after a 3 night hospital stay with critical anemia, I got out, did my post-chemo/radiation scans, and good news is the tumor is reduced by about 50%. Bad news- "oh, you have pulmonary embolisms (i.e. blood clots) in both of the main arteries to your lungs. I guess not entirely uncommon with cancer. Cancer can cause coagulation. So great, onto blood thinners. But meanwhile I was bleeding out of my ass from a combination of chemo induced hemorrhoids and ulcerating colon from the chemo. So I needed to get the colorectal guy to go in there and do his thing, but he can't while I'm on blood thinners, but has to or I'll continue to bleed out. Catch 22. So I am switched to Lovanox, which is an injectable blood thinner than can be stopped and it'll be out of you system in 24 hours. So for 2 weeks I had to inject myself in my stomach (full syringe deal) 2x's/day. Got the roids dealt with, and simultaneously did an endoscopy to check the cancer from the inside. Biopsy did confirm I still had cancer, which of course I knew. Then the fun starts. I wake up and tell the nurse I think I have to pee. I try and can't. Oh well, I'll go home and pee. Get home, bladder feels pretty full, and no go. And it starts to get critical. Rush back to City of Hope, and they insert a catheter. So I had a pee bag strapped to my leg and a hose up my junk for a WEEK. I don't recommend it. What a fucking hassle. So I get it out, am peeing ok, so head to a rosary for my dear friend who passed from brain cancer. He was my rock during all of this, and he was now gone. Anyway, funeral the next day, feeling ok, but the next day I feel like shit. So thoroughly exhausted I can't keep my eyes open. Slight fever. Monday call and they tell me to come in. Run tests. Oh, you have a bladder infection from the catheter AND it looks like you have a blood infection. Time for another hospital stay. Fevers start raging, full delirium type fevers, have 2 different IV antibiotics, but am feeling like death for 2 days. Start to come around a little on that Wednesday (of last week), but fevers still present. Ended up 4 nights in the hospital. Now on oral antibiotics. And blood thinners. And flowmax to make sure I can pee. Then a blood test shows my hemoglobin is back down to 6.9. So yesterday get 2 pints of blood. Not bleeding anywhere so the suspicion is my bone marrow is struggling to produce the red blood cells I need. Great. But feeling better today. Oh, and as a result of the blood clots, had to postpone surgery for 2 months, so now Dec 5th. And that is the gnarliest part of all of this. The surgery will forever change my life. I will lose about 3/4 of my esophagus, and about 1/3 of my stomach. The remaining stomach will be pulled up to create a new "esophagus" and leave me with very little stomach capacity. So basically gastric bypass even though I'm probably max 20 lbs overweight.
So that's where I'm at. Been trying to keep things in perspective, but it is really beating me down with all these fucking curveballs. But I'm alive, and I have a path forward, however fucked up it may be. So I guess I count myself as one of the lucky ones.