This time when kindness falls like rain

February of 09. That was the last time I posted something. Guess it's time for an update, huh?

A lot, and I do mean a LOT, has happened since then. I'll try and hit all of the highlights without going into too much detail.

March: Still going through chemo. The drugs aren't all that bad though. There is still this issue of intense abdominal pain. Some of the doctors have theories, nobody is sure what it is.

April; Found out I was going to be laid off. Now it may seem incredibly cruel for a company to lay off someone in my condition, but I have to be honest here; they treated me pretty well, and I was the last in a very long list of people to get the axe. The company was bought out about a year ago and has undergone major restructuring. I'm going to get a decent bonus to hang around for a while and a nice severance package. Not to worry.

May-July; The pain is getting worse and more frequent. It seems to be hitting me almost on a weekly schedule. Chemo is still tolerable.

August-Present; Ohhhh, August. Here comes the storm of the century. The pain is most likely caused by blockages in my intestines. It may be from scar tissue, it may be from tumors, it may be from necrotic (dead) tissue. No matter what is causing the pain, something needs to be done. It has become unbearable. I wind up in the ER and after a CT scan, my surgeon locates the blockage. He is going to open me up and try to fix it.

My surgeon warns me that one of the possible outcomes of the surgery is that I may wind up with a colostomy. Most likely it will be temporary and he will try to avoid it at all costs. When the surgery is over, I am ostomy free!! Things are looking good.

But then....after a few days in the hospital recovering from the surgery, something goes horribly wrong. I begin to have difficulty breathing, a lot of difficulty. I'm knocked out and intubated. I wind up in Critical Care, on a vent. The doctors are not pleased with my circumstances. They even go as far as to suggest to my family that they say their goodbyes. They don't expect me to make it through the night. This is the second time in 4 years that I have stood upon the threshold of death's door. I've got quite a bit to write regarding my near death experiences but I'll save that for later. Obviously I made it through the night. After much attention from the Critical Care staff, and gallons of fluid, my body somehow recovers. Another surgery reveals that I had developed a fistula (hole) in my lower intestines and that (this is not for the squeemish) I had aspirated fecal matter. Do you get that? Understand? I breathed shit into my lungs! This surgery unfortunately, did leave me with an ostomy. As nothing can go completely smoothly, it was not a colostomy, as the surgeon had predicted, but a jejunostomy. For those who don't know, an ostomy is when a part of your intestines is cut and then poked out through the abdominal wall creating a stoma on the outside of your body. The normal function of the colon and rectum are taken over by this stoma, and you pass fecal matter out of your body through it. The problem with a jejunostomy is that the stoma is created from the juncture right after the stomach, so that there is little internal digestion taking place, creating a very loose, very active stream of matter. Also, the stoma, in my case, was pulled out of my body at a very problematic area. Because of my rapid and significant weight loss, my abdomen presented a difficult landscape for the surgeon. It has led to many problems with regards to the placement of the apparatus meant to contain my output. Do you get that? Understand? I now crap into a bag and have a lot of problems with leakage.

In the mean time I'm working on applying for Fed. Disability so that I can continue to feed myself. Though that is a cheap endeavor these days. You see, I don't eat much since the food that I do eat rapidly exits through a hole just east of my bellybutton. This leads to a couple of runs back to the ER for dehydration. To combat this issue, I'm fed intravenously for 12 hours a day. That's 12 HOURS every day! Just another reason to go on Disability.

Well, the Federal government isn't about to pay me as well as a multinational marketing company, so changes have to be made. The biggest is that I am forced to give up my apartment in Bayonne. This really hurts, as I had a great place at a fantastic price. I have moved, or more accurately am in the process of moving, to Toms River, NJ. My sister lives there with her husband and my new, totally wonderful, incredibly cute, strong reason for living, nephew, Joey! My father is also in the process of moving into a house here. I am staying with Chrissy for the moment but will be moving in with Dad very soon. Again, here is another post that will bring out some explosive prose, I am sure.

I guess that's about it for now. I should be all moved down here in a couple of weeks. I'm stuck with the IV every day, and the bag on my gut. The ostomy is supposed to be temporary, perhaps being reversed in the next couple of months. The doctors warn me though that even after the reversal I will continue to have digestion issues and will probably be on the IV feeding for several more months. Whoooopie!!

Oh....and there is still the cancer. While I'm recovering from this latest round of beatings, I'm not taking chemo. So is the cancer growing back? Who knows?

I'll be posting more soon. They will most likely be more of the "introspective, existential" variety.

Keep in touch!