Boring old update

Oh god, I’m bored. Bored, bored, bored. Bored of being in pain. Bored of feeling slightly nauseous from the medications I take because I’m in pain. Bored of having to wait for my next round of treatment. Bored of being “unwell”. So fucking bored.

On the plus side, I am now bored at home instead of bored in a hospital. And I have lots of time to read (until the Percocet makes my eyes cross and I have to take a break). But I want to be able to go out and have a drink or go to a show or an art opening or a movie or for a walk in the park or to an antique store or to a class at the YMCA or a book launch or even just to the goddamn grocery store. But I can’t carry anything over five pounds. I can’t even do my own goddamn laundry. I’m losing my mind.

My oncologist came to see me while I was in the hospital (the hospital I left yesterday after spending more than a week there). She explained that the bowel perforation wasn’t caused by tumors shrinking quickly (thankfully, since that would have meant more tumors which really didn’t make me happy), but that the bowel was damaged from the resection that was done during the first surgery in December. And that the infection I had suffered throughout December and part of January (when it had a mini resurgence which I may or may not have mentioned here) was because of that damage. Basically, where the joint where the pieces of colon were reconnected following the resection had been leaking — slowly — since the first surgery was done. It was too slow to show up on the CT scan, but I can’t help but think that maybe everyone should have thought a little harder about why I was having issues with infection. So, yeah, there was still an abscess and a small perforation that became larger after the chemotherapy destroyed the healing that had happened at the point of resection. So now I have a temporary colostomy and home care nurses who come to my house once a week. God, I love Canadian health care.

My experience with TGH was far and away superior to that at Sunnybrook. The surgical team(s) in charge of my case came by three times a day. Plus another person from the pain management team came by at least once a day. When I was having problems with my pain management, people actually did something about it, like, give me more medication or add different medications to help the others work. The nurses at TGH were, in general, more attentive than those at Sunnybrook. I had good nurses at Sunnybrook, too, but I rarely saw the good ones, and there were others who were so dismissive of my care and that of my roommate that the experience was actually traumatic. So TGH wins all around. Even if they poked me over 100 times in an attempt to place an I.V. and/or draw blood which is MANY MORE TIMES than the UHN policy which restricts nurses to three attempts. I learned this when I went to the staff room in the nephrology department to have the access to my central line removed.

Sigh, this is the stuff I have to talk about these days. Boring, boring, boring. But at least now everyone is caught up on most of what happened over the last 10 days. Now I just need to lure people to my house to entertain me and tell me about everything that is happening out in the real world. I know a couple good old-lady card games my grandma taught me if anyone is interested. And you will be surrounded by animals who will make you feel like the most interesting person in the world. Any takers?

p.s. Spell check suggested “lobotomy” in place of “colostomy”. Yes, please.