Yesterday (Tuesday July 14 ... Bastille Day!) I had my very first surgery, or as Emily calls it, "Baby's first surgery". The actual procedure was called a "Transanal rectal cancer excision". The ONLY good thing about a surgery like this is that they don't have to cut any holes in you ... but that is the ONLY good thing!

My surgery was scheduled for 7:15am with a check in time of 5:15am. The hospital is about 15 minutes from my house so I needed to set a 4:30 alarm to allow time to get ready and drive over there. The "get ready" part of that is before a surgery they give you a bottle of surgical soap to use. Once the night before and once the morning of. Other than that, overnight bag had been packed and not much else to do other than drive to the hospital.

Pre-pre surgery days

We had Friday evening and Saturday to take full advantage of pre-pre surgery days. Since my appetite had been back in full swing, we wanted to take advantage of that time for me to eat. On Friday night Emily and I went out to dinner with Dean and Andrea to a Mexican place nearby. The food was sooooo good. We started with Chiles Gueritos Rellenos de Camarón (battered yellow peppers stuffed with shrimp). I then had 3 Birria tacos that were stuffed to the brim with meat. And of course chips and salsa. So many chips and salsa. It was the first time since my teenager appetite came back a few weeks ago that I actually felt like I ate too much!

The next day for lunch Emily and I went to a local Crepe restaurant that had just opened a new location. The crepes were amazing (as usual) but the new location was pretty small, and the music was really LOUD, so Emily and I opted to sit on the patio, even though it was 100F / 38C.

Saturday night Emily and I made a Detroit style pizza for dinner. By that point the teenager in me seemed to have gone somewhere else, so I didn't eat nearly as much as I thought. The pizza (a frozen Detroit style pizza from Trader Joe's) is fine, but you really want to add some more stuff to it, which is what we did. So we ate pizza and watched the World Cup farce, I mean match, between Switzerland and Argentina.

I went to bed knowing I wasn't going to be able to eat real food for a few days.

Pre Surgery days

On Sunday morning I started my prep for surgery. That means it was TWO fucking days of prep. This included a liquid only diet of broth, jell-o, and fruit flavored popsicles. And water. Oh, and coffee (with no milk) and alcohol if I wanted to but, I mean, no food and alcohol just sounds like a bad idea so I opted out of that. I asked a person at the surgeon's office why it's listed and she said, "It's a clear liquid ... and some of the patients need to have a drink every day" ... Glad that wasn't me!

For TWO entire days that's all I could 'eat'. Oh, and nothing AT ALL on surgery day until after the surgery. Not even water. I lost like 6 pounds in 2 days.

The other part of the prep was 'cleaning out' my GI tract, similar to a colonoscopy. It was a bit different this time. Four (4) Dulcolax on Sunday at 8am. One 10oz bottle of Magnesium Citrate at 1pm. On Monday starting at 1pm drink 1 Gallon of Golytely, 8 ounces at a time, every 10 to 15 minutes. It takes about 4 hours to get through all of that. At 8pm and then again at 10pm 4 antibiotic pills (2 each of 2 different kinds).

This meant that I was up waaaay past my bedtime Monday night, but I still needed to wake up pretty early the next day. I'd like to say it was a restful night, but it wasn't. If you take that much stuff to clear out your GI tract, well let's just say I was up a few times.

I finally decided at about 3:50am Tuesday morning that I wasn't going to get any more 'sleep' and just got up. Less than 4 hours of sleep. I wasn't nervous about the surgery per se, but I was concerned. It was my first surgery after all. I'd never been under anesthesia before, so no idea how it was going to affect me. Also, surgery. I mean ... that can be kind of scary.

Emily and I arrived right on time at the hospital at 5:15. The check in process is really pretty easy. By 5:30 I was back in the pre-op room. I was expecting to stay the night, so I had my overnight bag, which included clothes, but also the essentials like an iPad and enough Chargers for 10 devices. I went through the pre-op process, answering questions, getting an IV line set up and waiting. My surgeon arrived at about 6:30 to walk me through the process. Pretty straight forward from his perspective. At the end he also said, the surgery isn't that intense, so if you want to go home afterward you can. I said I'd rather that. Emily was a bit more hesitant about that decision.

At about 7:00 the Anesthesiologist showed up. He asked a couple of questions, had a pretty similar conversation. Let me know he'd be in the room the entire time to watch over me and make sure everything was going well. He also talked to me about the intubation that would be required, and the extubation. Both would happen while I was asleep so I wouldn't feel any of it while it happened.

Last the OR Nurse showed up to introduce herself. We went through some questions and then I was wheeled off to Operating Room (OR) 7.

There are a LOT more people in the OR than you'd expect. I was laying down, so I couldn't see everything, but I'd guess close to 10 people.

I was laying on my gurney and one of the people came over to me and let me know he was going to place a breathing mask over my face. The Anesthesiologist then said to just breathe normally. This was to get all of the room nitrogen out of my lungs. Once that was done they'd start the anesthes ... he didn't even have a chance to finish the word "anesthesia" before I was out. The next thing I remember was being wheeled on my gurney to recovery.

The surgery was a success! The Operating Room was scheduled for 7:15 to 8:55. I arrived at 7:20 and was in recovery by 8:15. By 9:05 I was in a wheel chair on my way to my car to go home! Total hospital time was less than 4 hours. Holy shit. Modern medicine if fucking amazing!

Post Surgery

I spent most of Tuesday feeling a bit loopy from the anesthesia. They gave me 3 restrictions: (1) No Driving; (2) No operating Heavy Machinery; (3) No Making Major decisions

Good advice. Emily was hesitant to let me text people for the first hour or so because of number 3. Probably a good idea. My typy fingers weren't working all that well anyway.

Aside from feeling loopy I also felt tired. Less than 4 hours of sleep, plus surgery will wipe you out. I took probably 5 or 6 naps of about 30 - 60 minutes each. I had hoped to not go to bed until at least sunset, but at 7pm I was wiped. I decided that I should just call it night. By 7:15 I was passed out. I woke up a few times throughout the night, but other than that, 9 hours of sleep. Real sleep. Deep sleep. Good sleep. Restful sleep.

Next Steps

I have an MRI I need to schedule to make sure the cancer hasn't spread anywhere else. Given the cancer markers my oncologist told me about at my last appointment a few weeks ago, and the nearly vanished tumor I'm hopeful that we go it.

Regardless, I'll likely have one more round of infused chemo. Based on my oncologist, he wants to be as aggressive as possible. After all, I'm young and handsome, so being aggressive now is something my body can likely handle. I'm not looking forward to going through chemo, but if it means being in remission, then let's fucking go!

I'm still not out of the woods, but based on everything, I'm getting closer.