Oh Lucky Man…
…in which I explain why I’m not posting as much as I’d like, with Surprise Twists!
If you follow me on Twitter you may have noticed I've been less active than usual the last month or so. Part of that is the Muskification of Twitter, but mostly it's the result of an intense personal crisis I've experienced since the middle of October.
As that modern philosopher of human culture, Ferris Buller, once said, "Life moves pretty fast."
True dat.
A little less than three months ago I was congratulating myself on reaching the ripe age of 70 without accumulating any major health issues (other than my lifelong struggle with obesity, which more or less ended 17 years ago when I had gastric bypass surgery). Sure, I had the normal indignities of aging to deal with, but thanks to modern medical science they could be handled relatively easily-- like the cataract surgery I had in September and October, giving me clear vision again after a decade of slowly encroaching shadows.
In my arrogance and self-confidence, I imagined I'd dodged most of the bullets that restrict modern American males to an average life expectancy of 76 years. According to the Social Security Administration, if you manage to hit 70, you're almost guaranteed to hit 84 (a goal I still intend to reach). So turning 70 in September, while a reminder of how far I've come, also seemed to me at the time as a kind of promise from the universe of how far I still could expect to go.
Well, ha.
I've had this weird pain near my right hip for months, which I presumed was a result of twisting a tendon or bruising the bone (I bang into things a lot, always have) or something else. I complained about it to my doctor while getting pre-approved for my cataract surgery in August, and he referred me to a gastroenterologist who ordered an ultrasound in early October, after my first cataract surgery. That ultrasound couldn't locate a problem in my intestines (his thought was I might have diverticulitis due to my gastric bypass), but it did discover a "mass" on my pancreas.
The ultrasound led to a CT scan which confirmed the presence of the "mass" (which I've learned is doctor-speak for "we're pretty sure we know what this is but we're not saying what till we know for certain"), which led to an endoscopy intended to biopsy the "mass" on my pancreas but couldn't because of my weird post-gastric bypass internal structure (basically you can't get there from here, unlike un-bypassed pancreas-stomach physiologies). And finally, on November 3rd, less than a month after that first ultrasound, I was in surgery to have the "mass" removed, along with the remains of my old pre-partitioned stomach, my gall bladder, the tip of my pancreas, and other assorted body parts in the general region.
They were in there mucking about, resectioning and rewiring, for ten hours.
Happily, I missed all of it. Praise Cthulhu for general anesthesia.
The recovery, so far, I wish I could say the same.
Fortunately I have in my wife/partner/best pal Laura a remarkably resilient and encouraging ally. Without her I'd have a much harder time getting through this.
The first week in the hospital was, frankly, bizarre. Lots of pain but also lots of determination to get back on my feet as quickly as possible. Which I did, raising my spirits and my confidence. It also helped that the surgical team looked so damn happy and proud of the job they did. My main surgeon, Dr. Tim Donahue at UCLA Hospital in Westwood (props to Dr. Tim) almost sounded enthusiastic when telling me how they'd had to resection a vein-- twice, because the first time he was unsatisfied with the outcome. They were happy because the surgery ("procedure" in doctor-speak) went so well and they'd cleared all trace of the mass from the pancreas and surrounding tissue. Which made me happy too. Obviously. And motivated me to get my body functioning well enough to get the heck out of there.
Two weeks ago, I came home, and last week I had a follow-up with Dr. Tim on what comes next. In the meantime it felt like my recovery had slowed down as my appetite basically disappeared and my internals continued to rebel from any effort I made to bring them back online as they were before. It took the first week home for me to realize that despite my "rapid" recovery in the hospital, I still had/have a long way to go.
But at that follow up meeting with Dr. Tim, Laura and I finally got the diagnosis I'd expected from the pathology report on the "mass"-- it was cancerous, it hasn't spread to other organs, but there are still tumor cells in a few of the surrounding lymph nodes, so the next step is working with an oncologist, which will probably mean chemotherapy once I've fully recovered from the surgery, in about another three weeks.
The good news here (and why I'm sticking with my goal of hitting my mid-80s sometime in the 2030s), is that the medical team I worked with caught the tumor incredibly early. Usually by the time a pancreatic cancer is discovered it's too large and intertwined with other vessels to be removed until after it's been reduced through chemotherapy. In my case, it was suitable for surgery prior to chemo-- which is, if you believe in such things, practically a miracle. (And partly why the surgical team was so happy post-surgery).
I can't express how grateful I am that the universe happened to tilt the odds in my favor in that regard at least.
All my life I've seen myself as an unjustifiably lucky person. That, of course, only fed my deep-seated insecurity and sense of unworthiness-- if you believe you've achieved certain ambitions or goals out of luck, it's hard to feel a sense of accomplishment or experience the security that you have the skills to continue. That said, despite the accompanying insecurity, perceiving the achievements of my career as luck has, in my later years, left me with a profound sense of gratitude for what seems like a gifted life.
I am a very lucky man and whether that's entirely true or not, I believe it in my bones.
And this last few months have proved it to me, again.
If I hadn't had this weird pain in my right side, I'd never have gone to a gastroenterologist and never have had an ultrasound. The "mass" wouldn't have been discovered, wouldn't have been removed early, and whatever prognosis I'll be given when we meet the oncologist this Wednesday might have been much bleaker than I hope it will be now.
That is luck, pure and simple.
Wherever I go from here, I remain convinced I am, and always have been, a very lucky man.
I just wish that damn pain in my right hip would go away.
Hoping you have a speedy recovery! The world needs you.
C'mon Spidey luck, hold out one more time.
Hoping for a clean bill of health from the doc this week.