2012/08/28

• This is a protected post. I post it “protected” because I don’t care (for now) for others to read it, especially anyone from my family. Note – Protection removed (2013.01.20), after minor modifications.

  I’m going on vacations again, this time somewhat unplanned. It’s a fine nine-story all-included resort located downtown Montreal, going by the name of Hôpital St-Luc. I don’t know about the service and the food but I do know there’s no beach. It’s also coincidentally where my father died, on the 9th floor, in 1971.

  In December of 2010, since I had turned 60 and was a former smoker (from 1966 to 1983), my family doctor sent me for a routine lung X-Ray. They found a tiny suspicious spot in the bottom part of the left lung. Since then it’s been scan after X-ray after scan, CTs, TEPs (PET in English), in whatever order, seven in all including that July biopsy done under CT scan and which I mentioned in a recent post. Last year, I was referred to the pneumology department of the Hôtel-Dieu which took charge of my case. Last year also, the spot had minutely changed, but in such a small way that it was not significant enough to carry any conclusion (it could have been (and hoped) to be the remnants of a long-gone lesion), so it was agreed that I would be kept under surveillance for three years, with a yearly scan. This spring, that scan showed that the spot had gotten bigger by 1 mm. Not much, but enough to cancel former plans and set off the alarm. Then followed the biopsy I mentioned earlier. Friday, the surgeon who had ordered the biopsy called me at home to tell me it was a tumor and that he was to schedule me to be operated on next September 4, which is also election day here in Québec.

  If all goes well, I will be a full week in hospital, followed by a six to eight week convalescence at home, of what I’ve read in another Montreal hospital’s leaflet found on the internet but dating back to 2002. Providing that I’m still alive of course. I was told that there is a 5% chance of death from phlebitis or pulmonary embolism (phlébite ou embolie pulmonaire) following such an intervention, due essentially to prolonged inactivity in the legs which can generate the formation of blood clots which then travel upwards. I don’t expect this to be a problem considering I’m not in that bad of a shape and how I recovered rather easily from previous tests, but 5% remains 5%, not 0%. And thrombosis ran on my mother’s side. Luckily I’m a lot more father, his side specializing in the liver area.

  I’m kind of glad in a way that all this comes to an outcome, because I’ve had that Sword of Damocles hanging over my head for nearly two years now and frankly I’ve had it. To this uncertainty was added the fact that in that period I could never plan any trip fairly in advance, let alone planning longer winter stays in Mexico, never knowing if and when I would be called for a test or an appointment or something. The same goes for a bunch of other activities, for that matter. And I’m not even sure if after this operation it will the end of it or if it’s not a pandora’s box, since I wasn’t told more by the surgeon (yet… I’m scheduled to see him Friday). I do expect some news from someone this week. After all, I just can’t just pop up at the hospital on Tuesday morning and say, Hi, I’m here for that cut, check on your list. I also need info about the after period. The surgeon said that after my release from the hospital, I will be autonomous. Does that mean I can go to the toilet by myself or that I can go on errands to buy myself something to eat. It’s not really the same thing, isn’t it? I know from experience that these people kind of forget that some people live alone (lots, in Montreal) and don’t necessarily have some family members to take care of these things for a while. [Addendum: I took matters in my own hands today (Tuesday) and called the surgeon's secretary. She confirmed that it will be the hospital which will call me about when to get there and associated information, and that my already scheduled appointment with the surgeon on Friday still remains and that I'll be able to ask all I will want to ask then].

  Anyways, I kind of had other plans for my retirement, let’s just say.

  I’m also rather pissed. I stopped smoking thirty years ago. What was the point? And if it’s not the tobacco, then what caused it? Overexposure to the foul smells coming out from the daily news?

  So that’s that. I don’t want to talk too much about this, not being particularly prone on pathos. Besides, I would also have to talk about ‘other’ stuff like some ongoing thing about the liver and my thyroid which both have also been under regular for the first, and yearly for the second, surveillance, with their own load of echographies, magnetic resonance imagings, and the likes. At some point one gets fed up. This is why I hesitate to warn my family. I am a very emotional person but am also what some dub as being “built strong”, aka gifted with psychological strength. I’ve been through some ordeals in my life which would have had some others end up emotionally shredded to pieces (like some members of that family, for instance). But for this, I must deal with those things alone (alone here includes Friend). The last thing I need is for having to answer telephone calls from all eight of them including my 88 year old mother and having to explain it all over and over, or someone from my family popping up in the door frame of my hospital room with gloom and doom in their eyes, especially that they all live elsewhere except for one brother who doesn’t care to see me as of late for reasonns of his own, and a few nephews and a niece with whom I have rare contacts. I want to go through this by convincing myself it’s all but a bad dream that’ll be over in a few months (why not?), and that this tumor is not malignant (still an unknown, to me at least), and however well intentioned (or not) they will simply screw up that plan. In other words, I’m trying to not linger on it all the time, to forget about it the more I can. I’ve been working on this post since Saturday and each time I come to it I wish I hadn’t. My take is that if it’s serious, there’s nothing I could do about it (nor the family), and if it’s not, then I would have put my tits in the wringer for nothing (and theirs). In short, I don’t want to hear (be reminded) of it, except on a joking level. And I strongly suspect they won’t be able to joke about it. For once, I’ll put MY feelings before theirs. Friend can. He’s got a fantastic sense of humor, that’s one of the reasons we connect so well together.

  When I was a young university student, or college rather since I was about 17 at the time I think, I had this theory that laughter, or being able to laugh about things, was the best medicine, or life recipe if you wish, that there was on this planet. I still think the same (although I failed miserably at times to put it into practice). When I die, I will probably be cremated, but if by some bureaucratic screw-up I would end up in a cemetary feeding plants by the roots, the only inscription I would want on my tombstone would be some French equivalent of «WTF? »

  If all goes well (what a stupid expression), that is if nothing is postponed (still waiting for a confirmation from the hospital), I won’t be showing up here for some length of time yet to be determined, starting around September 3rd. Hopefully it won’t be for more than a week. In the meantime, I will try to show up and make an ass of myself as usual: it’s part of the diversion plan.

  Now, I’ve had this pic in the drawer since last Spring and was waiting for a convenient time to post it. Isn’t this just a finely convenient time or what? It was taken during my last trip to Mexico and of which I had a bundle of photos I had promised to post (gosh I’m not reliable) but never had the time (or got) to post either. The other ones in the pic are people from my hometown who pass their winters down there, as I had planned to do some years ago and couldn’t because of what’s above. We can see in the window the reflection of that beautiful Banderas Bay, with just across it the city of Puerto Vallarta. I never posted any pic of me on the net before, for privacy reasons, but in good part also because I speak my mind about political issues quite bluntly at times and that I don’t trust at all the American government, nor the Canadian one for that matter as of late, because some of their (so-called) security people can’t differentiate people with opinions from people with bad intentions. I don’t care at all for them to have a pic of me on their sniffing list. On the other hand, I owe to those faithfuls who have followed me over the years to at least prove I do exist. I do have a small pony tail which does not show on the pic, mostly because it’s a frontal pic, but also that there’s less and less hair to be ponied, and that ‘less’ also happens to become thinner and thinner as years go by. . Speaking of years going by, anyone remembers this song by the Montreal group Mashmakhan? ^[1]

  

  ^[1] In Wikipedia they say it’s a Toronto band but it’s grossly stretching it. They are Montrealers and played in Montreal from 1960 to 1969, under different band names. They were brought to Toronto (and even that I’m not sure of, maybe more taken over) by a record company which changed their band name, for the release of that song.

  

  • 20:09
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