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- May 14, 2011
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... since the day my life was saved:
On that day, Dr. Wesley White performed a marathon session of robotic surgery at the UT Medical Center in Knoxville, TN on me.
I had a cancerous tumor on my left kidney that grew from a hunch on my docs' part two weeks prior to what eventually was discovered to be a grapefruit-sized growth that was hellbent on killing me.
This is what I look like at 5:30am right beforehand. If it looks like I'm casual in the pic - I wasn't, but I had made my peace. To be perfectly honest, I was good with whatever was about to happen having received solace from prayers on the ride down there that morning (about an hour and a half drive from home).
Silly me, I was just thankful the paper thingy they gave me to wear didn't expose my backside. We seek comfort from the slightest things in such events...
Originally scheduled for 3 hours, the surgery instead lasted almost 9, as the team fought off my running out of blood and going into cardiac arrest mid-surgery - the mass was so large that it became quite the war in there from all reports. Dr. White was bound and determined to not only remove the cancer but to also save as much of the kidney as possible, as my other one wasn't much to write home about, either.
I woke up on the top floor of the recovery wing that evening about 7pm or so. I don't remember a lot of the next few weeks, but I remember that night well. The surgeon came in shortly thereafter and said he had 3 things to tell me:
1. "We got it all". Tests had shown the cancer hadn't spread.
2. He managed to save over half my left kidney in the process.
3. He had promised my wife not to tell me how big the tumor had been.
When I started to raise hell about that, he patiently raised his hand to stop me, smiling - and handed me a scan.
"I promised her I wouldn't tell you" he said.
When I looked, the scan showed the true size of it and for the first time, I freaked the hell out. I looked at him and he took his two hands and made the biggest circle with them to indicate the size.
All I could stammer out was "How long, Doc?"
The smile disappeared from his face and he paused, then said "a week. Maybe."
He was telling me I was a dead man had this thing not been removed right the hell now...
There was a ton of pain to sort through afterwards (I am deathly afraid of painkillers, so we went that route - I was a miserable SOB I'm sure in those days) and there were threats of putting me back in the hospital when I was hellbent on getting out early, then had setbacks because I left too soon.
Just me being me, getting my mojo back, fighting the only way I know how.
The doc liked calling what was left of me "the new you", a catch-all phrase that covered how some things didn't quite work like they used to and how much work it would be just to function some days.
The day of the surgery had actually been the third time I've flatlined on docs, always from running out of blood but always, without fail, coming back from the dead.
Here I am 5 years later to the day. Thanks to Doc White, my wife and God above, I'm still on the good side of dirt - and I am extremely, keenly humbled to be so.
The GTX has been my reason to get up out of the bed or chair in recovery and to keep motivated when my own body wants none of life. I started on it when I was told to do "nothing" as a way to have something to give my mind to do.
I wasn't guaranteed to make it this far - heck, they didn't expect me to - but I'm darn glad to be offered the chance and I appreciate all the great help and support so many here in these forums have offered these last few years.
God willing, the GTX nears completion. I'm hellbent on that, too.
On that day, Dr. Wesley White performed a marathon session of robotic surgery at the UT Medical Center in Knoxville, TN on me.
I had a cancerous tumor on my left kidney that grew from a hunch on my docs' part two weeks prior to what eventually was discovered to be a grapefruit-sized growth that was hellbent on killing me.
This is what I look like at 5:30am right beforehand. If it looks like I'm casual in the pic - I wasn't, but I had made my peace. To be perfectly honest, I was good with whatever was about to happen having received solace from prayers on the ride down there that morning (about an hour and a half drive from home).
Silly me, I was just thankful the paper thingy they gave me to wear didn't expose my backside. We seek comfort from the slightest things in such events...
Originally scheduled for 3 hours, the surgery instead lasted almost 9, as the team fought off my running out of blood and going into cardiac arrest mid-surgery - the mass was so large that it became quite the war in there from all reports. Dr. White was bound and determined to not only remove the cancer but to also save as much of the kidney as possible, as my other one wasn't much to write home about, either.
I woke up on the top floor of the recovery wing that evening about 7pm or so. I don't remember a lot of the next few weeks, but I remember that night well. The surgeon came in shortly thereafter and said he had 3 things to tell me:
1. "We got it all". Tests had shown the cancer hadn't spread.
2. He managed to save over half my left kidney in the process.
3. He had promised my wife not to tell me how big the tumor had been.
When I started to raise hell about that, he patiently raised his hand to stop me, smiling - and handed me a scan.
"I promised her I wouldn't tell you" he said.
When I looked, the scan showed the true size of it and for the first time, I freaked the hell out. I looked at him and he took his two hands and made the biggest circle with them to indicate the size.
All I could stammer out was "How long, Doc?"
The smile disappeared from his face and he paused, then said "a week. Maybe."
He was telling me I was a dead man had this thing not been removed right the hell now...
There was a ton of pain to sort through afterwards (I am deathly afraid of painkillers, so we went that route - I was a miserable SOB I'm sure in those days) and there were threats of putting me back in the hospital when I was hellbent on getting out early, then had setbacks because I left too soon.
Just me being me, getting my mojo back, fighting the only way I know how.
The doc liked calling what was left of me "the new you", a catch-all phrase that covered how some things didn't quite work like they used to and how much work it would be just to function some days.
The day of the surgery had actually been the third time I've flatlined on docs, always from running out of blood but always, without fail, coming back from the dead.
Here I am 5 years later to the day. Thanks to Doc White, my wife and God above, I'm still on the good side of dirt - and I am extremely, keenly humbled to be so.
The GTX has been my reason to get up out of the bed or chair in recovery and to keep motivated when my own body wants none of life. I started on it when I was told to do "nothing" as a way to have something to give my mind to do.
I wasn't guaranteed to make it this far - heck, they didn't expect me to - but I'm darn glad to be offered the chance and I appreciate all the great help and support so many here in these forums have offered these last few years.
God willing, the GTX nears completion. I'm hellbent on that, too.
