An Outpouring of Support

So, I'm home recovering from the first major surgery of my life. I am now an ostomate, a person who has undergone surgery to create a new body orifice for the discharge of wastes. In other words, I now shit through my stomach.

If I were still thirty years old, I guess this would be a horrific experience for me. At age 59, with a mostly sedentary lifestyle, it's not that big a deal. Cleanup is gag-inducing, but perhaps I'll get used to it with time.

The most remarkable thing about this experience is the outpouring of support I've received. My coffee shop family has kept me fed, run errands for me, spent evenings with me to keep from being depressed and lonely, and generally gone far above and beyond the call of duty.

In addition, my friend and former boss at the city, Karen, has gotten me to the hospital, helped me keep track of paperwork. Her husband has run errands to the pharmacy for me.

Old TV colleagues, many of whom I had not seen in decades, have come to visit.

I should also say something here about Facebook. Love it or hate it, Facebook was the key medium in getting word out to others about my situation.

An update

Well, a lot has happened since my last post. Colostomy surgery on Feb. 10, followed by four days in the hospital. I'm back home now, trying to minimize my intake of Percocet. I have a lot I want to say about this, very little of it medical in nature. But I'm in bed, trying to blog with my iPad, and I think I'll wait until later to write more comprehensively.

Frightened?

A couple of people have asked me if I'm frightened. The answer is, no, I don't think I am. I'm disappointed, frustrated, annoyed and occasionally depressed – but not frightened. Maybe I will be later.

Oncologist

I met my oncologist yesterday. He believes my prospects are somewhat better than those presented by my surgeon. I hope he's right. But he said only about ten percent of patients in my condition make it to five years.

Surgery tomorrow. Lots to do today. This is like getting ready for a European vacation, only with laxatives.

Truly blessed

I had a lot to do today. Bought new linens for the back bedroom, along with an electric slow cooker and some pots and pans. Visited with a lawyer about estate planning and other stuff related to my illness. Had new front door keys cut to give to friends who'll be checking on me after surgery. Installed (gopod help me) Windows 7 on my Mac, along with VMWare Fusion, so I can access a single state gov't web site that's still using ten-year-old proprietary ASP widgets that work only with Internet Explorer.

Because I was so busy, I didn't have time to brood or obsess. And tonight, I feel as if I'm tired enough that I might sleep all the way through.

To add to my previous post... Quan Yin has in fact manifested herself in my life, if you can believe in such things. Maybe she isn't sitting right at my bedside, but her compassion is reflected in the supportive emails and offers of help I've received from many, many friends.

I've been truly blessed in this regard.

During these darkest hours

My biggest struggle right now is keeping depression and despair at bay. My depression has always run in a 24-hour cycle, getting suddenly worse at sunset and growing deeper as the night goes on. A couple of friends have put themselves at my disposal at this hour, so I'll have someone to talk to, but I haven't done that, yet. It's important that I not wear my friends down with my neediness. I've been on the receiving end of that, and I know that a person in even the direst of straits can drive friends away by placing constant demands on their time, patience and emotional reserves.

I seem to have two kinds of depression. One is the daily depression that sometimes feels like an old, comfortable blanket. It's been with me my whole life. Although it causes me to avoid friends and put off things that need to be done, I often sort of wrap myself up in it and settle into it.

The other depression is like a short, dark, ugly creature that opens its mouth into an impossibly wide chasm, cold and black, into which I feel I might helplessly fall, tumbling down, down, darker and darker, until there's no light left at all. The last time I felt this depression was in 1998-1999, when my whole life suddenly fell apart. I survived that, but in that case, cells of my body weren't actively trying to kill me.

It has become very important to not be alone. I try to spend time with someone every evening before I go home to bed. I have come to fear solitude because I know that when I'm alone, the creature will come tiptoeing out of the long shadows of the night and open its gaping mouth, waiting for me to fall into it.

In my fantasy, Quan Yin comes and sits at the edge of my bed, keeping me company and keeping the creature at bay. But I wish Quan Yin would manifest herself as a real person to be at my side during these darkest hours. As Paul Medina pointed out in a comment to an earlier post, I eventually have to finish this journey alone. Until that time comes, though, I wish she was here.

The simple truth

I thought I had done a rather good job over the past few years of cultivating mindfulness and being in the present moment. But I can tell you that nothing brings you into the moment like knowing you may die soon.

I've developed a new awareness and appreciation of all sorts of little things that I had previously only scarcely noticed. When I scratch the cat's ears, I notice how his fur feels between my fingertips. When I'm outdoors, colors seem more vivid and saturated. When it's not cloudy, the sun seems brighter. When someone says to me, "good morning," it seems more sincere. I had read that these things sometimes happen, but I thought the authors were speaking figuratively. They weren't.

I've written in the past about how boring many other people find my life to be, lacking passion, drama and excitement. But over the past few days, I've noticed something almost every hour that makes me think, "I don't want to lose this."

Yes, that's attachment. Attachment to small, simple pleasures, but attachment all the same.

I'm trying to be very broad-minded, equanimous and Buddhist-y about this. But the simple truth, when I look at myself honestly, is this: I don't want to die.

I don't want to die.

I don't want to die.

I don't want to die.

The latest

The doctor has told me that my cancer is incurable.

I'll go in Friday for removal of part of my bowel and colon. Chemotherapy will follow.

The median survival time following this surgery is 18 months, although some patients live up to 5 years. Without the surgery, the doctor told me, most patients live eight to ten months.

Perhaps more importantly, the surgery will save me from enduring a lot of severe pain whenever the end does come.

And that's as much as I know.

Yesterday's events, and tomorrow's

Yesterday I went in for the needle biopsy on my liver. I was in the hospital most of the day, and was finally released about 4 pm.

I have a meeting with my doctor tomorrow to discuss the next step.

I was with my father 10 years ago when he had this meeting regarding his pancreatic cancer. In that case, the doctor told him that his situation was simply hopeless, and that he should go home and put his affairs in order.

That has been weighing very much on my mind the past 48 hours. Of course, my cancer is different, and my overall health is much better than his was.