UnEdited Diary Entry

As I’ve aged, I notice each year seems to go by faster than the previous one. Seriously, this is mildly upsetting to me. I’ll be 43 soon, and I’m not happy about it. Where did the last decade go?

I’ve aged a decade in the last two years. Looking at photos from the beginning of my relationship with my husband, and then photos over the last two years, the number and depth of the wrinkles setting in is alarming.

My oldest and his fiance have broken off their engagement. On some levels this makes me sad. On others? Well, I have secretly felt they were too young to get married.

My oldest is hurting over the broken engagement, which upsets me and brings out the Mommy in me. I find myself more than a little resentful at his X-fiance.

On the other hand, it has me counting all of her faults and weaknesses, which makes me thankful this wedding never happened.

I wish I could take the pain away from my son, and make it feel better. I know I can’t, which is frustrating!

Someone close to me is going through marital problems that are severe. It shakes my emotions to the core, to think of this couple divorcing.

Riley (my 11 yr old son) continues to improve on his school work and behavior this year. Fingers and toes crossed he continues in this direction. I do believe his new teacher, and her positive attitude has a good deal to do with this.

Tayler (my 12 yr old daughter) seems to be thriving in Jr High School. This brings smiles to my face and heart. She has quit playing “get into character” (for her desired, future acting career) at school. She does start another drama class this Saturday, as well as a basketball team this week.

Getting into routine this year has proven a little trickier than in past years, although I’m not sure why. Possibly it’s due to driving to two different schools every morning and afternoon, at two different times. And being concerned for both kids. Riley is in 5th grade and this is a tough year of learning. Starting out behind from last year can make it tougher. Tayler starting Jr. High School had me worried, since my thinking is that Jr. High kids are the most sadistic, mean little shits, ricocheting with an overload of hormones to boot! It seems my worrying was wasted energy, at least at the moment, with both kids doing well.

Now that I have the routine down, the husband and I are taking off for a week starting September 18th. Back to “our playground” in Laughlin, Nevada. This trip, we have a room at the Colorado Belle WITH a balcony facing the river. Nothing relaxes me more, than being able to sit on a balcony and gaze at a body of water. People watching is fun too.

Yes, I started blogging again, just in time to take off for another week.

I am keeping mindful of the amount of time I sit at the computer blogging. My neck and back have improved tremendously since I quit sitting at the computer for 5 hours a day. Which means I may make it around to all my reads, not quite as often as in the past. I still love you though.

BALANCE is the name of the game. Something that I lose when my obsessive/compulsive tendencies kick in. When I find something I enjoy, like blogging, I lose my perspective and spend too much time doing it. So keeping a constant eye on balance takes conscious effort on my part.
BALANCE = GOOD
OBSESSING = BAD

Although I obsess, I’m also easily distracted. I am smack in the middle of reading three books. My goal is to finish at least one of them this week. (Yes I know I have an easy life, and refuse to feel guilty because of it. OK, I’m trying not to feel guilty.)

My three books that I’m reading right now are:

Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher, PH.D.  A book I highly recommend for mothers raising a pre-teen or teenage daughter. It’s basically an easy read, and deals with the many problems young girls face today. Presented through therapy sessions with the girls themselves, this insightful book is a wonderful aid in trying to raise young women with strength, confidence and a healthy sense of self. More than a little challenging, during a time when our culture is saturated through the media, with unrealistic ideals of beauty, images of dehumanized sex, and a myriad of addictions and sexually transmitted diseases. As depressing as this sounds, Dr. Pipher gives practical guidance in dealing with the pitfalls of raising healthy daughters. A must-read for parents of young girls. (OK, I’m thinking I want to finish this one first.)

Straight Up and Dirty by Stephanie Klein I’m loving it, much like I enjoy watching episodes of Sex and the City. Shephanie’s writing style makes this easy to immerse myself into her life. I find myself relating to her, as far as some of her feelings and insecurities about herself and relationships. With the backdrop of NYC that adds a sense of glamour, this book is a pleasurable read.

And a book I started recently, that drew me in immediately, is Swapping Lives by Jane Green. I picked up this book because I had read one of her previous books that I remember enjoying years ago. As I’m not that far into this one, I can’t give an accurate description yet. According to the cover, it deals with the effects of a husband’s repeated infidelity.

Besides these three, I have over a dozen more to read, before I’ll allow myself to buy another one.

I have not been successful in my goal to quit smoking. Although I’m not giving up on quitting. I WILL succeed, eventually. Although I have pushed back my next “quit date” until after we get back from Laughlin. People smoke WAY TOO MUCH in that town, so trying to not smoke there isn’t going to work. I need at least a month of not smoking under my belt before going back to Laughlin.

OK, I think I’ve pretty much emptied out the rambling thoughts, for now anyway. I hope all of you have a productive and stress-free Wednesday.

Love,

3T

I can’t let today go by without an update for all you good people who were so supportive of both me and 3T in recent months. Yes, today is exactly two months since I went under the knife for my prostate cancer.

In the last month, I am happy to say, my physical condition has improved significantly, though a few problems linger that both 3T and I believe we’ll conquer too. My red cell count, cut in half by a knicked artery that kept me for 10 hours on the OR table, is back to normal. The surgical wounds are still not quite healed, but are getting there. My stamina and strength are largely back. The other counts show the cancer is gone.

The issues that remain are too embarassing and too personal to mention, but anyone who has had the surgery or studied it can probably guess. And anyone out there who is reading this and just now beginning to struggle with what to do about prostate cancer can just contact 3T and I’ll be happy to answer any questions.

But none of these problems, I believe, will be life-long. This has been a tremendous ordeal, as some of you know. And that’s the best part of this second month anniversary: For the last couple of weeks, my bride and I are living normal lives for the first time in months. There is no operation looming in our future and clouding our thoughts and conversations. We aren’t dealing with the host of issues that immediately followed my surgery.

Yes, I sometimes am haunted by certain aspects of that surgery, especially by the two weeks I struggled with a catheter. I don’t think that memory will ever go completely away, but as more time goes by, the less and less it ever comes up in my head.

I know I am a lucky person in more ways than one when it comes to this disease. Not everyone is that lucky with cancer in general or with prostate cancer in particular.  My prayers are with those who have been less fortunate. And they are also with 3T, without whose support I would never have endured this ordeal as well as I did.

Kevin

I can say few things with absolute certainty in life but after the past 11 days, I have a few: June 9 marked the beginning of the absolute worst time of my life.
My bride, 3T, is a rock and I never have made and never will make a smarter decision than the one I did when I asked her to marry me.

Of course, I knew the latter for a while, but the past 11 days have opened up new vistas on my marriage, how deeply I depend on it, and what a great source of strength and inspiration my marriage to 3T provides.
Trying times will do that.

And nothing has been more trying in my life than what has gone on since 3T and I walked into the hospital admission office well before sunrise.

It’s almost impossible to write about what happened after that because my mind still recoils in horror at the images that haunt me, images of tubes running out of my body like wires in a stereo receiver; a constant parade of nurses and aides poking and prodding me in a quiet but determined effort to cover the screwups that left me with three fewer pints of blood than I had when I went into the hospital, a still staggering 10.5 hours on the operating table, and days of pain and a morphine-induced fog.

I knew just about everything I feared was coming true almost as soon as I emerged from the anesthesia and saw my bride’s beautiful face hovering over mine to greet me on my return from my mini-coma.

And even 3T’s heroic efforts to cheer me up and comfort me during my unexpectedly long stay (six days instead of two) in the hospital couldn’t quite diminish the horror I felt around and in me. The horror of a lot of pain, the horror of being in a hospital wing with scores of other cheap-gown-clad men and women wandering through the corridors slowly, tethered to IV polls, the horror of realizing that the doctors and others at the hospital had made a series of mistakes that left me in more discomfort and fear than I had ever anticipated.

There were two different sets of fears that plagued me: first, those that were based in fact: seven entry wounds across my abdomen from the surgeon’s blades; twice the operating time I had been told this procedure would last; a mistake that even before I was under had dumped 6 hours worth of IV-induced fluids into me in a matter of 15 minutes because the attendant forgot about me; a loss of blood that turned me into an anemic for at least the next 3 to 6 months.

Then there are the possibilities of other horrors still to be determined: Will the length of time I was under affect my mind somehow? How will my blood loss affect me in the short and long term?  Will I be incontinent? Will I be impotent?

Some of these fears would have existed no matter how flawlessly the operation had been conducted. But the fact it seems to have been botched just makes them more fearsome.
So much for all the bad stuff. There is a lot more, but it’s too painful to get into. Besides, I want to tell you at least a summary of the good part about this ordeal-namely, the strength my wife has brought me through staying by my side every minute of the time since I emerged from the OR. She has carted my sorry butt, dressed my surgical wounds, cooked the best meals I ever had, and has all around been my advocate as well as my wife. I cannot thank her for all she has done, but I will be spending the rest of my life trying to.

For now, I am looking forward to nothing with more excitement than you can ever imagine to Thursday afternoon, when the specialist removes the catheter that right now plagues my every waking moment. It’s uncomfortable, demeaning, dispiriting, debilitating.

Once I get past that, 3T and I will begin putting together a more detailed bank of information on what happened in that operating room on June 9.

And for all you men and wives of men out there, don’t let my report dissuade you from getting an annual prostate checkup and doing something about it if cancer is detected. The astounding part of all this is that surgery was and is the only fully reliable way of eradicating it. In my case, the biopsy suggested my cancer was in a different place than it really was on my gland, meaning that if I had elected on radiation, the cancer might have been able to elude treatment.

And one final note: I cannot thank enough my wonderful sisters Margie and Mikki and my brother Jim and their spouses, as well as all you wonderful readers, for all your encouragement since this nightmare began. Your words and prayers mean more to me than you will ever know, and I hope one day I too can provide some kind of meaningful support the way you supported me.

We have been up and down more times than I can count since Friday evening when Kevin came out of Recovery from his prostate removal surgery.

It seems he lost more blood then we were originally told. A LOT more blood then originally told. So much so that I would have to say it was a blatant lie. As was the length of the surgery. At any rate, the struggle has been to get his hemoglobin numbers up. With tiny increases, to only have it go down the next blood draw.

He has steadily gotten stronger, but the need for a transfusion still looms in the very near future. This does concern us. We would both rather he not get a transfusion, but not at the risk of his overall health.

I want to thank all of you for your kind and caring comments, and most of all for your prayers. I know they have been what has carried us. Kevin remains in the hospital right now, without a release date. His drain tubes continue to drain a fair amount of fluid, which is a concern as far as releasing him. Especially due to how low his numbers are on the hematicrit (sp?) and hemoglobin.

Please continue to pray for him. The transfusion, and whether he should go ahead with it, weighs heavy on both of us. There have been more than a few mishaps in his care, and we just want to make the “right” decision. I’ll go into more detail when I have him home safe, and I can complete a coherent thought.

I miss all of you and can’t wait until our lives return to something that resembles more of our routine. With him home safe, and sleeping in bed next to me.

Kevin went into surgery at 7:30 AM and came out at 6:00 PM. Just wanted to update, before I head back to the hospital for the night. There was a “minor” complication, he lost a liter of blood, which they replaced with a pint of his own that he had given on reserve. His vitals are close to normal post surgery, although as would be expected he is still completely “out of it.”

Thank you all, for your prayers and good thoughts. I ask that you continue to pray for him over the next 24 hours.

Love,

3T

It’s going to be a long day. Kevin and I went to bed around 11:00 PM after “making good use of the evening alone.” But then we were out of bed by 3:00 AM. I want to thank everyone again for your support and prayers. Kevin and I prayed together before we went to sleep last night, and we know that everything is in His hands. And a very skilled surgeon’s hands.

I want to send a special thank-you out to Jane at Jane Loves Tarzan, for the flowers she sent to us yesterday! Jane you have such a giving heart and have been a wonderful friend to both Kevin and myself! You touched our hearts with your thoughtfulness and generosity. God Bless you, sweet lady!

Well, it’s time to kick into gear. I will post how the surgery went either late tonight or tomorrow morning before I head back to the hospital. I have no doubts that things will run smooth, and all will be back to normal, or “our brand of normal” in a short time.

Love,

3T

The countdown has begun to Kevin’s surgery. This week has been a slam in the face back into reality, after successfully stepping out of reality into Oahu! Personally I hadn’t realized just how successful both of us were, not allowing his cancer or his impending surgery to interfere with being able to just have fun getting away from life.

This came to a halt with his pre-surgery appointment at the hospital. The amount of information had/has both of our heads swimming. The length of recovery time now seems to be far more extensive than we both originally had thought. The amount of information, without going into the details, had me fearful that somehow I would fail him in taking care of him post-op.

Since HMOs overtook health insurance, hospital stays are at a drastic minimum, now placing the responsibility of nursing care directly on a loved one’s shoulders. In some ways this can be seen as a positive, as who will care more than those who love you. Logically, the shorter the hospital stay, the less risk of germs causing infections in compromised surgical patients. But on the flip-side, it means learning some nursing basics in order to effectively minimize the risk of infection. Knowing what to look for, watching for any sign of fever, and the cleaning and care of the catheter.

If I’m completely honest, I’m petrified. I love this man! I DON’T want to f*ck up his care!  On that note, if I could prevail on all of my readers out there who I know as nothing short of prayer warriors; I want your prayers! I’m scared, period. I’m unsure of my ability to do this effectively, and it has had the potential this past week of literally making me sick to my stomach! My dad and I, in one of our joking visits decades ago, would joke, “God help the man who has to depend on you for his care Teri!” Well here I am. Excuse me while I throw-up.

I know I will do my best to be what he needs, although the fear of falling short remains.

Friday morning, I take him in to surgery. The closer it gets, the sicker I feel. And I know this must be nothing to what is going though his mind right now. He is handling it, how Kevin has always handled his worries. He stays busy, throwing himself into his job, errands, anything. I wish I was more like that. I dwell on it, obsess over it, worry about it, allowing it to rob me of energy and drain me emotionally. Not very healthy to say the least. This week, my efforts will be to “let go, and let God.” For all of our sakes.