Every day, denial lessens. Today I had a pre-portal placement surgical consult. Seems that in order to get the poisons effectively into one's bod, it is necessary to place a port. This is a little high-tech plastic device, no bigger than 0.5" in circumference, that will sit under my skin, under my clavicle. It has three little plastic pimples on it, so that the onc nurses can feel where it is so that when they drive in a needle subcutaneously they are in the right locale. It has about a foot of tubing that ends up in the superior vena cava. The surgeon can't immediately see where he has put the tubing so we will have to go for a picture and adjust as necessary. The surgeon, Bart Weiss, and I are old acquaintances and the gallows humor flows from our lips. He did a prior inguinal hernia for me and we met under interesting circumstances probably more than 30 years ago. It was for a promo video about Cache Valley to be used for tourist purposes. They were interviewing movers and shakers and he and his wife were invited. Jan and I went but I think were there under false pretenses, since we weren't moving or shaking anything. Anyhow, some invitee didn't show up, so we were interviewed, too. We had nice things to say about living here and they must have been true because the Weiss's and the Osborne's are all still here. Anyway, the surgery is scheduled for September 26 and will take about an hour or so. Probably same kind of anesthesia as the colonoscopy--which they don't call a general anesthesia, I am not sure why--which is consciousness deadening. I don't see how that differentiates it. I ask Bart how long before chemo should the port be placed and he laughs and says, maybe 10 minutes. Possible difficulties: he has had 3 collapsed lungs in over 30 years of doing these since some lungs can get up under the clavicle but not to worry, he can fix that too! I ask about trumpet players lungs and he laughs. And then the usual about foreign bodies and the possibility of throwing a clot. I have to repeat blood panels already done since they must be done less than 2 weeks before surgery but escape another ECG. What a savings!
The Celebrate America gig concluded on Saturday evening and the band had a good night. I have decided I will start unloading my motley collection of trumpets, but I have something devious in mind. Sunday was a good day of decompression from the gig and today even more so. I am looking forward to getting out of here Wednesday and getting a line in the water.
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