Just over a week since I completed my last radiation treatment and tomorrow I face what I hope will be my last kidney surgery.
For some reason the pain has been somewhat more intense over the last few days. So much so that I decided to start using CBD oil on an almost daily basis. It does take a couple of hours to kick in after taking approximately 1.0ml orally but the effect is considerably longer than using the dried leaves in a vaporizer. While CBD is the main pain relieving component of Cannabis I do find that taking a small amount of THC seems to enhance the pain control, probably by adding a little bit of muscle relaxation to the mix.
Today I did manage to work a 6 hour day, in retrospect probably 2 hours too many considering the resulting pain.
On the bright side, my hair is finally growing in at a decent rate, so I no longer look like Gollum with eye glasses!! It will still be quite a while before I need a serious hair cut but I am now back to shaving on a daily or every other day basis.
I'm definitely nervous about tomorrow's surgery since the decision to replace or remove the stent will not actually be known until they do ultrasound, at which point I will most likely be out cold. The surgeon did allude to the possibility of minor sedation rather than full out anesthesia but I'd rather not.
That is how my eye surgery was performed and during that procedure I did experience the sensation of the eye being sutured and lasered and it wasn't what I would call a fun experience. Hopefully I will have some time with Dr Hussey before he starts tomorrow so I will have an opportunity to question him and state my preference for getting the stent removed entirely. That will depend on a number of factors including the likelihood of the ureter being constricted as a result of scar tissue from the lymphoma treatment. Then there is the question of how much, if any, damage the kidney has sustained because of the tumour and the radiation treatments.
To be honest, I think I'd be happy to hear that the kidney is non functional so that they can simply remove it and not worry about the stent. Most people get by quite nicely on one kidney and that would be perfectly fine if it guaranteed that this would be the final surgery.
Things get under way at 10 am with registration, the usual double check of my meds and my adherence to their rules of nothing by mouth after midnight.
Hopefully a well trained nurse and not a paramedic in training will be inserting my IV and the surgery itself will be relatively on time. An 11:45 start means I will probably be the third surgery of the day and I will be out of the OR by 1pm.
While they "insist" on no valuables I will be taking in my Kobo so that I am not staring at the ceiling or counting patterns on the privacy drapes for almost 2 hours before things kick into high gear. Since clothing etc. is bagged and labeled and is either stored by nursing staff or placed under the gurney, I cant see any real risk of having my phone or Kobo stolen.
More important to me, having starved since 9pm will be the chance to inhale some sandwiches or cookies and juice when I return from the twilight zone.
