The good news is that I did get a room here with the shiny new furniture, including fully-automated bed. Once I’m a bit less dizzy I think I’ll play around more with different bed positions. My very nice roommate Milo checked out this afternoon so I hope I luck out again with whoever moves in this evening. Anyhow, it looks like I’ll be going home on Friday. I’m already sitting up and moving about a little and the doctor says he’s going to remove the IVs tomorrow.

My only really ‘out of it’ day was yesterday after the operation, and I was still feeling really groggy today until the nurse disconnected the morphine. I’m much perkier now. Still haven’t eaten, except for some peach juice that I promptly threw up, which the nurse told me was probably also because of the morphine. I think they’ll be giving me some purée tonight (mmm…) which is actually much better than what they laughingly call chicken broth here. The closest I can come to describing it is ‘hot fatty water’. Perhaps Pipocas can come up with something better – I made her taste some last night. And so, I seem to be recovering much more quickly than last time and yesterday I was very pleased not to have woken up in the ICU. Well, until I found out why. . .

It turned out that the surgeon found more tumours when he opened me up, so my condition is now inoperable. There was a third 1 cm tumour in the right lobe (along with the other two first spotted by the PET scan back at the end of June) and it would have been possible to remove all three if not for a further complication. Next to the liver he found many very small lesions attached to the peritoneum, which is a fine tissue that surrounds the abdominal organs. The PET scan didn’t pick them up because they are too small and they obviously didn’t respond to the ‘preventative’ chemo I was on. So the new plan of action is that once I’ve recovered from this surgery (I have my nice J-shaped scar as promised) I will start on a new course of chemo for six months, presumably a stronger, more aggressive (more sick-making?) type.

Talk about getting the wind knocked out of me. Pipocas and Nog had received this news earlier in the day and finally told me (albeit inadvertently) late yesterday evening, which I initially found more upsetting than the news itself. So I had to explain to them that I always want and need to know the truth about my condition and that it wasn’t up to anybody else to decide when would be a good time to be told.

And so now … I scarcely know how to feel.  Another six months of chemo, probably starting in November, will take me up to April. And if all goes well they will try doing the liver resction again then. It seems like each time there’s an end in sight it gets pushed further away. Maybe your premonition is going to prove true after all, Rain. I guess I’m still kind of numb and mostly just want to go home and snibble cats.