I have been advised/counseled/admonished/warned that, in two weeks, I will be in cancer treatment Hell, with pain at 8-to-9 out of 10. At this moment, however, I feel okay.
Trump’s campaign is nothing but Lies, Insults, and Boasts. You know it, I know it, and everybody knows it.
162 lies and distortions in a news conference. NPR fact-checks former President Trump
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/11/nx-s1-5070566/trump-news-conference
No blacks in sight, gays stay in the closet, and women know their place is to please men. Beauty pageants with pretty girls in bathing suits. Even better, this time around we’ll be pals with Russia.
Yesterday, I had an echo cardiogram. It was ordered in preparation for meeting with an Electrophysiologist from Mass General, two weeks from today, about my a-fib.
https://www.massgeneralbrigham.org/en/about/newsroom/articles/what-is-an-electrophysiologist
An echo cardiogram is an ultrasound scan. Very useful for a non-intrusive view of a heart, but not very effective on a banana. An MRI is too effective!
Breaking News! The echo cardiogram results are in, and they’re normal. No valve problems, etc. So the only thing I need to worry about is the a-fib, which is plenty.
This post is set to appear at the scheduled start of my cancer surgery. If there are no complications, it should take about an hour.
Please be seated in the waiting room.
Here’s some waiting room music.
Follow-up: The nurses said the surgery was routine. The fact that I didn’t see the surgeon post-op is, in itself, a good indicator. Of course, he may have left to get an early start on the Memorial Day weekend. 😉 I will, of course, have a follow-up appointment with him.
There is significant swelling at the site, which is very tender, but the pain is, so far, manageable with Ibuprofen. Final biopsy results should be available by the end of next week.
This one has it all! Conflict! Romance! Prairie Schooners! Injuns, friendly and not! Survival against the elements! Mother-in-law jokes!
Ward Bond makes a couple of brief appearances with his pal John Wayne, in 1930’s The Big Trail, in its original, 70mm Widescreen presentation.
For the half-dozen of you who visit here, new postings are probably going to be slim for a while. As I approach next Friday’s cancer surgery, I’m stressing much more than I did with the melanoma six years ago. That was on my head, and this is where the sun don’t shine. As a bonus, I have a-fib to worry about.
You want to see what recovering from cancer looks like? Here. I won’t embed it.
https://dograt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/ScalpWound.jpg
That was well into the healing process, after plastic surgery. When the wound was closing up and looked good.
A couple of helpful things came my way this week. First, an actual get well card, sent by snail mail. You know who you are. Thank you!
Second, word got around about my diagnosis at my former place of employment. Yesterday, I exchanged messages with a former colleague who, it turns out, had the same diagnosis, and who happened to have the same surgeon I found. The final result in that case was, no chemo was needed. Here’s hoping I have the same luck!
An important point is that I have regular Medicare with a Medigap plan for Part B. This means I don’t need no stinkin’ referrals. Medicare Advantage plans, aka Medicare Part C, are administered through insurance networks, and referrals to in-network medical providers are required.
If I had needed to go through that rigmarole, who knows what doctors I could see, or how much of a delay and additional hassle there would have been? What I don’t know yet is how much my out-of-pocket costs will be, between the cancer and a-fib. For now, I don’t want to know!
