cancer memories...

[frank1980]

Dear friends,

I have thought to open a new topic here into the forum simply to share some memories and "flash moments" with you, the ones
that have been impressed in my mind and to show them to you all. Since I'm alone and I don't have too much persons to talk to,
and since those images are annoying me every day and don't want to go away, I have thought that probably, if I share them
with somebody, it can be helpful to me. If someone of you want to come here and read them and drop a line is always welcome of course...
The only problem is that I had to translate them into my rusty English since I wrote them in Italian on a little paper for
myself and only after I have decided to publish them... here they are:

February 21, 2012, 7.30 am Italian time: I'm entering in the first aid unit of the hospital in order to be enrolled into
the urology unit. I'm walking towards the entering room under a heavy rain, a dark winter morning, I'm taking a real shower
but I don't feel the rain falling on me, my mind is completely lost. The day before I had received the worst news of my life:
"Hurry up! He is going to die! It's too late, this is a dangerous cancer!" from the main primary doctor of the urology unit
and I'm sure that these days and months will be the last of my life. I entered into the hospital and after a long waiting time
I was admitted into the urology unit. Inside, once the door was opened, metallic neon lights that are making me almost blind,
an unbearable warmness, a heavy bittersweet smell of cleaning products, and people (patients, doctors and caregivers) which are
walking without taking a pause from one room to another. I took a quick look from the windows from outside and I saw the
buildings and the palaces that seemed to surround and "catch as a prisoner" the entire hospital and all the patients. And
the rain and the fog that kept on falling and hiding everything. This is the hell, I'm sure, this is the hell and I won't survive...
Ohly some days after I was in the quiet atmosphere of the country and of my home, and now I was shooted from the destiny
and from the cancer into this nightmare... The main primary doctor of the unit comes into the room to assure to me that the
form of the cancer that hit me was the lightest and that I will be fine in a short period of time, but I don't listen to him...
How can it be possible? The day before he wrote my death sentence and now he is saying to me "did you believe that your cancer
was bringing you to a certain death? I told to you yesterday that it was not so!". However, I undressed myself and put on my
night "pigiama" clothes. The nightmare has just begun...

February 22,2012, 5.30 am Italian time: I was desperately trying to rest my mind a little bit with some sleep when some
caregivers entered into my room. Without adding explanations, they said (or better, they barked to me talking one to each other
without looking to me): "so, this is the patient that will have the Ct scan, the Rx and the surgery today? come on, let's bring him
upstairs..." What the hell? I was scheduled for the surgery for the 23 and not for today! I tried to ask for explanation but I got
no answers except from "shut up, today we are very nervous and don't want to listen to other bulls**t". Anyway, I went into the
radiology unit and had my Rx and Ct scan. The Rx went out clear, and so went the Ct scan (even if they did it to me without contrast,
only God knows why...) At that moment, I was transferred again into my room when, thirty minutes after, one of the caregivers
came again inside and say "go down on your bed, I will bring you to the surgery quarter"... When I was there, one of the doctors
started to inject into my vains the anesthetic drug, and the last words that I heard from the docs there were "hey, we don't have
the results of his Rx test results" and as answer "don't care, let's make the surgery the same!". I had the time only to say "what?"
and then I fell into a deep sleep... Game over!

I woke up three years after, wondering to myself where I was and what was I doing there. In a moment, I remember everything, the surgery
the cancer and so on, and the first thing that I did was to touch my scrotum in order to see if I still had two testicles
or only one. I cried from the relief when I touched there and I felt two testicles still! I had no cancer! It was a varicocele and
it was solved! I asked to a caregiver there if they did remove my testicle and he answered to me "no, be sure". So I was very
happy when I was transferred again into my room, I was crying from the joy when the urologist (the most arrogant and unpolite
of everybody of them there) came in and said to me "so, did we make a good job boy? your plastic ball is exactly as the natural one
that you had, we have removed the cancer from your body!". It was like I was hit by a train... So I had a cancer! And then I fell down
with my energies and with my forces and started to cry in spite of the pain that the wound was producing. After some minutes,
another doctor came into the room, looked at me crying, I looked at him with my eyes full of tears and he simply said "you won't be
able to eat or drink anything until your bowel will start to work again and will wake up from the anesthesy, you can eat or drink
but I warn you you will vomit everything, I don't care about it, it's all at your own risk...") and went away.

The night between the 22 and 23 of February: I had a continue injection of water and saline substances placed into my arm but
I was starting to feel really week for the pain at the wound and because I felt really thirsty and hungry. During the night,
the warmness in the room was becoming like an oven, I couldn't speak because I had no voice due to the tube that was placed
into my throat during the surgery, I couldn't move and I couldn't sleep. I was sure that I will have exited by that room
horizontally and not vertically... At dawn, as always, caregivers entered into my room talking about funny things by themselves
and injected me a new solution then they went away. Only at midday, my bowel started to work once again and I was able to eat
and to drink some water. A glass full of fresh water that was sent from heaven to me, I'm sure! But I couldn't still move, and when
the "beast urologist" saw me in that state, he yelled "Come on, stop playing the part of the terminal ill and get up! And be sure
not to pee on the floor!" I didn't have the forces to answer to him, so he added "You are an invalid now and still want to joke? Okay, tomorrow two caregivers
will come here and will lift you!".

The night between the 23 and 24 of February: The fear of being lifted by two caregivers with no heart and humanity made me doing
a thing that I had never thought before: Daring the pains and the weakness, I forced myself to get up. Very slowly I put a foot then
the other on the floor and got up from the bed. My head started to spin over and over but I forced myself not to fall so I went into
the bathroom and tried to walk a little bit. Okay, I'm standing once again! I stood for half an hour before putting myself into bed
once again. I did it... So, when on the next dawn the caregivers entered to lift me up, I refuse them saying "no thanks, I have a dignity and I will do it
by myself" and got up...

The night between the 24 and 25 of February: Finally, even if with a lot of difficulty, I went out from my room to take a little
walk on the unit. It was 11.30 pm Italian time approximately, when I entered into a hallway that leaded into another unit (I think the
gastroenterology unit but I'm not sure) and there a heavy irrational fear blocked me once again. The hallway was weakly lighted
by pale neon lights, outside the windows I saw only the orange lights of the public lighting system and the buildings around,
the air was very cold and I felt very dirty and without shaving from four days it seemed to me to go crazy! That hallway
scared me to death, but I wanted to explore it to see where was the end of it. And (I don't know why) I started to walk faster
and to say with low voice "come on, mr.death and mr.cancer, i dare you to come out, show your faces to me..." But I was starting
to feel very cold so I came back in the room...

February,25, 2012, 10.00 Italian time: The doctors came into my room all together to congratulate with me because I was healed from
the cancer and to give me the documents that were necessary to go out from the hospital and to exit from it... Outside, and this is
the irony of the destiny, it was a sunny and warm day, it seemed spring rather than winter... some doctors came to me to give
to me their congratulations and to repeat to me that "everything was over and I didn't have to do nothing else" (did they think
that I'm a dull person?). So, that's the reason why I started to cry like a baby when I was outside the hospital and on the street
again and when I travelled to home. Since that week, everything has changed for me... my whole world went upside down and also my home,
that I left some days before, appeared different at my sight...

Thank you for the patience in reading! A hug as always!
Frank

[Nut of Mordor]

I woke up three years after

Man that was some serious anesthesia ! Ok just kidding, I'm sorry you had to deal with all those a$$holes. I can remember myself every single detail of my journey in the hospital...

Sii forte e vedrai che un giorno tutto questo lo rimuoverai dalla tua mente. Un abbraccio.

[frank1980]

Man that was some serious anesthesia ! Ok just kidding, I'm sorry you had to deal with all those a$$holes. I can remember myself every single detail ofu my journey in the hospital...

Sii forte e vedrai che un giorno tutto questo lo rimuoverai dalla tua mente. Un abbraccio.

Hey Nut! Of course I meant three hours and not three years... Consider that I'm sleeping only three hours per night in this period comunque grazie per il tuo sostegno,siamo sempre forti e chi ci ammazza a noi... Un abbraccio anche a te!

[cbvance]

I thought you were being funny about the three years, it made perfect sense since when you wake from surgery there is no way to know how long it has been! I am sorry you had to endure such hassles from the doctors, my experience was much different. The radiologist looked at my ultrasound and told me I had a malignant growth in my testicle, I scheduled the surgery as an outpatient a few days later and had it out. Everyone was light and sunshine. Now I am getting the bills....can you believe my neulesta shot was $7000 dollars!!

[Nut of Mordor]

Now I am getting the bills....can you believe my neulesta shot was $7000 dollars!!

Will you pay that sum or is it covered by the insurance ? It's unbelivable.

[frank1980]

Hi Charlie! I agree with Nut,seven thousand dillars is an unacceptable amount of money... I am glad to hear that your experience was kinda light and sunshine,it's important to be under the care of doctors that have a dialog with their patients and not,like my case,with some that consider a patient only as a case and a number and not like persons with a brain and a dignity...

Have a nice time!

PS:sorry for the mistake, I meant "dollars" and not dillars of course. I hate this mobile phone!

[cbvance]

All total, IO surgery, CT Scans, PET scans, Chemo, etc. etc. ect. the medical cost is 50k+ the pathology for the tumor alone was 5,000 dollars! My company changed plans to a high deductible a few months before diagnosis so my share of all of it was about 6,000 dollars.

More than I would like to have been saddled with but all in all I am thankful my cancer was treatable and I had a couple of credit cards.

[Rush67]

can you believe my neulesta shot was $7000 dollars!!

Wow! That's about the price of a new central A/C unit. I only know this because that's what I was quoted yesterday.

[nciungan]

All total, IO surgery, CT Scans, PET scans, Chemo, etc. etc. ect. the medical cost is 50k+ the pathology for the tumor alone was 5,000 dollars! My company changed plans to a high deductible a few months before diagnosis so my share of all of it was about 6,000 dollars.

More than I would like to have been saddled with but all in all I am thankful my cancer was treatable and I had a couple of credit cards.

I used to take health insurance for granted until I got my bill the other day. I owed a whopping $10. My insurance company covered the other $30,000