Excuse me, but they removed what?

As Loretta and I sat in the little exam “office” of my oncologist yesterday chatting about me and how I feel, we launched into a diatribe about lymph nodes.  I often ask her to explain things to me, usually things I already know, just to see if I know more than she does.  Not often do I feel more learned than my very nice though tunnel-visioned cancer doc.  After all, that is what she does.  She should be eating, living, sleeping, and breathing CANCER, right?  She seems like the type, they (oncologists) are more scientist than technician like surgeons are.  Oncologists work and study in the field of research and prevention, and that’s a good thing.  But sometimes I would just like my docs to volunteer ALL the information instead of me simply stumbling upon it in some casual office conversation.

So, up until yesterday, this is what I was aware of regarding what has been done to me and my cancer.  Simply put, after discovering a tumor in my ascending colon (the large intestine that runs vertically down the right side of your abdomen and connects to your small intestine) and by way of the biopsy discovered the cancer, they decided to surgically (arthroscopic) remove said ascending colon and accompanying tumor.  While he was in there he removed my gall bladder as well (the surgeon took this request from me as I was being wheeled into the operating room).  Here is how that conversation went…

Me (on the gurney going down a hall to the operating room trying to have a conversation with a masked man whom I cannot see):  Hey, doc (I’m already feeling engrossed in that wonderful, carefree, happy time, warm feeling from liquid valium being infused through my IV).  What about my gall bladder?

Doc:  What about it?

Me:  Didn’t we talk about you taking it out at the same time?

Doc:  Yes, we did.  But I don’t want you to feel like I was talking you into it.

Me:  Ah, doc?

Doc:  Yes? (He turns to the anesthesiologist at this point who already has a clear mask over my face saying in a mild East Indian accent, ‘This is just oxygen for now, we’ll induce the anesthesia in a few minutes’)

Me:  Can you take that out too?

Doc:  OK, but I’m not talking you into this, right?

Me:  Correct, I WANT you to get rid of my gall bladder that we have already determined is full of stones and sludge and may be the source of pain and it needs to go.

Nurse:  Here, can you see this paper, Mr. Hansen.  Sign at the bottom.  Fade to black, no counting to ten, no ‘Here we go Mr. Hansen, breath deeply”.  peace.  out.

I wake up 4 hours or so later in my hospital room (I don’t remember anything else including recovery…great drugs they have now!) minus a third of my colon, a cancerous tumor, a sludge-filled gall bladder (a term the docs use by the way, sludge), and (I find out later) a few polyps (little growths than could turn into cancer).  All the aforementioned organs and pieces of my organs are sent off to the pathologist to see what’s up.  I don’t get the results from the pathologist until two weeks later when the surgeon calls me at home and says I have Stage IIIB colon cancer.  In a nutshell (and it was a very small, trite, and short nutshell) he says Stage IIIB means the cancer moved into at least one lymph node.  “You should have chemotherapy and I have referred your case to an oncologist.  Have a nice day”.  Evidently, one has over 300 lymph nodes, mostly in the neck, under the arm, and in the abdomen…one can do without some of them.

Fast forward back up to yesterday in the oncologist’s office.

Me:  So, doc, explain to me again…the cancer went into one lymph node and we are doing chemo to insure it’s gone.

Doc:  Yes, the surgeon is very thorough, he’s very good.  He removed that lymph node with the cancer…and 21 other lymph nodes just to be sure.

Now, at this point, my brow furrows in slight bewilderment and I say, “Excuse me, but could you repeat that?”

Doc:  (Staring at her computer screen where all the records are now kept, no more clipboards like on television). Ah huh..21 lymph nodes.

She goes on to explain that all those lymph nodes went to the pathologist, and what came back was that ONE of them showed cancer.  Mind you, it was removed, but it showed cancer.  Up until this point, I kind of thought that the ‘one lymph node the cancer went into’ was still there, I was a little befuddled.  Yeah, the cancer may have moved to other places, no one knows yet.  But the cancerous node was taken out.  Am I getting all this straight?

Me:  And the chemo in my case is kind of an insurance policy if you will.  A possible stopgap to the cancer showing up elsewhere.

Doc:  Right!

Now, did this exchange between my very nice, engaging cancer doctor make me feel better?  Perhaps a bit.  There is just so much one doesn’t know at this point.  I try to keep a positive attitude.  IT may be gone forever.  If one can feel fortunate swimming in the cancer spring, maybe I do.  I got one that is more easily treatable than others, for sure.  But at this point, there is nothing more I can do but follow the directions of people who know more than I do.  At this point, it’s all a game of odds.

At least I have 270 lymph nodes left.  Hopefully, they are cancer free!