Blatherings from the Bilge

*the presenter walks into the auditorium slowly, quietly and makes his way to the podium.  Standing for a moment in stage center, he takes and envelop from his vest pocket and takes out some papers that he lays on the stand before studying this audience.

Tapping the microphone once, twice, he looks against the glare of the lights out into the audience and clears his voice, causing massive feedback loops that tear through the auditorium before the sound crew wrangle it under control.

Clearing his voice again, the man addresses everyone, "good morning everyone and welcome to a status hearing on the wellbeing of the alternative reality being known as Alyxyn, aka,," and his lips curl in an obvious sneer of distaste "The Green Menace, aka The Two Foot Wonder, aka the Plotting Doom, aka The Retched Refuse".

Shuffling his paperwork a little, he continues "Official examination of the patient's anatomy has been performed by his Royal Highness, the ArchBishop Whodafuck and Pope Gunna Costia.  These two personages and their staffs have determined that it shall indeed come to pass that the patient will need to lose some of his inner workings if the demonic infestation is to be purged.  Amongst the organs to be lost is his bladder which had previously been blessed by Their Holy Touches as well as his prostate.  Other organs may need to be Blessedly Delivered into His Light however Their Mutual Holinesses will have to determine that with direct observation..

Again shuffling his paperwork, he looks back to the auditorium into the lights and continues "currently His Holinesses have slated Their intervention work to begin at 5 am Pacific upon May 5th, that questionable 'holiday' of Mexican fame known as Cinco De Mayo. and work shall continue until either complete or the patient passes into The Light.  Current expectations are that Their work shall be successful but be time consuming, taking Their morning and possibly afternoons."

"The Patie... erm.. Alyxyn.. shall remain in the facility of Their Holinesses for a period between 5 and 7 days, after which he shall be released to a care facility for a period approximating 6 weeks."

The presenter sets aside his notes and glares at his audience demandingly before he continues, "The Holinesses assure me that the patient WILL improve and get better.  Of course if the Powers that Be dictate otherwise, it will come to pass as He wills it, as it Must Be."

With those words, the presenter adjusts his tie and steps back behind a curtain amidst an onslaught of shouted questions, camera flashes and one overly ripe tomato.

Now.. out of character

Yes, surgery is slated for May 5th.  Check in is at 5am Pacific so I will be awake to ensure that I click in for fighting in the guild fight and in the portal before I am carried away..  Surgery won't likely start until after 7am or so however and is slated to take many hours.  According to a friend of mine that had the same procedure performed on him, he didn't awaken until very late in the afternoon.

 My family is going to be at the hospital with me, so you could say that a goblin horde will descend to lend some comfort, keeping in mind that the only one of the family (am one of four kids) that is shorter than six foot tall.. is my mother at barely five foot.. tall for goblins ;)

The hospital stay is expected to be five to seven days but I should have a tablet with me, though my current tablet decided to die dramatically last night.  I will be hopped on pain killers but I should at least manage my checkins.  After I am released from the hospital, recovery is expected to take 6 weeks before I can think about going back to work.  During this time, my incisions will be healing and I will be learning how to use tubing to replicate what Nature had previously permitted me to perform.

I will be in pain, but medicated.  I have been going through bouts of depression that are rather monsoonic (if that is a word) but I learned how to weather those years ago.  Generally what I do is pull into myself until I can Center myself and return to functioning.

Before the May 5th surgery I have several appointments within the health care industry of the US, meeting with anesthesia personnel, talking to an ostomy specialist, etc.  I also have to remember to get a bottle of Patron to give to the surgical staff so that they may celebrate the holiday once their day is over and I am tucked away in a recovery room.

Sorry it has been a few days since getting to this point but you can likely imagine it takes time to 'process' the loss of body parts, much less the ability to pee upon your own, but living is what is matter.. until one day it may not.  Quality of Life matters more than Quantity to me but I am a solid Survivor.

Best thoughts and wishes to all my treasured Scum.

Blatherings from the Bilge

Well I don't have the energy to add this information into my IC version of my story of my cancer so I will just post here what I have posted to my family and to my work teams.

well got back from the doctor and here is what he has to say..
1) the cancer is back (this we knew)
2) the cancer is just as aggressive as before (this we knew)
3) the cancer that they are able to see not only is in some of the areas that were previously resected but also in some of the pristine areas that had not yet been touched by it.
4) no lymph nodes currently involved (yay) so no PET necessary (yay) but that means no glowing in the dark (pout)

so here is what everyone has been waiting for.. next steps:

1) it is possible to re-resect my bladder and run me through another set of BCG treatments like they had but...
but.. chances are good that if they did that, the cancer would outgrow their ability to contain it so...

2) bladder has to go
3) placement of cancer is such that bladder AND prostate will need to go (I will let you all look up THOSE side effects as I don't want to dwell on them right now in particular)

4) with those organs gone, they will reroute the ureters that connect the kidneys to the bladder so that they will run into a small 'rerouting' that would use a section of my colon that they would have to create. This would basically lead outward to a spout on my lower abdomen so that my urine would flow down and out into a bag.

ETA.. roughly 3 weeks after I give the docs the go-ahead to schedule things
end result.. roughly a week in the hospital followed by approximately 6 weeks of downtime healing around home before I would 'feel up to moving about a lot'.

So.. time for me to process, mourn, and whatever else and however else this is going to hit me with in the next little bit.. but.. not really up to talking a whole lot as you can likely imagine.