Mark got home last night (Monday) at 10:30pm. Andy Percy was nice enough to drive him all the way here, then drive home. He has 8+ inches of neat Frankenstein-esk staples right next to his belly button! (T'will be a manly scar!) He is a little slow moving around and still working out the gas pains, but that's normal. He otherwise looks great and is glad to be home. Me & the kids too! Future treatment plans should be known this Thursday.
Thanks for everything,
Barb
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Oompa Succumbs to the Power of The Bird
Posted by JJaz (via email):
I think I can speak for Oompa so here it is in a nut shell.
Had a nice lunch with Oompa that included some Whitefish, Barley, hops and a backyard bingo before arriving at Big Birds temporary nest. 15 minutes into our visit Big Bird was showing us and giving us a detailed description of his grovel and the anatomical gore that ensued. Oompa was so enthralled and shall we say “into” Birds story that he literally forgot to breathe. I look over and I can see Oompa fading to black.
Bird is in a chair and Oompa is sitting on Birds empty bed. Once I realize that Oompa is visiting Dorothy and the Tin Man, I lay him down for an unexpected nap and ran to the nurse’s station. I tell her we have a man out cold and it’s not the patient. She says “the visitor?” Yep……….
She announces a CODE BLUE over the loud speaker and within 30 seconds there is an entire huge swat team in the room. Oompa finally comes to and has to answer questions like “where are you?” “Who is the president?” “Is he black?” Shirt off and paddles out, he manages to land his twirling house on the big bad witch. He did fine with the quiz but they still rushed him down to the emergency room.
So there I was having to decide to either stay with Big Bird or follow the gurney. I apologized to Bird and I followed the gurney and about a half hour later they released Oompa on his own free will even though they had a million reasons to run a million tests. Serious Dr. peer pressure.
Oompa is fine, he just had a bit of an anxiety attack. As serious as it seemed at the time, looking back it’s all pretty damn humorous if you ask me. The look on Big Birds face when they were working on Oompa was unforgettable.
Beware of Big Birds Powers! He is a mighty Bird and he can bring you down without even laying a hand on you.
Jjaz
I think I can speak for Oompa so here it is in a nut shell.
Had a nice lunch with Oompa that included some Whitefish, Barley, hops and a backyard bingo before arriving at Big Birds temporary nest. 15 minutes into our visit Big Bird was showing us and giving us a detailed description of his grovel and the anatomical gore that ensued. Oompa was so enthralled and shall we say “into” Birds story that he literally forgot to breathe. I look over and I can see Oompa fading to black.
Bird is in a chair and Oompa is sitting on Birds empty bed. Once I realize that Oompa is visiting Dorothy and the Tin Man, I lay him down for an unexpected nap and ran to the nurse’s station. I tell her we have a man out cold and it’s not the patient. She says “the visitor?” Yep……….
She announces a CODE BLUE over the loud speaker and within 30 seconds there is an entire huge swat team in the room. Oompa finally comes to and has to answer questions like “where are you?” “Who is the president?” “Is he black?” Shirt off and paddles out, he manages to land his twirling house on the big bad witch. He did fine with the quiz but they still rushed him down to the emergency room.
So there I was having to decide to either stay with Big Bird or follow the gurney. I apologized to Bird and I followed the gurney and about a half hour later they released Oompa on his own free will even though they had a million reasons to run a million tests. Serious Dr. peer pressure.
Oompa is fine, he just had a bit of an anxiety attack. As serious as it seemed at the time, looking back it’s all pretty damn humorous if you ask me. The look on Big Birds face when they were working on Oompa was unforgettable.
Beware of Big Birds Powers! He is a mighty Bird and he can bring you down without even laying a hand on you.
Jjaz
FREE BIRD!
From Messiah on Monday:
Just got off the horn with Mark and he’s been sprung from UM Hospital!
He did great with the “gutting” and now can crib at home to recover and get ready for the lung grovel.
Fraternity honors to Percy who showed mercy and is driving him home tonight (actually to Clare to meet up with Dr. Lund). Good grovel.
For those who stopped by the hospital last week, thanks. You/we have no idea how much it means to Bird and his family. I was there last Saturday with Chips, Percy and Bullwinkle. We had all the nurses in and out of the room as there was so much laughter. Most couldn’t believe that we were not related and even more floored that we were fraternity brothers. Basically, after all these years still tightly connected.
Oh and of course there was plenty of great drama. Jazz can fill in what happened to Oompa on an unsuspecting Friday. And I’ll leave it to Bullwinkle to fill in on Bird’s liquid lung hork soundtrack neighbor that we had fun with.
Just got off the horn with Mark and he’s been sprung from UM Hospital!
He did great with the “gutting” and now can crib at home to recover and get ready for the lung grovel.
Fraternity honors to Percy who showed mercy and is driving him home tonight (actually to Clare to meet up with Dr. Lund). Good grovel.
For those who stopped by the hospital last week, thanks. You/we have no idea how much it means to Bird and his family. I was there last Saturday with Chips, Percy and Bullwinkle. We had all the nurses in and out of the room as there was so much laughter. Most couldn’t believe that we were not related and even more floored that we were fraternity brothers. Basically, after all these years still tightly connected.
Oh and of course there was plenty of great drama. Jazz can fill in what happened to Oompa on an unsuspecting Friday. And I’ll leave it to Bullwinkle to fill in on Bird’s liquid lung hork soundtrack neighbor that we had fun with.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Well, that was fun
So, I took my place in line and actually was called to the counter to begin the cattle call in a waiting room filled with tens of people holding pagers. It seemed the exceptional punctuality streak exhibited by the UofM machine to date might be ending, however, after arriving at noon, we were unpacking my belongings into my new home (main hospital, Section B eighth floor, room 133-2) by a little after 1:00 pm. Over the course of the next number of hours I met doctors, student doctors, nurses, technicians and received lots of needle pokes as well as a nice gown. I met with Dr. Chang later in the afternoon at which time he reiterated the proceedure and the itinerary for Tuesday's festivities, including a start time of "early to mid afternoon".
Monday night was one of the longer nights of my life. Barb left for the Jensen residence, her temporary home for this week, at about eight o'clock. I spent the next eight hours on the computer and watching movies. Finally, after watching all but the last few minutes of "Rudy", I went to sleep, only to wake up a few hours later for the beginnings of lots of poking and prodding. A shower seemed to be the order of the day at about 11:00 am, at which time the nurse informed me I was on call for 12:30 pm. In the spirit of the UofM punctuality experienced to date, the nurse returned as I was toweling, noting I needed to be ready to leave for the pre-op in about 15 minutes. About that time my sister Anne and brother-in-law Phil arrived for the grand send off, and after all was said and done, I arrived in pre-op a few minutes after high noon. The nurse proceeded to place the world's largest IV in my left wrist. We then met with the anesthesiologist, who explained all of my options. I decided to try the epideral since its recently adopted use for this type of surgery reduces the amount of regular anesthesia by knocking out feeling to the area in question. The placement of the port and the initial test went pretty good, considering the student doctor was sticking a needle through my skin and muscles and into the special spot. After a brief break and a good luck kiss from Barb, they wheeled me off to the operating room. I would have to say it was the most frightened I have been in recent memory. I do remember transferring to the table, some preliminary "happy juice" injections into my IV, and making the "count backwards" contest to about 90 (I cheated and went fast).
Surgery lasted about an hour longer than the three estimated earlier in the day, however I obviously could not tell the difference in my sleep and would not care as long as Dr. Chang removed all of the bad stuff. He later explaind the "bad stuff" included a grapefruit sized tumor and about one foot of small intestines, all of which was located just below my stomach in the very upper segment. In addition, he followed my entire small intestine (I have heard they are around 30 feet in length), feeling for any additional growths, but he found nothing on this scale.
Recovery was quite the party. Somewhere during the course of moving me from the operating table to the recovery room, my epideral port became disfunctional. I woke up around 7:30 pm to the sensation of the breathing tube being pulled from my throat and my chest involintarily reacting to the presence of a newly placed stomach tube that extends from my stomach, along the back of my throat, and out of my right nostril. At this point it became very clear that there was little or no anesthetic was circulating in my system and my coughing and gagging needed to stop immediately since it was enhancing the pain to what I would guess would be equal to a shot gun blast to the belly. It took what seemed like a long time to get the nurse to address the pain, and then became a long time since staff determined my epidural port was not functioning and I needed to sit up, assume the position (new incision, stitches, and all), and hold still while they placed a new port. After what seemed an eternity, the new port and medicine started working and for a while, there was no pain beyond a slight ache. After that little fiasco, the nurse let Barb and my parents in for a quick visit, after which I was wheeled back up to the eighth floor.
Today Dr. Chang stopped by and noted that the tumor is a spindal cell type, which means it is probably the primary tumor from which my lung tumor originated. However, although initially identified as a rare type of sarcoma, the diagnosis will only be finalize after biopsys of both tumors are compared to the slides of my two insitu melenomas. This is necessary since sarcoma and melenoma both include spindal cells, look similar under the microscope, and the pathologist wants to make all possible comparisons since treatment varies substantially between the two.
Beyond that, it has been a boring day of sitting around pushing the pain button every 20 minutes, deep breathing to keep my lungs clear, and trying to avoid the stomach tube induced choking and kacking. Oh yes, my unfortunate room mate had to receive some sort of spinal tap this afternoon, the poor guy suffered tremendously and they never succedded.
Well, the parents just arrived, so I will catch up with you all later.
Monday night was one of the longer nights of my life. Barb left for the Jensen residence, her temporary home for this week, at about eight o'clock. I spent the next eight hours on the computer and watching movies. Finally, after watching all but the last few minutes of "Rudy", I went to sleep, only to wake up a few hours later for the beginnings of lots of poking and prodding. A shower seemed to be the order of the day at about 11:00 am, at which time the nurse informed me I was on call for 12:30 pm. In the spirit of the UofM punctuality experienced to date, the nurse returned as I was toweling, noting I needed to be ready to leave for the pre-op in about 15 minutes. About that time my sister Anne and brother-in-law Phil arrived for the grand send off, and after all was said and done, I arrived in pre-op a few minutes after high noon. The nurse proceeded to place the world's largest IV in my left wrist. We then met with the anesthesiologist, who explained all of my options. I decided to try the epideral since its recently adopted use for this type of surgery reduces the amount of regular anesthesia by knocking out feeling to the area in question. The placement of the port and the initial test went pretty good, considering the student doctor was sticking a needle through my skin and muscles and into the special spot. After a brief break and a good luck kiss from Barb, they wheeled me off to the operating room. I would have to say it was the most frightened I have been in recent memory. I do remember transferring to the table, some preliminary "happy juice" injections into my IV, and making the "count backwards" contest to about 90 (I cheated and went fast).
Surgery lasted about an hour longer than the three estimated earlier in the day, however I obviously could not tell the difference in my sleep and would not care as long as Dr. Chang removed all of the bad stuff. He later explaind the "bad stuff" included a grapefruit sized tumor and about one foot of small intestines, all of which was located just below my stomach in the very upper segment. In addition, he followed my entire small intestine (I have heard they are around 30 feet in length), feeling for any additional growths, but he found nothing on this scale.
Recovery was quite the party. Somewhere during the course of moving me from the operating table to the recovery room, my epideral port became disfunctional. I woke up around 7:30 pm to the sensation of the breathing tube being pulled from my throat and my chest involintarily reacting to the presence of a newly placed stomach tube that extends from my stomach, along the back of my throat, and out of my right nostril. At this point it became very clear that there was little or no anesthetic was circulating in my system and my coughing and gagging needed to stop immediately since it was enhancing the pain to what I would guess would be equal to a shot gun blast to the belly. It took what seemed like a long time to get the nurse to address the pain, and then became a long time since staff determined my epidural port was not functioning and I needed to sit up, assume the position (new incision, stitches, and all), and hold still while they placed a new port. After what seemed an eternity, the new port and medicine started working and for a while, there was no pain beyond a slight ache. After that little fiasco, the nurse let Barb and my parents in for a quick visit, after which I was wheeled back up to the eighth floor.
Today Dr. Chang stopped by and noted that the tumor is a spindal cell type, which means it is probably the primary tumor from which my lung tumor originated. However, although initially identified as a rare type of sarcoma, the diagnosis will only be finalize after biopsys of both tumors are compared to the slides of my two insitu melenomas. This is necessary since sarcoma and melenoma both include spindal cells, look similar under the microscope, and the pathologist wants to make all possible comparisons since treatment varies substantially between the two.
Beyond that, it has been a boring day of sitting around pushing the pain button every 20 minutes, deep breathing to keep my lungs clear, and trying to avoid the stomach tube induced choking and kacking. Oh yes, my unfortunate room mate had to receive some sort of spinal tap this afternoon, the poor guy suffered tremendously and they never succedded.
Well, the parents just arrived, so I will catch up with you all later.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Bird Post-Op Update
I just received the following in an email from Kai Jensen:
Bird is out of surgery and they are quite sure it was isolated! Good news for now! Pathology report in one week.
The last word I heard was that he would be there most of this week. If you are in the Ann Arbor area, try and carve out a time to stop in and say hello.
Bird is out of surgery and they are quite sure it was isolated! Good news for now! Pathology report in one week.
The last word I heard was that he would be there most of this week. If you are in the Ann Arbor area, try and carve out a time to stop in and say hello.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Here we go
After about eight weeks of fiddle-farting around, I am quickly approaching my first step in treatment. Let us back up.
I was referred to U of M by my oncologist in Traverse City, after a preliminary diagnosis from slides created from the lung tumor biopsy revealed sarcoma instead of melanoma. Of course we had to burn a few precious day waiting for the final results from the Mayo Clinic so my oncologist would not be embarassed by sending me immediately to the sarcoma clinic at U of M and possibly having a change in diagnosis, but I digress. After hand delivering all of my records a week earlier, we had a meeting with my new oncologist, Dr. Baker here at the U of M cancer center. He repeated that I am in serious condition (I have been told the same since February, but nobody wanted to act until a formal diagnosis), and ordered a CAT scan the same day. The scan uncovered an "orange to grapefruit" sized tumor wrapped around at least one length of my small intesines. I am still wondering why the gastro-intestinal doctor who oversaw the camera pill through this portion of my guts did not see fit to do this some time ago after discovering a significant number of lesions on the inside, but again, I digress.
Dr. Baker called with the results of the CAT scan on Thursday of this past week and also to say that Dr. Chang, Chief of Surgical Oncology, would be calling to discuss surgery for Tuesday, April 14th (tomorrow) and all of the related fun stuff such as stomach tubes, catheders, epiderals, ect., which takes things to the present. I am sitting here at midnight, waiting for my night, night IV and will hopefully be getting a little sleep before this all commences tomorrow, early to mid afternoon. Dr. Chang will be opening up with a cut from my ribcage to my waist line, pulling out all of my small intestines, including the tumor, and removing any and all bad stuff he finds.
Wish me luck, it sounds like a quite a show for the students. Well, I have to go as the night nurse has arrived and it is time to take a squirt and get my IV in place.
Bye for now.
I was referred to U of M by my oncologist in Traverse City, after a preliminary diagnosis from slides created from the lung tumor biopsy revealed sarcoma instead of melanoma. Of course we had to burn a few precious day waiting for the final results from the Mayo Clinic so my oncologist would not be embarassed by sending me immediately to the sarcoma clinic at U of M and possibly having a change in diagnosis, but I digress. After hand delivering all of my records a week earlier, we had a meeting with my new oncologist, Dr. Baker here at the U of M cancer center. He repeated that I am in serious condition (I have been told the same since February, but nobody wanted to act until a formal diagnosis), and ordered a CAT scan the same day. The scan uncovered an "orange to grapefruit" sized tumor wrapped around at least one length of my small intesines. I am still wondering why the gastro-intestinal doctor who oversaw the camera pill through this portion of my guts did not see fit to do this some time ago after discovering a significant number of lesions on the inside, but again, I digress.
Dr. Baker called with the results of the CAT scan on Thursday of this past week and also to say that Dr. Chang, Chief of Surgical Oncology, would be calling to discuss surgery for Tuesday, April 14th (tomorrow) and all of the related fun stuff such as stomach tubes, catheders, epiderals, ect., which takes things to the present. I am sitting here at midnight, waiting for my night, night IV and will hopefully be getting a little sleep before this all commences tomorrow, early to mid afternoon. Dr. Chang will be opening up with a cut from my ribcage to my waist line, pulling out all of my small intestines, including the tumor, and removing any and all bad stuff he finds.
Wish me luck, it sounds like a quite a show for the students. Well, I have to go as the night nurse has arrived and it is time to take a squirt and get my IV in place.
Bye for now.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
New Test Post
Bando's f**cking up my computer (and don't tell Bird, but I'm stealing his bank account blind, too). See if this works...
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Bird Update - April 9
Brothers and assorted others:
Bando here. I was graced with a call from Big Bird today. It was a treat to hear him and his unique way of explaining everything. I only hope my retelling can do it justice. I'll be sitting down with Bird on Saturday to teach him this blog posting thing so that he can update us more readily in the coming weeks, months and years. In the meantime, I'll try to be as colorful and as accurate as Bird would be. If I'm not, don't shoot the messenger.
As for his grovel, the activity is starting to pick up significantly. He is now in touch with the specialists at the U-M Cancer Center. Yesterday afternoon, after reviewing a ton of data from specialists at U-M and Mayo, the tumor board meeting met to review Bird's case. Originally, they weren't going to have the results of his new CAT scan, which was originally scheduled to take place late yesterday AFTER the meeting. Instead, with some persistence, Bird was able to squeeze his way in to the scanner yesterday afternoon just ahead of the meeting. As a result, the tumor board was able to review the scans, too. This is important because with those pictures available, they didn't put him off another week.
The board determined that the tumor in the lung can wait for now, but the tumors in his small intestine have to be taken care of immediately. Big Bird continues to lose lots of blood because of these intestinal lesions. After the fishing trip last weekend, he had to have two more units of blood squeezed in. The doctors decided that he is losing blood too fast to allow them to work on the lungs. So, the effort will be to stabilize his sorry @ss first; "Let's keep Mark on the planet long enough to determine his needs on the lung part." The blood bank would like him to stop making so many withdrawals, too. :)
So, Mark will be admitted to UM's Cancer Center on Monday, 4/13. His surgery is scheduled for Tuesday, 4/13. He should be there for recovery and tests through at least Friday, 4/17, but may stay through the weekend. Information on visiting patients at the hospital can be found here. As we learn more about where he will be and whether he can have visitors or not, I'll post them here and in Facebook. Needless to say, if he can have visitors (and we assume that he will be able to), then everyone in the southeast Michigan should make an effort to stop in and give the Bird some in-person mojo and love.
They still don't know for sure just what it is, melanoma or another sarcoma. And, this surgery will only be going after the intestines. The lung will just have to wait. Hopefully, with additional review and results from the surgery, they'll have a better understanding. Then, additional attacks can be planned and executed to kill the marauding invaders. In the meantime, stabilization and stemming the blood-letting are the key priorities.
So, start looking at your calendars for next week right now. See when you can make it Wed, Thurs, or Friday. If he's still there over the weekend, we'll get the word out for additional love.
Bando here. I was graced with a call from Big Bird today. It was a treat to hear him and his unique way of explaining everything. I only hope my retelling can do it justice. I'll be sitting down with Bird on Saturday to teach him this blog posting thing so that he can update us more readily in the coming weeks, months and years. In the meantime, I'll try to be as colorful and as accurate as Bird would be. If I'm not, don't shoot the messenger.
As for his grovel, the activity is starting to pick up significantly. He is now in touch with the specialists at the U-M Cancer Center. Yesterday afternoon, after reviewing a ton of data from specialists at U-M and Mayo, the tumor board meeting met to review Bird's case. Originally, they weren't going to have the results of his new CAT scan, which was originally scheduled to take place late yesterday AFTER the meeting. Instead, with some persistence, Bird was able to squeeze his way in to the scanner yesterday afternoon just ahead of the meeting. As a result, the tumor board was able to review the scans, too. This is important because with those pictures available, they didn't put him off another week.
The board determined that the tumor in the lung can wait for now, but the tumors in his small intestine have to be taken care of immediately. Big Bird continues to lose lots of blood because of these intestinal lesions. After the fishing trip last weekend, he had to have two more units of blood squeezed in. The doctors decided that he is losing blood too fast to allow them to work on the lungs. So, the effort will be to stabilize his sorry @ss first; "Let's keep Mark on the planet long enough to determine his needs on the lung part." The blood bank would like him to stop making so many withdrawals, too. :)
So, Mark will be admitted to UM's Cancer Center on Monday, 4/13. His surgery is scheduled for Tuesday, 4/13. He should be there for recovery and tests through at least Friday, 4/17, but may stay through the weekend. Information on visiting patients at the hospital can be found here. As we learn more about where he will be and whether he can have visitors or not, I'll post them here and in Facebook. Needless to say, if he can have visitors (and we assume that he will be able to), then everyone in the southeast Michigan should make an effort to stop in and give the Bird some in-person mojo and love.
They still don't know for sure just what it is, melanoma or another sarcoma. And, this surgery will only be going after the intestines. The lung will just have to wait. Hopefully, with additional review and results from the surgery, they'll have a better understanding. Then, additional attacks can be planned and executed to kill the marauding invaders. In the meantime, stabilization and stemming the blood-letting are the key priorities.
So, start looking at your calendars for next week right now. See when you can make it Wed, Thurs, or Friday. If he's still there over the weekend, we'll get the word out for additional love.
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