For those of you who know me from my
AMA thread, I'm posting this update on my medical situation as a separate thread so I don't completely derail my AMA thread.
Here are the major highlights:
• I just happened to notice a hardness in my left abdomen last August. It felt about baseball size and I had no symptoms associated with it.
• My primary doctor referred me to a specialist to get a biopsy. That new doctor first wanted an ultra sound scan, than a CAT scan, and finally the biopsy.
• The CAT scan indicated a mass about 15 cm long (6") with no apparent involvement with other organs.
• The biopsy classified this mass as a soft tissue sarcoma.
Based on these results, my primary doctor and the specialist referred me to a surgical oncologist doctor at Georgetown University Hospital who specializes in this type of cancer.
Yada, Yada, Yada, I had surgery on Thursday, February 4 and stayed in the hospital until yesterday (Tuesday, February 16). Besides removing the tumor, they also had to remove the spleen, a kidney, part of the pancreas and a little of the diaphragm. All in all, a pretty involved surgery that took about six hours.
My stay in the hospital was lengthened a few days because my remaining kidney took just a little to completely come "on line" and because of that I had a tremendous amount of water retention (my weight today is 26 pounds less than it was a week ago).
The big reveal now will be when I have my follow up visit with the doctor (maybe this Friday) and we get the pathology report on the tumor. Best case scenario is that they got it all and I'm good to go. But if they didn't get it all, then some further treatments will be needed.
Meantime, of course, my focus will be to get back to the cockpit. I've heard from others that anytime cancer is involved, it will take several months to satisfy the FAA. I'm sure I can find things to do with my downtime (including more poker).
So that's really all I've got for you, and I appreciate all the nice wishes sent my way regarding this.