Sunday, September 2, 2007

Rock of Ages, The Rib and turning 45

It’s been a while since I posted so I have some catching up to do. I haven’t been to a rock concert in many years… on August 25th, My wife got us tickets to a concert called “Rock of ages” that had Foreigner, Styx and Def Leppard as the headliner. Unless you are in my age group you probably don’t know who or what I’m talking about but they are late 70’s and 80’s rockbands. Foreigner only had one original band member, Mick Jones, but they sounded great. The drummer is John Bonham Jr., the son of John Bonham from Led Zeppelin and they did break out into a Zeppelin tune. Styx was great and Def Leppard rocked the place down. I guess the big story is, not being on any cancer drugs, I was free to have a beer or three and really had a great time. It was a party!
On August 28th I left for the NCI to have the RFA on my right rib. I went alone mostly because it was supposed to be pretty much an outpatient procedure and really my wife just doesn’t have the time off work that I have and we need the moola.
It was a bigger deal than they let on…they put me under general anesthesia and RFA’d the rib tumor. I don’t know how big it is but it was around the rib so the Dr. had to go into three different holes at different angles to get access. He was confident he “baked” all of it but we really won’t be able to tell until subsequent scans are done in a couple of months. I guess this is a painless procedure if done on an internal organ but let me tell you on a bone near the surface it is painful but manageable.
I was released the morning of the 30th, My birthday. I went to the airport early and tried to catch an earlier flight but no luck being a holiday weekend. On the flight back some storms moved into Atlanta and we diverted to Macon, Ga for fuel and sat until the storms cleared. I finally got home after 9pm that night. Very, Very sore from sitting.
I turned 45, I was 42 when diagnosed with RCC in December of 2004. All I can say is I’ve made it another year reacting to the pot shots this cancer keeps taking at me.