Steven Harper's Blog, page 7
April 19, 2025
The Great Covid Saga
The Friday before the Great Biopsy Saga (which began on Monday), I got an email from a parent. Their son, one of my students, had Covid and would be out for a while. Could I send any work?
Said student's desk is very close to mine, which means I spent a fair amount of time within contagion range for at least a couple class periods. Great. And I had a difficult-to-schedule medical procedure coming up. I began monitoring myself for symptoms. At one point I noticed a faint cough tickle in my chest, but it didn't go anywhere. I checked my temperature the morning of the procedure. Normal. So I went in.
At the procedure, a nurse checked my temperature. 100 degrees. I was surprised--it had shot up that high in less than half an hour, and I didn't feel feverish. Even for Covid, that would be unusual. She tried again with a different instrument and it came up normal. So on we went with the biopsy.
Late that afternoon, I started feeling cruddy, though I had no fever. I took a home Covid test. Positive. Well, shit. Darwin took a test, too. Negative. At least that was good news.
I emailed the biopsy clinic to let them know and had Darwin take me to urgent care. They confirmed the positive results and gave me a scrip for Paxlovid. Ick! I get Paxlovid mouth bad, but it beats being sick for two weeks. I started taking the meds. Saturday I felt really shitty, but on Sunday I felt much better. It meant, though, that I was caring for myself post-biopsy with fucking Covid.
Meanwhile, Darwin started feeling sick, so he took a home test. Positive. Dammit! We went to urgent care, confirmed the diagnosis, and he went on Paxlovid, too.
Monday morning, I was feeling tired but okay, and I'd been without a fever for 24 hours. According to the CDC and the school district, I could return to work. I only have a couple sick days left this year and didn't want to use them up just yet, so I went in.
Darwin, meanwhile, felt horrible and awful all day Monday. Tuesday, too. Wednesday, also. Jeebus.
Friday afternoon, =I= started feeling shitty again. Apparently there's a thing: Covid Rebound. You think you're over Covid, but then backslide for a couple days. At least it was landing on a weekend.
This morning, I woke up and looked at the clock. 10:45! Man. Clearly, both of us needed the sleep, and I'm glad we could get it. Today, I'm feeling improved but still a little off. Same for Darwin. I hope this is over tomorrow!
comments
Said student's desk is very close to mine, which means I spent a fair amount of time within contagion range for at least a couple class periods. Great. And I had a difficult-to-schedule medical procedure coming up. I began monitoring myself for symptoms. At one point I noticed a faint cough tickle in my chest, but it didn't go anywhere. I checked my temperature the morning of the procedure. Normal. So I went in.
At the procedure, a nurse checked my temperature. 100 degrees. I was surprised--it had shot up that high in less than half an hour, and I didn't feel feverish. Even for Covid, that would be unusual. She tried again with a different instrument and it came up normal. So on we went with the biopsy.
Late that afternoon, I started feeling cruddy, though I had no fever. I took a home Covid test. Positive. Well, shit. Darwin took a test, too. Negative. At least that was good news.
I emailed the biopsy clinic to let them know and had Darwin take me to urgent care. They confirmed the positive results and gave me a scrip for Paxlovid. Ick! I get Paxlovid mouth bad, but it beats being sick for two weeks. I started taking the meds. Saturday I felt really shitty, but on Sunday I felt much better. It meant, though, that I was caring for myself post-biopsy with fucking Covid.
Meanwhile, Darwin started feeling sick, so he took a home test. Positive. Dammit! We went to urgent care, confirmed the diagnosis, and he went on Paxlovid, too.
Monday morning, I was feeling tired but okay, and I'd been without a fever for 24 hours. According to the CDC and the school district, I could return to work. I only have a couple sick days left this year and didn't want to use them up just yet, so I went in.
Darwin, meanwhile, felt horrible and awful all day Monday. Tuesday, too. Wednesday, also. Jeebus.
Friday afternoon, =I= started feeling shitty again. Apparently there's a thing: Covid Rebound. You think you're over Covid, but then backslide for a couple days. At least it was landing on a weekend.
This morning, I woke up and looked at the clock. 10:45! Man. Clearly, both of us needed the sleep, and I'm glad we could get it. Today, I'm feeling improved but still a little off. Same for Darwin. I hope this is over tomorrow!
comments
The Great Neck and Shoulder Saga
A few weeks ago, I got out of nowhere a severe pain in my neck and down my left shoulder. It tended to come and go, but it was bad stuff. I hadn't done anything strange. I hadn't lifted anything weird. The pain just showed up.
I kept hoping it would just fade away. I tried OTC painkillers and hot showers. Nothing helped. I finally called a chiropractor, but the earliest "new patient" appointment wasn't until the following week. I made an appointment with a massage therapist, and got in on the same day. The therapist was a Russian woman who seemed overly worried that I was going to make a demand for something more than a massage. I told her about the pain, though, and she went to work on it. When the session ended, the pain was almost completely gone. It was such a relief! I tipped the therapist $20 and went home.
The next day, the pain came back. Shit.
I got through the weekend and went into the chiropractor. He massaged me and wrenched me around, and it made the pain better but not entirely absent. He said I should come back a few more times for more adjustments. I came in again, he did his thing, and again it helped, but the pain was still there. I should come back. But the following week was already full of medical appointments, and I couldn't stand the idea of one more, so I scheduled for the following week.
And then came the Great Biopsy Saga. (See previous entry.) I was put under general anesthesia for it. When I got home, I realized the pain was gone. It hasn't come back, either.
I think the propofol forced the muscles in my neck and back, the ones that were knotting up and causing the problem, to relax completely, wiping the pain away.
I have to say that was a welcome side-effect of the procedure!
comments
I kept hoping it would just fade away. I tried OTC painkillers and hot showers. Nothing helped. I finally called a chiropractor, but the earliest "new patient" appointment wasn't until the following week. I made an appointment with a massage therapist, and got in on the same day. The therapist was a Russian woman who seemed overly worried that I was going to make a demand for something more than a massage. I told her about the pain, though, and she went to work on it. When the session ended, the pain was almost completely gone. It was such a relief! I tipped the therapist $20 and went home.
The next day, the pain came back. Shit.
I got through the weekend and went into the chiropractor. He massaged me and wrenched me around, and it made the pain better but not entirely absent. He said I should come back a few more times for more adjustments. I came in again, he did his thing, and again it helped, but the pain was still there. I should come back. But the following week was already full of medical appointments, and I couldn't stand the idea of one more, so I scheduled for the following week.
And then came the Great Biopsy Saga. (See previous entry.) I was put under general anesthesia for it. When I got home, I realized the pain was gone. It hasn't come back, either.
I think the propofol forced the muscles in my neck and back, the ones that were knotting up and causing the problem, to relax completely, wiping the pain away.
I have to say that was a welcome side-effect of the procedure!
comments
The Great Biopsy Saga
I have prostate cancer, but just barely. Gleason Score 6, watch and observe, no treatment. This isn't unusual. Most men do get some kind of prostate cancer. The trick is to make sure you die with it instead of from it.
All this means I have to get a biopsy done every other year. It's an awful process, but as cancer journeys go, it's pretty mild--as long as you take the right precautions. For my first biopsy, the clinic used general anesthesia as a matter of course. No pain during, though I had some after.
For my second biopsy, though, I'd changed providers, and the day before my appointment, I asked about the anesthesia, and the nurse acted surprised. They used local anesthesia and were startled that I wanted general. I could reschedule, but the next such appointment wouldn't be for a few months. I reluctantly decided to go through with the current appointment. This was a mistake. The clinic insisted I wouldn't feel a thing after the first shot of lidocaine, but they were wrong. I felt everything, and I was yelling in pain. Through 20 core sample. TWENTY! (The usual is twelve.) The staff continued to act surprised, as if I were the only person in the world who felt pain in a biopsy. Fuck them.
So when it came time to set up this one, I insisted on general anesthetic. Again I got surprise. "Are you sure? This is usually done with local."
"No," I said. "It definitely is not. Schedule it, please."
This actually touched off a bunch of phone calls. They had to move the biopsy to a different location and coordinate with them and-and-and. In the end it was scheduled.
As regular readers know, I was abused by medical staff while under anesthetic during two different operations. This has given me a case of medical PTSD, especially when it comes to general anesthesia. You're probably wondering why I didn't just go for general anesthetic, then. The answer is ... it's complicated. I have to choose between awful anxiety and awful pain. Which one, which one? In the end, I settled on anxiety for the simple reason that incoming awful pain would ALSO give me anxiety, and I'd rather deal with just the one.
In the weeks running up to biopsy, I was okay, but as weeks turned to days, I became more and more uneasy. The two days beforehand were the worst, and I lived on Xanax. I know the anxiety is misplaced, that the kind of abuse I went through is extremely rare, that the vast majority of medical workers want to help. Tell that to my emotions, though. It always feels like the operating room staff are just waiting for me to fall unconscious so they can say and do anything they like.
Also, I discovered the clinic was planning to conduct a different (to me) kind of biopsy. My other two were transrectal. This one would be transperineal. Transrectal has a 5% rate of infection, you see, and transperineal has virtually none. But this clinic didn't mention this fact to me. It took me a while to tell myself that this was because they had dropped trans-rectal biopsies some time ago and made transperineal the standard, and most patients didn't know or care about the difference, so they had no reason to mention it. Until I was able to convince myself of this, though, I was in another anxiety overload.
A couple days before the biopsy, I emailed the clinic and briefly explained my situation: that I was an abuse survivor and came out of it with bad PTSD and white coat syndrome. In order to make this bearable for me, I wanted to be awake until just before the biopsy needles went in. After a bit of back-and-forth, the clinic allowed that this would be fine.
The night before the operation, I didn't sleep at all. Not even a doze. I stared at the ceiling all night long, unable to think about anything but the biopsy. It was a long, long night.
Finally, it was time to get up and leave. I did have the go-ahead to coke myself up on Xanax, so I did. By the time Darwin drove me to the clinic, I was a little floaty.
I also had my little device with me. It's a recorder disguised as a flash drive. It looks like a flat stick. I habitually put it inside a finger splint and use it to record all operations so I can at least hear what happened, even if I can't see it. (When I mention to medical workers that I smuggle a recorder into the operating room, they inevitably react with horror. How dare I? My response: why is it that every single person in that room gets to know what happens to me but I, the one person who is most involved, shouldn't know a thing? Again, fuck you.) I slipped it into the splint and when the nurse inevitably asked about it later, I gave my usual answer: "Yeah, I hurt my finger and need to wear this for a while." I've never been challenged about it.
This clinic didn't allow family to be anywhere but the waiting room, so I had to go back to the prep area by myself. I made sure the recorder was working and got into the gown and all that. I'm an experienced surgery patient by now, and I know it's easiest to wear slip-on shoes, a t-shirt, and jeans with no belt, nothing else. Belts and sweatshirts and glasses just turn into crap to keep track of when you're groggy. Keep it simple.
The hospital had a neat little trick--an air circulator that plugged into the gowns like a CPAP machine. It circulates warm air through the gown. This keeps the patient warm even in a cold operating room and the staff doesn't have to constantly get blankets from a warmer. Nifty!
When I was ready, the usual parade of nurses, anesthetists, and the doctor began. They were all aware of my preferences for the prep, for which I was appreciative. Most men find the prep for a transperineal biopsy to be embarrassing, but to me it's worse that someone is doing the embarrassing stuff to me while I'm unconscious and have no control. So the doctor positioned me on the table (eesh, I get nervous just typing this) and ran through the prep. It went fine. Then the anesthetist said it was time for the propofol. She administered it, I got dizzy, and then I was waking up in the recovery room. I remember asking for Darwin but getting no answer. I slept for a little bit, and then a nurse was there with a wheelchair telling me it was time to get dressed and go. I don't actually remember getting dressed (this is one of the many reasons why I hate anesthesia--it fucks with your memory and steals parts of your life), but I remember getting into the chair and being wheeled to the exit, where Darwin was waiting with the car. There were no complications during the biopsy, according to the staff. The doctor took only twelve cores, not twenty like last time.
At home that evening, I called up the recording on my computer. I skipped through the parts I was awake for, found the place where I was anesthetized, and listened. A lot of OR teams talk very little during the operation (the case where I was abused was definitely an outlying exception), and that was the case here. I heard the biopsy gun click, followed by a report from the doctor where the sample had come from, with the nurse repeating it and (presumably) writing it down. More clicks and reports, and then I was being wheeled to the recovery room. When I arrived, one nurse said to another that I had strangely asked to be awake during the pre-surgery prep. "He has PTSD or something," she said.
"Is it a control thing?" asked the other.
"It's probably control, yeah. He's probably afraid that--" here, she stopped herself. "Well, I'm not sure what he was afraid about."
"Uh huh," said the other nurse.
And that was all of it. I'm good with that. They're certainly allowed to exchange information about patient behavior in a non-critical manner.
I did tell the doctor that after the other biopsies, I got a fair amount of pain, so I wanted something stronger than Ibuprofen for a couple days. He gave me a scrip and I did get some fairly heft pain later. The pills helped.
One of the things that pokes at my anxieties about hospitals is the way they try to control your behavior. I know it's to maximize my care, but I also know that a bunch of it is overkill, and it creates feelings of enmity with me, and I try to work against what they tell me. For example, this particular clinic said that before the biopsy, I should avoid sexual activity for a week before and for a week after. Two weeks total! I'd never once heard about avoiding sexual activity before a prostate biopsy (before a PSA test, yes, but not before a biopsy), and I surfed all around the internet to check on this. No urology clinic I found had a cessation of sex in their pre-op instructions. As for after, they said to avoid sexual activity for three to five days. Not a full week.
I'm putting a chunk of this behind a cut screen because it gets very biological. I cope with this stuff by writing it down, which is why it's here. But you can skip it.
( Read more... )
Okay, we're back from the cut. A couple days later, I got an alert that I had new results in my patient portal. Oh yeah--what was the cancer doing? Weirdly, I had been more freaked out about the idea of having a biopsy than I was about the actual cancer. But the alert made me suddenly uneasy. I knew the results would be written in medicalese, but I'm fluent in that language thanks to growing up in a medical family, so I knew I'd be able to read them. Nervously, I called them up.
All twelve cores came back as "benign prostatic tissue." In other words, no cancer anywhere!
I joked at the last biopsy that the all the needles were snatching the cancer right out of there. Now it seems to be true! In all seriousness, though, it's very doubtful. The needles just missed any cancerous tissue. But that would also mean the cancer isn't spreading. I'll confirm with my oncologist at our appointment next week.
At the moment, I'm not feeling any pain from the biopsy, and I'm hoping the other side-effects are gone. I also got through it without melting down. We'll call it a win!
comments
All this means I have to get a biopsy done every other year. It's an awful process, but as cancer journeys go, it's pretty mild--as long as you take the right precautions. For my first biopsy, the clinic used general anesthesia as a matter of course. No pain during, though I had some after.
For my second biopsy, though, I'd changed providers, and the day before my appointment, I asked about the anesthesia, and the nurse acted surprised. They used local anesthesia and were startled that I wanted general. I could reschedule, but the next such appointment wouldn't be for a few months. I reluctantly decided to go through with the current appointment. This was a mistake. The clinic insisted I wouldn't feel a thing after the first shot of lidocaine, but they were wrong. I felt everything, and I was yelling in pain. Through 20 core sample. TWENTY! (The usual is twelve.) The staff continued to act surprised, as if I were the only person in the world who felt pain in a biopsy. Fuck them.
So when it came time to set up this one, I insisted on general anesthetic. Again I got surprise. "Are you sure? This is usually done with local."
"No," I said. "It definitely is not. Schedule it, please."
This actually touched off a bunch of phone calls. They had to move the biopsy to a different location and coordinate with them and-and-and. In the end it was scheduled.
As regular readers know, I was abused by medical staff while under anesthetic during two different operations. This has given me a case of medical PTSD, especially when it comes to general anesthesia. You're probably wondering why I didn't just go for general anesthetic, then. The answer is ... it's complicated. I have to choose between awful anxiety and awful pain. Which one, which one? In the end, I settled on anxiety for the simple reason that incoming awful pain would ALSO give me anxiety, and I'd rather deal with just the one.
In the weeks running up to biopsy, I was okay, but as weeks turned to days, I became more and more uneasy. The two days beforehand were the worst, and I lived on Xanax. I know the anxiety is misplaced, that the kind of abuse I went through is extremely rare, that the vast majority of medical workers want to help. Tell that to my emotions, though. It always feels like the operating room staff are just waiting for me to fall unconscious so they can say and do anything they like.
Also, I discovered the clinic was planning to conduct a different (to me) kind of biopsy. My other two were transrectal. This one would be transperineal. Transrectal has a 5% rate of infection, you see, and transperineal has virtually none. But this clinic didn't mention this fact to me. It took me a while to tell myself that this was because they had dropped trans-rectal biopsies some time ago and made transperineal the standard, and most patients didn't know or care about the difference, so they had no reason to mention it. Until I was able to convince myself of this, though, I was in another anxiety overload.
A couple days before the biopsy, I emailed the clinic and briefly explained my situation: that I was an abuse survivor and came out of it with bad PTSD and white coat syndrome. In order to make this bearable for me, I wanted to be awake until just before the biopsy needles went in. After a bit of back-and-forth, the clinic allowed that this would be fine.
The night before the operation, I didn't sleep at all. Not even a doze. I stared at the ceiling all night long, unable to think about anything but the biopsy. It was a long, long night.
Finally, it was time to get up and leave. I did have the go-ahead to coke myself up on Xanax, so I did. By the time Darwin drove me to the clinic, I was a little floaty.
I also had my little device with me. It's a recorder disguised as a flash drive. It looks like a flat stick. I habitually put it inside a finger splint and use it to record all operations so I can at least hear what happened, even if I can't see it. (When I mention to medical workers that I smuggle a recorder into the operating room, they inevitably react with horror. How dare I? My response: why is it that every single person in that room gets to know what happens to me but I, the one person who is most involved, shouldn't know a thing? Again, fuck you.) I slipped it into the splint and when the nurse inevitably asked about it later, I gave my usual answer: "Yeah, I hurt my finger and need to wear this for a while." I've never been challenged about it.
This clinic didn't allow family to be anywhere but the waiting room, so I had to go back to the prep area by myself. I made sure the recorder was working and got into the gown and all that. I'm an experienced surgery patient by now, and I know it's easiest to wear slip-on shoes, a t-shirt, and jeans with no belt, nothing else. Belts and sweatshirts and glasses just turn into crap to keep track of when you're groggy. Keep it simple.
The hospital had a neat little trick--an air circulator that plugged into the gowns like a CPAP machine. It circulates warm air through the gown. This keeps the patient warm even in a cold operating room and the staff doesn't have to constantly get blankets from a warmer. Nifty!
When I was ready, the usual parade of nurses, anesthetists, and the doctor began. They were all aware of my preferences for the prep, for which I was appreciative. Most men find the prep for a transperineal biopsy to be embarrassing, but to me it's worse that someone is doing the embarrassing stuff to me while I'm unconscious and have no control. So the doctor positioned me on the table (eesh, I get nervous just typing this) and ran through the prep. It went fine. Then the anesthetist said it was time for the propofol. She administered it, I got dizzy, and then I was waking up in the recovery room. I remember asking for Darwin but getting no answer. I slept for a little bit, and then a nurse was there with a wheelchair telling me it was time to get dressed and go. I don't actually remember getting dressed (this is one of the many reasons why I hate anesthesia--it fucks with your memory and steals parts of your life), but I remember getting into the chair and being wheeled to the exit, where Darwin was waiting with the car. There were no complications during the biopsy, according to the staff. The doctor took only twelve cores, not twenty like last time.
At home that evening, I called up the recording on my computer. I skipped through the parts I was awake for, found the place where I was anesthetized, and listened. A lot of OR teams talk very little during the operation (the case where I was abused was definitely an outlying exception), and that was the case here. I heard the biopsy gun click, followed by a report from the doctor where the sample had come from, with the nurse repeating it and (presumably) writing it down. More clicks and reports, and then I was being wheeled to the recovery room. When I arrived, one nurse said to another that I had strangely asked to be awake during the pre-surgery prep. "He has PTSD or something," she said.
"Is it a control thing?" asked the other.
"It's probably control, yeah. He's probably afraid that--" here, she stopped herself. "Well, I'm not sure what he was afraid about."
"Uh huh," said the other nurse.
And that was all of it. I'm good with that. They're certainly allowed to exchange information about patient behavior in a non-critical manner.
I did tell the doctor that after the other biopsies, I got a fair amount of pain, so I wanted something stronger than Ibuprofen for a couple days. He gave me a scrip and I did get some fairly heft pain later. The pills helped.
One of the things that pokes at my anxieties about hospitals is the way they try to control your behavior. I know it's to maximize my care, but I also know that a bunch of it is overkill, and it creates feelings of enmity with me, and I try to work against what they tell me. For example, this particular clinic said that before the biopsy, I should avoid sexual activity for a week before and for a week after. Two weeks total! I'd never once heard about avoiding sexual activity before a prostate biopsy (before a PSA test, yes, but not before a biopsy), and I surfed all around the internet to check on this. No urology clinic I found had a cessation of sex in their pre-op instructions. As for after, they said to avoid sexual activity for three to five days. Not a full week.
I'm putting a chunk of this behind a cut screen because it gets very biological. I cope with this stuff by writing it down, which is why it's here. But you can skip it.
( Read more... )
Okay, we're back from the cut. A couple days later, I got an alert that I had new results in my patient portal. Oh yeah--what was the cancer doing? Weirdly, I had been more freaked out about the idea of having a biopsy than I was about the actual cancer. But the alert made me suddenly uneasy. I knew the results would be written in medicalese, but I'm fluent in that language thanks to growing up in a medical family, so I knew I'd be able to read them. Nervously, I called them up.
All twelve cores came back as "benign prostatic tissue." In other words, no cancer anywhere!
I joked at the last biopsy that the all the needles were snatching the cancer right out of there. Now it seems to be true! In all seriousness, though, it's very doubtful. The needles just missed any cancerous tissue. But that would also mean the cancer isn't spreading. I'll confirm with my oncologist at our appointment next week.
At the moment, I'm not feeling any pain from the biopsy, and I'm hoping the other side-effects are gone. I also got through it without melting down. We'll call it a win!
comments
April 9, 2025
Testing, Testing!
It's standardized testing week at Wherever Schools (and all other Michigan schools). It's very strange. We do testing of some grades for three or four hours, then the rest of the students are expected to come in for the rest of the school day. Absentee rates this week, as you may imagine, skyrocket.
We're in the second year of testing completely by computer. By any measure, this is easier for me. All I have to do is make sure the right kids are in my room, log into the test web site, and start the test. That's pretty much it. No collecting and checking answer sheets. No counting test books. No security procedures. When the test is over, the students leave and we're done.
I know the computer test is a logistical nightmare for the district, which has to make sure every student has access to a computer during the test, deal with tech support, and a host of other computer-related issues. I'm not involved in any of that, though, so I just glide on through.
The two-hour instruction period, however, is just ... weird. One day we have hours 1-4 for half an hour each, then we have hours 5 and 6 for a full 60 minutes, and on the third day we have hours 1-4 for half an hour again. It's difficult to keep continuity, and anyway, most of the students don't show up. I'm coping by showing hour-long videos. Hours 1-4 have their split in half, but so what?
It makes for a slow, dull week, really, but you rarely want excitement when you're teaching, believe me!
comments
We're in the second year of testing completely by computer. By any measure, this is easier for me. All I have to do is make sure the right kids are in my room, log into the test web site, and start the test. That's pretty much it. No collecting and checking answer sheets. No counting test books. No security procedures. When the test is over, the students leave and we're done.
I know the computer test is a logistical nightmare for the district, which has to make sure every student has access to a computer during the test, deal with tech support, and a host of other computer-related issues. I'm not involved in any of that, though, so I just glide on through.
The two-hour instruction period, however, is just ... weird. One day we have hours 1-4 for half an hour each, then we have hours 5 and 6 for a full 60 minutes, and on the third day we have hours 1-4 for half an hour again. It's difficult to keep continuity, and anyway, most of the students don't show up. I'm coping by showing hour-long videos. Hours 1-4 have their split in half, but so what?
It makes for a slow, dull week, really, but you rarely want excitement when you're teaching, believe me!
comments
Oh, the Medical
It feels like I spend all my spare time dealing with medical issues. I pinched a neck nerve or something, so I have to go to the chiropractor--more than once, it turns out. I had a crown done, but it's only temporary. I have to go back for the permanent one. I have that last kidney stone to deal with. And I have another biopsy this week.
I find I still shut down when I go into any kind of medical office. When I'm in the waiting room, I just stare at the floor. When I'm asked a direct question, I give short, toneless answers. I do ask questions, but also tonelessly. I don't make small talk. I don't make jokes. (I have absolutely no sense of humor about medical situations. It was burned out of me.) It's hard for me to rouse myself.
I don't even realize I'm doing it sometimes. I was most of the way through the chiropractor appointment before I noticed that my eyes were on the floor and I only looked up long enough to follow the chiropractor's explanation of the x-ray.
But it's still the biopsy that's making me panic.
I know the medical community means well when practitioners do their best to downplay side effects and pain and everything else. They know a fair number of people will be scared off if they don't downplay, and it could mean someone dies as a result.
"Oh, you won't feel a thing." "You'll be up again in no time." "It's a quick, harmless procedure." "The side effects don't last long and they're minor. Nothing to worry about." "Outpatient surgery is nothing at all."
I've been hearing this for the last several years, and it's always a lie. The last time a practitioner told me the truth was when I had a cholecystectomy. The surgeon said the recovery would be painful and last at least two weeks, possibly three, so be ready to sit on the couch for that long. He was right.
When I had my shoulder surgery, the surgeon assured me that the most painful part would be the first two or three weeks. After that, the pain would subside greatly and fade completely in two months, maybe three, and I'd have mobility back by the end of that time. But the pain--bad pain--went on for nearly two years, and I didn't regain full mobility for another year.
This was also what they said for my kidney stone operations and the first two biopsies. "The pain will be over quickly." "The side effects are harmless." But the pain was debilitating, and the side effects were spectacularly awful.
It would be easier to handle this shit if I didn't have to guess what the practitioner really means. Use the word "pain" instead of "pressure" or "discomfort," folks. Say up front how bad it can be. "The effects are usually minimal" is too vague. "We hope for the best, but you need to understand that this and this and this can definitely happen. We'll do our best to minimize it, but we can't always do that" is better.
The biopsy is sending me into panic mode again. I get at least one wrenching hit of anxiety a day right now, and I'm leaning heavily on Xanax to keep me functional.
The first time I had a biopsy like this, the urologist said there'd be no pain because they used general anesthesia, and by the time I woke up, the pain would be gone. This was only half true. I was in a fair amount of pain for a couple of days. And the other side-effect was awful. I was terrified over it for the first several days, despite reassurances from the urologist that it was harmless, and it wrecked my sex life for two full months. (If you're wondering about the exact nature of the side-effect, look up "side-effects of prostate biopsy," and you can probably figure it out.)
The second time I had this biopsy, it was at a different clinic, and I didn't find out until the day before that this clinic only used local anesthesia. I was faced with going through it this way or with rescheduling it for months later (drawing out the anxiety further). I went through it. The surgeon assured me it would only hurt when they injected the lidocaine, and then only for a few seconds. But he was wrong. Lidocaine doesn't work well on me very well, and no doctor ever gives me extra, no matter how much I explain. I yelled during the lidocaine injection, and then I screamed when they extracted the first core. So they gave me another lidocaine injection, and I yelled in agony over that one. (Darwin was in the next room and he could hear me, and it upset him enormously.) Then they started extracting the cores again, and IT STILL FUCKING HURT. I was in pain and I was angry. They had deliberately avoided avenues that would have made the procedure painless, or at least low-pain. The only positive that came out of this was that I told the surgeon before-hand that last time the awful side-effect lasted much longer than usual, and if he could do anything to change that, I'd appreciate it. He said he would try. The side-effect was still awful, but it did clear up in three weeks instead of six.
When this next bi-annual biopsy came around, I said I would need general anesthesia. They hemmed and hawed over it, but I refused to budge, so they "allowed" it. Fuck them. It took a long time and several phone calls to schedule, but at last it was done. Then I found out the procedure would be done in a new way that reduces the risk of infection--good--but makes the pain way worse--bad. (I found out that last by reading a couple studies on the new procedure. The hospital didn't mention it. Of course.) Patients also rated the new version as much more embarrassing. And the usual way is still to use local anesthetic. Fuck them. I'm glad I demanded general anesthesia.
But here's the thing. The crippling anxiety comes not as much from the pain as from the upcoming side-effect and the anesthesia. I was abused when I was under during my shoulder surgery, remember, and while that anxiety has lessened, it hasn't entirely faded. I doubt it ever will. Writing about it here helps a little, which is why I do it.
I try to tell myself that compared to 99.9% of everyone else who lives with cancer, I have it sooo easy. Chemo wrecks you for months, even years. Cancer meds come with side effects that go beyond awful into horrifying, and you have to take them for upwards of five years while my little side-effect lasts a couple months at most. But pointing out that others have it worse rarely makes you feel better. Human psychology just doesn't work that way.
I'm trying not to count the days until Friday, but I end up doing it anyway. Maybe this time it'll be better.
ETA
Today I got an estimate from the hospital for the above biopsy. The grand total is a comfortably precise $25,569.21. Fortunately for me, I have insurance.
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I find I still shut down when I go into any kind of medical office. When I'm in the waiting room, I just stare at the floor. When I'm asked a direct question, I give short, toneless answers. I do ask questions, but also tonelessly. I don't make small talk. I don't make jokes. (I have absolutely no sense of humor about medical situations. It was burned out of me.) It's hard for me to rouse myself.
I don't even realize I'm doing it sometimes. I was most of the way through the chiropractor appointment before I noticed that my eyes were on the floor and I only looked up long enough to follow the chiropractor's explanation of the x-ray.
But it's still the biopsy that's making me panic.
I know the medical community means well when practitioners do their best to downplay side effects and pain and everything else. They know a fair number of people will be scared off if they don't downplay, and it could mean someone dies as a result.
"Oh, you won't feel a thing." "You'll be up again in no time." "It's a quick, harmless procedure." "The side effects don't last long and they're minor. Nothing to worry about." "Outpatient surgery is nothing at all."
I've been hearing this for the last several years, and it's always a lie. The last time a practitioner told me the truth was when I had a cholecystectomy. The surgeon said the recovery would be painful and last at least two weeks, possibly three, so be ready to sit on the couch for that long. He was right.
When I had my shoulder surgery, the surgeon assured me that the most painful part would be the first two or three weeks. After that, the pain would subside greatly and fade completely in two months, maybe three, and I'd have mobility back by the end of that time. But the pain--bad pain--went on for nearly two years, and I didn't regain full mobility for another year.
This was also what they said for my kidney stone operations and the first two biopsies. "The pain will be over quickly." "The side effects are harmless." But the pain was debilitating, and the side effects were spectacularly awful.
It would be easier to handle this shit if I didn't have to guess what the practitioner really means. Use the word "pain" instead of "pressure" or "discomfort," folks. Say up front how bad it can be. "The effects are usually minimal" is too vague. "We hope for the best, but you need to understand that this and this and this can definitely happen. We'll do our best to minimize it, but we can't always do that" is better.
The biopsy is sending me into panic mode again. I get at least one wrenching hit of anxiety a day right now, and I'm leaning heavily on Xanax to keep me functional.
The first time I had a biopsy like this, the urologist said there'd be no pain because they used general anesthesia, and by the time I woke up, the pain would be gone. This was only half true. I was in a fair amount of pain for a couple of days. And the other side-effect was awful. I was terrified over it for the first several days, despite reassurances from the urologist that it was harmless, and it wrecked my sex life for two full months. (If you're wondering about the exact nature of the side-effect, look up "side-effects of prostate biopsy," and you can probably figure it out.)
The second time I had this biopsy, it was at a different clinic, and I didn't find out until the day before that this clinic only used local anesthesia. I was faced with going through it this way or with rescheduling it for months later (drawing out the anxiety further). I went through it. The surgeon assured me it would only hurt when they injected the lidocaine, and then only for a few seconds. But he was wrong. Lidocaine doesn't work well on me very well, and no doctor ever gives me extra, no matter how much I explain. I yelled during the lidocaine injection, and then I screamed when they extracted the first core. So they gave me another lidocaine injection, and I yelled in agony over that one. (Darwin was in the next room and he could hear me, and it upset him enormously.) Then they started extracting the cores again, and IT STILL FUCKING HURT. I was in pain and I was angry. They had deliberately avoided avenues that would have made the procedure painless, or at least low-pain. The only positive that came out of this was that I told the surgeon before-hand that last time the awful side-effect lasted much longer than usual, and if he could do anything to change that, I'd appreciate it. He said he would try. The side-effect was still awful, but it did clear up in three weeks instead of six.
When this next bi-annual biopsy came around, I said I would need general anesthesia. They hemmed and hawed over it, but I refused to budge, so they "allowed" it. Fuck them. It took a long time and several phone calls to schedule, but at last it was done. Then I found out the procedure would be done in a new way that reduces the risk of infection--good--but makes the pain way worse--bad. (I found out that last by reading a couple studies on the new procedure. The hospital didn't mention it. Of course.) Patients also rated the new version as much more embarrassing. And the usual way is still to use local anesthetic. Fuck them. I'm glad I demanded general anesthesia.
But here's the thing. The crippling anxiety comes not as much from the pain as from the upcoming side-effect and the anesthesia. I was abused when I was under during my shoulder surgery, remember, and while that anxiety has lessened, it hasn't entirely faded. I doubt it ever will. Writing about it here helps a little, which is why I do it.
I try to tell myself that compared to 99.9% of everyone else who lives with cancer, I have it sooo easy. Chemo wrecks you for months, even years. Cancer meds come with side effects that go beyond awful into horrifying, and you have to take them for upwards of five years while my little side-effect lasts a couple months at most. But pointing out that others have it worse rarely makes you feel better. Human psychology just doesn't work that way.
I'm trying not to count the days until Friday, but I end up doing it anyway. Maybe this time it'll be better.
ETA
Today I got an estimate from the hospital for the above biopsy. The grand total is a comfortably precise $25,569.21. Fortunately for me, I have insurance.
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March 23, 2025
Retire This Cliche
One of the bigger problems writers face these days is the cell phone. Authors spend a LOT of time separating their characters from their phones in order to explain why a character in trouble doesn't just whip out a device and call for help. A protagonist's cell phone gets broken, lost, stolen, or depowered with alarming regularity, and large swaths of fictional worlds inconveniently have no bars. And then there's this trope: The bad guys are coming. They've broken into the house. Jenny has to hide, fast. She dives into a clever hiding spot. She can't call for help because the villains will hear her. The bad guys spread through the house, guns aiming with sinister intent. One of them passes close to Jenny. She holds her breath, frightened, but pretty sure he won't find her. Then ... Mom calls. Bzzzt bzzzt! Frantically, Jenny fumbles with her phone and ends the call, but it's too late. The bad guy heard the faint buzzing. He yanks open her hiding place and Jenny is captured. (In an alternative version, Jenny accidentally connects the call instead of hanging up, and Mom says in a loud, annoying voice, "Jenny? Why haven't you returned my calls? The florist is up in arms about the buttercups!" And the bad guy grabs her.) I mean, EVERY TIME. It's gotten to the point where I expect it. Just today, I was watching a spy show, and the hapless Jenny character hid behind some boxes in the basement while the bad guys prowled around. I said, "Oh! Someone's going to call her and give her away." Two seconds later: Bzzzt bzzzt! And she was captured. Look, Hollywood, I know it's not easy to come up with new ways to get your characters into trouble, but when the audience spots it coming, you've created a cliche. Give this one up.
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March 14, 2025
Really, Really Nice News
And now we have some nice news. Really, really nice news. Best I've had in ages. But first, some background. I got my first kidney stone when I was 25 years old. I happened to be visiting my parents overnight, and I woke up with an intense pain in my side that got steadily worse. Feeling like a small child who needed to tell Mommy he didn’t feel good, I woke up my parents. My mother, a nurse, immediately diagnosed a kidney stone and got me to the hospital. By the time I arrived, I was panting and sweating from the effort of not screaming. The ER gave me morphine and fluids until the pain stopped. I passed the stone a couple weeks later. I didn’t know it, but that was just the beginning. Over the next 30 years, I continually had at least one stone. Any time I went in for any kind of x-ray, MRI, or CAT scan, the doctor would say, “…and you have a kidney stone.” Most of them passed on their own, but every so often, a bout of level-10 pain would land me in the hospital. Twice, an attack came while I was driving and I had to change course to go the nearest ER. Without Siri's help with directions, I would have had to call an ambulance. A few years ago, the stones went into overdrive. Out of nowhere, I developed so many stones that the doctors lost count. The attacks ramped up the pain so bad, I seriously thought I was going to die. I had to undergo a bunch of operations that sent scopes up through my body to either pull the stones out or pulverize them with lasers. These operations and the aftermaths were torture, both physically and psychologically. They left me with PTSD so bad I had to start seeing a therapist and go on Xanax and anti-depressants. Just calling the doctor’s office gave me the shakes. And the stones kept coming. Finally, they eased up a little. I “only” had four or five at time, and they were passing without needing operations. But they were still there. I carried little time bombs that might or might not explode at any time, and I carried equal amounts of anxiety about it. The anxiety was always there, woven into my daily life. Yesterday I saw my nephrologist. A tech dutifully ran me through the x-ray machine and I went down to the examination room to wait for the doctor. He came in and after some pleasantries, he called up the x-ray. “You have one stone,” he said. “Four-point-five millimeters.” I cocked my head, honestly puzzled. “Just … one?” “That’s it. And it’s under the 5 mm threshold for treatment. It’ll likely pass on its own. We could go after it with shock waves, but it’s not necessary.” I couldn't quite get my mind around this. Only one? It had been many, many years since I’d had only one. Then something occurred to me. “My husband and I are going out of the country this fall,” I said. “I wouldn’t want this one to cause problems when we’re overseas. Would it a good idea to pulverize it so we don’t have to worry?" “Actually, when someone is going overseas, that’s exactly what we recommend. Lithotripsy it is. Let’s get you scheduled." And I was handed an appointment for the Monday in June after final exams are over. “I’m going to be stone-free,” I said slowly. “Looks like,” replied the doctor cheerfully. “See you in June.” I checked out and made my way back to the car. I had no idea how to react. For more than 30 years I'd had at least one stone in my body, and for the last several years I'd had many. The anxiety this caused was so pervasive that, paradoxically, I'd stopped noticing it. It was there like air was there. Now in a few months, I was going to be free of them completely. Sure, they might come back, and I've have to keep checking to make sure, but it didn't seem =likely= they'd come back, and certainly not in such high numbers. Kidney stones ... gone. I got in the car, moved to start it, then held back. I needed a moment to process this. So I stared at the dashboard for a moment. Out of nowhere, the crying slammed into me. I sat in my car, sobbing big, body-shaking sobs, until snot ran out of my nose and my eyes got hot and scratchy and I was fishing in the glove compartment for fast-food napkins. Why the hell was I crying, I wondered. This was good news, something I rarely got from the hospital. Even when the hospital did have good news, it was always, "Good news, but..." I should be shouting, not crying. I guess it was the utter shock and enormity of the change. I'd been living with this anxiety for 30 years. Sometimes it was low-grade, sometimes it was in the stratosphere, but it was always non-stop. Every time I got a twinge, I got a little jolt of Is this ... ? Every time a twinge turned into pain, the mental dance began. How bad is the pain? Should I wait and see if it fades? If it doesn't, or if it gets a little worse, should I go to the ER, or drink more water and keep waiting? If I go to the ER and the pain fades, I'll have made the trip and expense for nothing. If I don't go, and pain ramps up, I'll be tortured with it all the way to the hospital and in the ER while I wait for painkillers. (And the ER always takes a god-awful long time to get painkillers into you, even when you're howling.) If I go during the Goldilocks "just right" moment, I'll arrive at the ER right when the pain is going into overdrive, but when is the Goldilocks moment? And then the twinge would usually fade. The anxiety, however, didn't. That was just the way life was. But that turned out not be true. Now the anxiety was just ... gone. A big part of my emotional being had vanished completely. Thirty years of relief was crashing over me all at once, and it was a big shock. You know how sometimes you have to go to the bathroom but can't, because you're in the middle of something or not in a place where you can find a bathroom? The urgency grows and gets worse and worse, but you don't pay close attention to it because there's nothing you can do about it just now. Then it gets really bad and you finally get to a restroom and afterward you feel a little rush of relief. Multiply that by thirty years. That's what I was feeling. It would have been strange if I =hadn't= cried. So it was nice news. Really, really nice. After the sobbing stopped, I felt a divine euphoria. I was floating, and I couldn't sit still. I drove to downtown Ann Arbor and did some me-shopping—comics and role-playing miniatures. I spent more than I probably should have, but this deserved a reward! Then I got some lunch and then I went home, where I made celebratory chocolate cookies. It really was a good day.
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March 11, 2025
Eek!
Last night my sister Bethany Piziks was staying with us. After a supper of home-made tomato soup and thick grilled cheese sandwiches on home-made bread and an evening of catching up, she went down into the guest room while Darwin and I got ready for bed ourselves. A moment later, we heard a loud, whooping screech from downstairs. Startled, we ran out of the bedroom and Bethany met us in the hallway.
"A mouse!" she said. "There was a mouse inside my backpack! I picked it up, and the mouse jumped out and ran away!"
So now we have mice. (Where's the one, there are always several.)
We've kept the cats out of the finished basement for more than a year now because of the Great Diarrhea Disaster, but we decided it was time to let them have the run of the place again. I also bought some live-capture traps and baited them with peanut butter. They're down there now, quietly waiting with innocent looks on their faces. The cats have been down and up several times. We'll see what happens.
In the meantime, the three of us got endless amusement out of Bethany's reaction. I don't think I've ever heard her make that noise. Bethany was laughing as hard as we were.
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"A mouse!" she said. "There was a mouse inside my backpack! I picked it up, and the mouse jumped out and ran away!"
So now we have mice. (Where's the one, there are always several.)
We've kept the cats out of the finished basement for more than a year now because of the Great Diarrhea Disaster, but we decided it was time to let them have the run of the place again. I also bought some live-capture traps and baited them with peanut butter. They're down there now, quietly waiting with innocent looks on their faces. The cats have been down and up several times. We'll see what happens.
In the meantime, the three of us got endless amusement out of Bethany's reaction. I don't think I've ever heard her make that noise. Bethany was laughing as hard as we were.
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March 8, 2025
Dora Dollars
So Dora is a bi-colored ragdoll cat. On a whim, I did a little research and discovered that ragdoll cats sell for between $500 and $1500.
Huh.
Don't tell her. We'll never hear the end of it.
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Huh.
Don't tell her. We'll never hear the end of it.
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Oncology Update
My oncology appointment lasted all of 90 seconds. It went like this:
Oncologist: Your PSAs are __, and your last biopsy was two years ago, so you're up for another one.
Me: Right.
O: I'll have my team contact you about setting that up.
Me: Okay.
O: Have your medications changed since our last appointment?
Me: Nope.
O: Okay, then. We'll be contacting you about the appointment.
And ... done.
I'm glad it was a video appointment. If I'd driven all the way to UM Ann Arbor, hunted for parking, threaded through the huge and labyrinthine palace of UM Medical, waited in the waiting room, and then seen the doctor for 90 seconds, I would have been rather put out.
For the record, I've been "downgraded" to barely having cancer. I'm on the observation list, and there aren't any indications yet that I'll need treatment. We're hoping it stays that way!
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Oncologist: Your PSAs are __, and your last biopsy was two years ago, so you're up for another one.
Me: Right.
O: I'll have my team contact you about setting that up.
Me: Okay.
O: Have your medications changed since our last appointment?
Me: Nope.
O: Okay, then. We'll be contacting you about the appointment.
And ... done.
I'm glad it was a video appointment. If I'd driven all the way to UM Ann Arbor, hunted for parking, threaded through the huge and labyrinthine palace of UM Medical, waited in the waiting room, and then seen the doctor for 90 seconds, I would have been rather put out.
For the record, I've been "downgraded" to barely having cancer. I'm on the observation list, and there aren't any indications yet that I'll need treatment. We're hoping it stays that way!
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