Yet another doctor

I went and saw Dr. Hagege today. He's an ENT (Eyes - Nose and Throat) specialist.

He put my nose and my throat to sleep with some sort of spritz stuff. He then put a camera up my nostrils and down my throat and looked around.

He found a tumour on my left tonsil. He didn't find much else. The good news is that he didn't find anything spreading down to my lungs or moving upwards.

The bad news is the rest...

On Wednesday morning (14/09) I go to the Clinique Turin for a complete scan of my throat area. They inject with some special ink and then put me in this big moving tunnel and scan the entire area. This is going to allow them find all of the cancer cells and is the most important exam in that it is going to let us know where we stand, or don't, for the future by showing how widespread the cancer is.

On Thursday morning they will knock me out and perform a complete internal endoscopy. Based on the results of that and the scanner, and while I'm still out they may very well perform a tonsillectomy which is not a big deal. If however the results of the scanner and endoscopy are not good then, again while I'm still out, they will re-open my wound of last week's operation and scrape out whatever they have found. They would, in that case, open a bit higher and lower than actually.

Depending on what type of procedure they end up having to do I will be in hospital for 2 days (endoscopy), 3 days (tonsillectomy) or 5 days (re-opening surgical wound).

More disturbing, if that's possible, was the news that it is extremely likely that I will have to go through x-ray therapy. The doctor considered this good news in that I will most likely not have to go through chemotherapy but rather only x-ray therapy.

I will have external x-ray therapy. Using the scanner results as a sort of shooting target diagram they point an x-ray pistol at my neck and shoot high doses of x-rays in the cancerous areas to kill all of the cancer cells. Unfortunately I will have to go through this every day (Monday through Friday) for EIGHT WEEKS. I am not looking forward to any of this. Apparently it's going to be very difficult for me to work during this period. However that's for an employee who works normal hours. I am going to truly try and work 2 to 3 hours in the evenings when I have energy. I have a lot of projects on at the moment, many of which I am already behind on, and I am not going to allow this to slow me down that much. I also am going to need to be able to do some billable work during this time. Although the advantage of not being an employee is that I can work when I can and when I want one of the disadvantages is I have not such thing as paid sick leave. If I don't work I don't get paid. It's very simple. I therefore have to do some work during this time to keep alive both mentally and financially...

As you can imagine I am going through all of the standard emotions (depressed, sad, angry, scared, sad, scared, sad and did I mention scared?).

Now that I have actual results and know what I have (throat cancer) I am going to be spending the rest of the afternoon writing to everyone to let them know and to get my life in order (resigning as President of the Parents' Association at Jess' school, warning my clients of my lack of availability and probably lack of voice and all of the medical paperwork). I'm not even thinking of the 2-month x-ray therapy treatment yet as I don't know when that is going to start and can't organise around it yet...

After my examination with the doctor I went to W.H. Smith's to buy some books as I don't know how long I'll be in the hospital for.

I'm just living day-by-day now and preparing myself for Wednesday...

Bad News

Dr. Girard called me this afternoon with the results of the biopsy they did on the tumour they removed from my neck.

It was not what I wanted to hear. The tumour was cancerous. The tumour was actually a secondary tumour in that it is the product of another tumour and not the primary tumour itself. This means there is another tumour in my neck area. This means that they are going to have to find it as quickly as possible and they are going to have to remove it (surgically) as quickly as possible.

But even worse news was that I am either going to have to go through x-ray therapy or chemotherapy to completely kill of all of the cancer cells in the region so that they do not come back and produce other tumours in the future.

I have to go see an ENT (ORL in French) specialist tomorrow morning for a full internal exam of the area and to schedule the rest.

I spent most of the rest of the afternoon crying...

I called Desney and told her immediately after Dr. Girard told me.

When Desney got home and the girls got home from school I told the family and explained what is going on. Jessica was very upset and ran away to her room. Alexandra I don't believe has fully understood the gravity of the situation which is perhaps not such a bad thing.

I went up and had a long talk with Jessica one-on-one. I shared my thoughts with her. How sad I am. How angry I am. How sorry I am. The stereotypical question of "Why me???". She replied with the stereotypically egotistical teenager's response of "Why you? ... Why ME???"

We finally settled down and watched a movie (Die Hard 3) and ordered from pizza hut...

I spent most of the evening crying...

Scarface

I took off my bandages this morning and had my first real shower since the operation. It feels wonderful to feel clean again. Unfortunately that's about the only good feeling I can mention at the moment. I have to admit to being a bit depressed...

The scar is actually much, much worse than how it looks in this photo. The swelling of my face is also not quite so apparent in this photo. Basically it's one big bruise inside. As I touch it around the scar it's like a big internal black and blue mark. It feels much better with the bandage off and I have a bit more freedom of movement. I had thought that it was the bandage that was constraining my movement. To a certain extent that was so. But to a certain extent it's the wound itself which can't be stretched too much in either direction.

I obviously hope the swelling will go down and the scar will fade a bit with time...

I hate time.

;-(

Jessica's 15th

When Alex got home from school she finished her work on her present for Jessica. She picked some flowers from Desney's garden and wrapped the stem of each flower, individually (!), with aluminium foil and put them in the basket she had made.

When Desney got home we dragged the new mattress we had been hiding in the cellar up to the living room. We had to go a bit slowly so I didn't stretch anything I shouldn't in my neck...

Jessica finally got home and had brought her friend Mercedes with her. We gave her her presents and she was quite pleased... not overly enthusiastic or thankful... but pleased.

We all went out to our local Japanese restaurant as that's what Jessica wanted for her birthday and had been talking about for at least a month. I obviously felt a bit uncomfortable going out to a restaurant in my present condition (unshaved hair not washed since Thursday, large bandage and a head I can't turn more than 45 degrees). But it went well... We had a good meal and Jessica truly enjoyed it. Of course she wasn't paying so it was easy to enjoy!

All in all it went well... and in another few months Alex turns 11!

Better out than in!

That's what Shrek always says!

On Friday I arrived at the clinic at 07:45 (15 minutes early) and waited around until the admissions office opened. I was first in the queue. I was admitted. But they didn't have any private rooms left. There was therefore somebody already in MY room when I arrived.

They made me take a shower in betadine, even though I had showered before I left, and I got to wear that ridiculous hospital outfit they always force us to wear. I found out just before going up to surgery that I had apparently put it on backwards and had to switch it around. However it certainly made no difference as regards covering any particular part of my body. I took of my earrind and my engagement ring, they let me keep on my wedding ring as I couldn't get it off, and up I went to surgery.

The anesthesiologist was really very kind and he spoke of the hills of the Languedoc-Roussillon as he pricked me with the needle. That's the last bit I remember...

Woke up in the waking up room with a lovely nurse making sure I was OK. I was really quite pleased to see her and almost as pleased to hear my own voice coming out of my throat. I don't remember any of our conversation. I just remember I really enjoyed having a conversation at all!

They brought me down to MY room and the other bed was empty. I thanked my lucky stars. However within a half and hour they brought somebody else in. He had an eye operation and had bandages over both eyes. He was enormous which is always nice as it makes me feel thin.

He was a definite pain for the nurses, and therefore me, throughout the night:

• He undid his bandages by accident at one point


• He kicked through, and broke, the bottom of the bed which was apparently too short


• He knocked over a bottle of water

I slept throughout most of the day and therefore had a bit of difficulty sleeping at night. My neighbour's antics didn't help much. In addition, as always, the (male) nurse would wake me up every hour or two to take my blood pressure and temperature. The anti-coagulant jab in the thigh at about midnight was also well-appreciated...

Saturday I awoke glad that the night was finished. It was a very, very hot evening and my neighbour did not like sleeping with the window open. But when the nurse came in she, kindly, opened the window and the door to the hallway and left them open to create a draft.

After breakfast my anesthesist came to see me and we had a chat while he prescribed pain-killers and anti-inflammatories for the rest of the week. My neighbour checked out at 10:00 and the morning monotony was broken up by the nurse cleaning up the room and making the bed. I proceeded to drench my new sheets with sweat in about half an hour which made them feel like my old sheets all over again...

I rented a television before the operation. Unfortunately the television was hanging from the ceiling about 90 degress left of my bed. After the operation I could not turn my head to the left or look up. I therefore ended up using my television more as a radio and listened to the news (mostly about the ridiculously embarassing post-hurrican disaster situation in America).

In the afternoon Desney and the girls showed up. It was wonderful to have a visit and to hear all about their first day at school. This was the first time ever that I was not at home for the rentrée and I definitely missed it. All news was good news and they stayed for quite a while before heading off to do more school shopping.

Saturday night was much easier as they basically left me alone after my evening medication. No more pressure and temperature readings. Being alone in the room meant no disturbances. As I had slept so much during the day it was not easy to sleep at night. By holding on to the equipment I am supposed to use to pull myself up out of bed I was able to turn and watch TV. This did wonders for my right bicep. But unfortunately I wasn not exactly rewarded with quality programming... I awoke a bit early waiting for breakfast and starting the countdown to checking out.

After breakfast the nurse came and changed my bandages. She says the scar/wound looks fine. However the painful bit was a bit of an allergic reaction to the bandage which I have behind the wound. I was hoping that the new bandage would be much smaller than the original one. Unfortunately it is about the same size and just as restricting.

After all of the paperwork I took a taxi home to find Desney doing chores, as always, Jessica in front of the television, as always, and Alexandra at school.

I sat on MY toilet and washed myself as best possible in MY bathroom. It was a great feeling.

I didn't do much during the day and I didn't turn on my computer at all. To take my mind off of everything I watched a bit of television so Alex and I watched three episodes of M*A*S*H* (2nd season on DVD). We had dinner out on the terrasse, which was wonderful, and Desney was made some easy to chew fish and rice. I watched as the rest of the family drank a wonderful bottle of Chablis Premier Cru (Moreau-Naudet) and I drank my water and took my pills. To end the evening, and remind myself what I left behind, we watched the new (for us) episodes of E.R..

Now it's time to just get through the next couple of days until I can finally take the bandages off on Wednesday morning...

Oh... it's also Jessica's 15th birthday today!

Anesthesia

Met my anesthesiologist (Dr. Lageix) today.

He gave me a full exam and went over my test results. He was very pleased with my test results and my answers to all of his health-related questions.

However he was not happy when I told him that the tumour was weighing down on my neck and that if I pushed on it my head would spin. He tried something no one else had tried. He took my blood pressure and while he was taking my blood pressure he pushed down on the tumour... the needle shot up. He then tried another reading using something that wrapped around my finger and my neck and got the same result.

He wasn't happy. So he called the surgeon and faxed him the results of this test. They talked and they now feel they may keep me in hospital through to Sunday for observation.

I told Dr. Lageix how I had been having a bottle of wine each night to relax my muscles and, especially, my mind. He said that wine is the best relaxant known to man with the best side-effects on the body and the substance the most easily digested. In moderation of course...

He just got back from the Rhône valley where he had spent summer holiday. We talked of the various wines of the region (Châteauneuf du Pape (ridiculously expensive -- I told him about CdP White which he had never tasted), Condrieu, Beaumes de Venise (he knows of a red that's delicious!), Cornas, Crozes-Hermitage, Hermitage, ...).

We then talked about the comparison between the New World wines (USA, South America, Australia, ...) and the Old World wines (Europe) and how France does not know how to compete in a market where wine is treated as grape juice.

Finally we parted ways and I headed off to do all of the paperwork for the hospital.

Home... dinner on the terrasse and another nice bottle of wine.

Some results...

I got my blood test and x-ray results in the post this morning.

 

I scanned them and sent them off to my doctor and he replied that all is normal.

 

I am hoping that at least eliminates blood cell diseases and such.

 

It’s always a pleasure to learn that I don’t have AIDS or hepatitis… although I also haven’t had whatever fun would have been involved to get either of those {vbg}

 

Doctors, doctors and more doctors...

I finally got through to the anesthesiologist's office. Appointment for tomorrow afternoon...

It's a date!

It's finally confirmed. The operation will take place at the Clinique Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire on Friday morning. I obviously have a new anesthesiologist, Dr. Lageix, who I have to meet with on Wednesday. At least I don't have to do all the tests again.

Now all I have to do is try and calm down and get some sleep between now and then.

Easier said than done!

Moving forward...

After several conversations with Dr. Le Blevec's secretary, who desperately was trying to get me to be operated on at The American Hospital, I finally got to talk to Dr. Le Blevec himself. He completely understood the situation and is trying to reschedule the operation at the Clinique Georffroy Saint-Hilaire for the same day.

I am now waiting for him to call and confirm...

Money, money, money...

After a long weekend of worrying, feeling unconfortable and getting little sleep I called the hospital. They confirmed that with their system I would have to pay the entire amount due up front and would then be reimbursed by our health system. However as they are not a standard French hospital I would only be reimbursed 92%. I therefore would have to cough up 10,000 € when I got out of the hospital and I would get back 9,200 € anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks later.

This is obviously not going to be possible. I do not have 10,000 € and it is even questionable as to whether or not it is worth paying 800 € in the end for something I can get for free at a normal French clinic with exactly the same surgeon.

I am now waiting to reschedule at Clinique Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.

The American Hospital in Paris

I went to Dr. Le Blevec's clinic in the 5th only to find he wasn't there. He had completely forgotten about the appointment. After finally getting him on the phone I found that he had gone to his afternoon job. He asked me to meet him there.

I drove to The American Hospital of Paris to meet him. I was not disappointed. The hospital looked like The Beverly Hills Hotel.

I found his office and we met. After looking at the ultrasound results and quickly examining my neck he agreed that this had to be removed as quickly as possible. It is not worth performing a biopsy as it is going to have to removed afterwards no matter what. They are therefore going to remove it and then examine it to find out what it is. He scheduled the operation for Friday (1 week) morning.

Dr. Le Blevec then sent me to meet the anesthesiologist, Dr. Buy, who gave me a much more detailed examination. He examined all over my body to see if there were any other tumours anywhere else. He then sent me off for x-rays.

I went and got the x-rays done and went back to Dr. Buy who had a quick look and said they were fine. He then sent me off for blood tests. I went to the lab, where they took 6 vials of my blood, and finished my day at the hospital.

After paying for Dr. Le Blevec's meeting, Dr. Buy's meeting, the x-rays and the blood test I realised it had been a very expensive day. I will get all of the money back but in the mean time...

The American Hospital is not a conventional French hospital and they gave me a cost estimate to take home... over 10,000 €!

After spending the day being poked at and examined I came home exhausted.

Another nice bottle of wine...

Surgeons...

Dr. Girard called and told me had set up an emergency appointment with a vascular surgeon (Dr. Le Blevec) he knows for tomorrow.

Another nice bottle of wine...

I hate doctors!

Ever since late June I had this lump in my neck, under my ear, on my left-hand side. As always I didn't think it was a big deal. However as it didn't go away throughout July I thought I had better see my doctor about it. But I certainly wasn't going to see a doctor I didn't know in Tunisia about something like this. I didn't even want to see a new doctor in Asnières about something like this.

I haven't seen my doctor since we left Paris about 2 years ago. But Dr. Girarad has been my personal doctor, and our family doctor, for over 15 years and he knows me and my history. I called his office to make an appointment when we got back from Tunisia. As expected he was on holiday and due back on 23/08/05. I therefore made an appointment to see him the day after he got back. I wanted to give him a day to get back in to the swing of things.

It was actually quite strange driving in to the old neighbourhood. Although I easily found his cabinet it took longer to find parking than it took to drive from Asnières. He was a bit late and I teased him about it when he arrived. After going through the standard niceties about our kids and his kids and our family and his family he had a look at my neck.

He immediately called the Clinique Blomet to get me an ultrasound done. I went right to the clinic and Dr. Lorphelin examined me. He didn't like what he saw and I had to bring the results and the pictures back to Dr. Girard.

They found a tumour sitting just on top of my parotid gland but apparently not coming out from the gland. Unfortunately what they didn't like about it, and which didn't exactly cheer me up either, is the fact that it is 2 mm away from my carotid artery.

Dr. Girard immediately began calling surgeons. He started with ORL (ENT in English) surgeons. Of course they were all on holiday. After about a half an hour of phoning left and right he said he would study the case this evening and call me back in the morning. I went home feeling about as depressed as I've ever been in my life.

We cracked open a nice bottle of wine...

I hate computers!

Ever since we got back from holiday... actually even before we left... we had to keep shutting down our server every hour or so as it would stop allowing us to connect to it.

As this meant turning off just about every computer in the house, and they are numerous, this was actually quite a pain in the ass.

After finally just getting sick of it I started looking in to the problem on the server and spent about 3 days getting rid of it.

On our Music Server, which just sits there playing music 24/7, was a particularliy vicious piece of adware. The Aurora software basically takes over the computer and then allows other worms to crawl in and attack the server.

I had to go around cleaning up every machine connected to our network... I finally got everything working about a half-hour ago...

Even now not all of the computers are working as it takes me about an hour per computer. But the main computers are operational again and the server works fine. I took advantage of the fact that I had to completely reformat the damn server to upgrade it to Windows Server 2003 and I'm quite pleased with the result.

Now it'll be days and days of teething pains as I go through all of the little things which need tweaking with any new system.

If I could just get about 15 minutes alone in a room with a couple of programmers who write viruses, worms or adware... it would be such a wonderful release of tension and feeling of what the Americans refer to as closure.

The Family is back together

Jessica took the train from Banyuls to Perpignan this morning and then from Perpignan to Paris this afternoon. I picked her up at the train station at the end of the day.

She looks great. Not quite as tanned as one might hope considering she was in the south of France on the Spanish border. However considering that she was only outside all night and spend all day in bed it is easily understood.

It looks like she had a good time and made some new friends. She had a bit of a communication problem with her existing friend but that'll be forgotten by the time school starts.

A nice dinner of duck, potatoes, peas and corn with Desney's famous pear sauce and a lovely bottle of Beaujolais (Fleurie) 2003 made a nice welcome as the kid was starving!

And now we are three again...

Woke up way too early this morning. Actually any time this morning would have been way too early.

Had David and Sasha over for dinner... they left at 3:00 in the morning...

At 07:50 the doorbell rings and it's the Ikea delivery. Luckily Desney answered it...

After slowly puttering around the house I left to go pick up Alexandra at the airport. She arrived safe and sound and 15 minutes early.

She talked and talked and talked on the drive home from the airport and told me all about camp. It was wonderful to hear her speak nothing but English for such a long conversation. What was strange, and quite funny actually, was that she had picked up a Billy Elliot accent somewhere.

We got home and she told Desney all of the same stories about camp, with a few new ones thrown in for good measure, and I built her new Ikea bed. Desney too remarked on the accent and we tried desperately not to laught... I fear we did a couple of times...

It was great to hear her speak English so much... it was just so strange to hear her speaking it with such a strong accent, with strong intonations, which wasn't any of ours!

Glad to have her home. Starting to feel like a family again...

Fresnay Race 2005

The Big Race of the Year!

Desney and I left around 09:00 and traffic was fine. We were about 4 km from Deauville at 11:00. However it then took us 45 minutes to go 4 km and we arrived at the race track just before 12:00.

Almost everyone was already there and we dropped off the stuff we had brought with us to go to Normandy. The London crowd had arrived by plane just before our arrival and we started drinking and enjoying ourselves practically immediately. The tent layout was beautiful as always and the meal was amazingly copious and delicious as always. As always (again) we were still eating by the first race at 14:15. We all had a great time... until...

The Fresnay Race

Our Divine Proporions, unbeaten in her entire 9-race career, going up against colts for the first time was the by-far favourite. Odds were under 2-1 on her and a place bet was practically worthless. Only 6 horses running...

We ran up to the roof terrace to watch the race, which is our favourite place to watch from, and although I yelled and screamed my head off (as always)... she came in ... fourth.

;-(

Needless to say the atmosphere was a bit more subdued from this point forward. Although we continued to eat and drink and enjoy each other's company it was not the same...

We had a great time, ate and drank extremely well and greeted everyone who is anyone before finally leaving at around 19:00. Our hotel was not far and we passed out immediately upon checkin.

At about 20:30 we decided to go to the beach for a walk. We strolled along the boardwalk for a while, looking at the sun setting on the beach on one side and the enticing casinos on the other side. After having lost quite, quite, quite an amount of money at the races the casino were much less appealing that normal.

We then went in to the centre of Deauville for a very light dinner in a very touristy restaurant and worried about being sick when we got back to the hotel.

We slept extremely well after the exhausing day and we were back on the road home by a little after 08:00. No traffic on the road whatsoever, stopped off at an autoroute restaurant for a quick breakfast, and we were home by 10:15.

Now... back to work!

And now we are two

We dropped Alexandra off at the airport this afternoon. Her plane took off on time and she looked happy leaving for England.

She'll be spending a week with her grandparents and then a week at summer camp Beaumont Camp) in England.

After dropping Alex off at the airport we headed for IKEA where we got a new bed for Alexandra and new kitchen cupbboards as both of those had broke recently... They'll be delivered around the end of the month...

Desney is, of course, taking advantage of the time off to redecorate. She's been painting the terrace from early morning till late in the day...

And now we are three...

Got up early in the morning and took Jessica to the train station... put her on the train and watched the train leave the station...

She's off to Banyuls for a couple of weeks visiting friends...

Maybe there'll be a little less yelling around the house?