Tuesday was another day of being sick from the mung and losing two more very precious pounds. I was pretty much in the darkest of moods all day. It was cold and wet and there was just nothing to cheer me up. I had a little email tiff with Nutri-Nazi over my lunch. I wrote that I wanted to get out and have a meal that I didn't fix, something that wasn't just a sandwich or leftovers. She said I should have a protein drink, at home. I rewrote the email back to her a dozen times before I got it toned down enough to send. Finally I just left and drove around for a while before going to a local pub for a sliced prime rib sandwich with a salad. Getting out did wonders and having a fabulous sandwich served to me just made my day. I came home and eventually did have the protein drink, but only after getting out and seeing that the world was still out there.
This morning I had a thought back to a week or so ago when I found out that without surgery I had little to no chance for survival. I remembered that during my search for mortality figures on pancreatic cancer patients I had come across a site that promised a surgical breakthrough that could operate on cases like mine. To be particular, the pancreas has a series of blood vessels that pass through it. They are like major veins and arteries taking the enzymes and secretions from the pancreas to the organs and the rest of my body. And they bring in the chemicals that signal what the conditions in the rest of the body are to the pancreas. In the midst of that tangle of delicate blood vessels is where my cancer sits. That location rendered my cancer off limits for surgery. But this site promised they had the skills and experience necessary to successfully.
I went back to that site this morning. It was the Columbia School of Medicine in New York City. That is the place where the Whipple procedure for pancreatic cancer was developed. I called them. They asked for my records. I sent an overnight package of the CDs of the CTs and emailed them the original report of my biopsy. They will go over all that and will consider my case for the surgery. I don't know when they will get back to me but a very nice lady named Sarah is right now on my list of favorite people. I can only keep my fingers crossed now. They are my hope for a long life right now.
The Lab Rat in Training may be headed for the Big Apple.
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