Summer time...

Well it has been almost 6 months since my last blog so I thought that I would put down some random thoughts.

Travel - I just got back from a trip to Oklahoma and spending time with my family down there. It was very enjoyable seeing everyone and the food was great (especially the fajitas at Abuelita's in Shawnee). Earlier this summer I spent a week in St. Louis for work. We were field testing a new software release. It was good experience for me though I was pretty tired by the end of the week with a number of midnight to 3am shifts. Some of our activities needed to be in the late night to avoid disrupting the cellular network during the day.

Gaming - My favorite platform for video games is the PC and more specifically my Gateway laptop. I have played lots of different genres of PC games over the past 25 years but I have only recently started playing racing games. Two of the racing games that I picked up on sale in the past 6 months have been DiRT 2 and Burnout Paradise. The games are very different with DiRT 2 being an off-road racer and Burnout being a street racer but I have really enjoyed both games a great deal. They have been a welcome change from the strategy and shooter games that I typically play.

Reading - I used to be a very heavy reader but for some reason the past 3 or 4 years I have really stopped. My favorite genres are science fiction and spy/thriller books though my overall favorite author is John Grisham. This past week I grabbed a book called "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow as I was looking at Young Adult books for my daughter in the bookstore. I had read some short stories by him in the past and the back of the book for "Little Brother" sounded interesting. The reading was easy though the book was close to 400 pages long. I read the book in a couple days and really enjoyed it. The title of the book is a play on the theme of "1984" and Big Brother. The book takes place immediately after a terrorist attack on San Francisco that kills thousands of people. The story is about how quickly we can become a police state when security is a higher priority than personal freedom. The book also contains a lot of interesting technology that appears to be pretty realistic. I thought that it was a fun read and as a computer geek I enjoyed the many ideas in the book including thoughts on encryption and security systems. Two thumbs up!

Health - My health has been good this year. After my hernia surgery things have been going very well. I continue to take medicine each day for my hives and for my irregular heartbeat but the medicine is working well and both have been very well controlled. I am still considering a procedure to correct the irregular heartbeat (AFib) but for now I haven't made up my mind either way. I have two cardiologists that I see and it seems that one thinks it is a good idea and the other thinks that I should wait until the medicine stops controlling it before I do any procedures. They both make sense so for now I am just waiting and seeing how it goes.

Sports - I have been digging the World Cup which just completed as well as the Tour de France which has just started. For the World Cup I was rooting for the United States and Germany. Neither won but they both had a pretty good run with Germany taking 3rd place. For the Tour de France I guess I have been rooting for Lance Armstrong but it appears that he has already put himself in position where he can't win with problems on Sunday. I am now cheering for Andy Schleck from Luxembourg. I enjoyed watching him and his brother in last year's Tour. Unfortunately his brother Frank is out of the Tour after breaking some bones in an accident during the first few days but Andy looks very strong and should be a top contender along with Alberto Contador. After all the drama from last year's Tour between Contador and Armstrong I am hoping Schleck wins this year.

Well that about covers my random thoughts for now. Thanks for stopping by!

Long Time No See

Sorry that I have abandoned updating this blog. Life got busy and this blog fell off my priority list. I am not sure that I will pick this up again but for some reason I am in the mood to blog tonight so here it is.

So much of my previous entries have been about my health. The latest update on that is that my liver has completely grown back and appears to be completely healthy. My gall bladder is gone and for the most part I don't think that my body misses it though my stomach at times might disagree. However, life would be too simple if I ended there. I had a 7 inch incision on my abdomen from the liver surgery and sometime last summer I discovered that I had developed a hernia in my abdomen. This showed up when I stood up and my stomach had a small bulge that didn't match the rest of my profile. Also when sitting up from a laying position this bulge sticks out quite a bit. Well I am finally going to have surgery to correct this next Tuesday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. I figured that it was best to have my liver surgeon repair this since I was already seeing her for periodic checkups. Hopefully this will prove to be a good decision.

The other health issue that I have learned about is a heart irregularity called "Atrial Fibrillation" that I was diagnosed with last fall. It took some time to get the right medications to control this but as of right now this seems to be under control. For whatever reason my body has been experiencing one strange thing after another for the past 3 years. I am hoping that this will soon be in the past. It isn't that I hate hospitals but I am just starting to get tired of spending so much time in them. As always I am super thankful for medical insurance.

One of my very first blog entries a couple of years ago was about my trips to Oklahoma to watch the state high school basketball tournament. This is a long drive (750 miles) but one that I make each year by myself for an event that I really love. This year however, this will be happening 2 weeks after my hernia surgery. Because of this (and due to a generous offer from my sister to let me use her car while I am in town) I am going to fly down for the tournament and avoid the 12 hour car drive. It has been awhile since I have flown anywhere but it should make this fun trip even more enjoyable without the long drive. If I did the math right the cost to get there will be $300 instead of $150 in gas (not to mention wear/tear on the car).

One other thing that has happened in my life recently was the tragic loss of my brother-in-law in a fatal oil field accident last month. Richard had been part of our family for 32 years so he was much more a "brother" than an "in-law". The entire thing continues to be surreal but unfortunately it is very real. Rest in Peace Richard.

Liver Surgery

Greetings. Well the surgery has happened and I am now on the road to recovery. It has been almost 2 weeks since the surgery (12/16) and my liver is still in the midst of regenerating and I am trying to regain my strength. The pain from the healing is still there though it has become pretty mild the past couple of days and is controlled with Tylenol at this point.

On the day of the surgery my wife and I arrived at Northwestern Memorial Hospital around 6 am. The surgery took place a couple of hours later and entailed the resection (removal) of the right half of my liver (and removal of the attached gall bladder). The surgeon found that the previous PVE procedure that had been done had worked very well and the tumor had shrunk due to the decreased blood flow to it. With this Dr. Baker was able to remove the tumor by only resecting the right lobe and did not require the "extended right resection" as had been previously expected (which would have meant removing around 75% of the liver instead of the ~50% that was removed).

I was in the hospital for 2 nights and was very glad to be allowed to go home on Thursday (12/18) around 2 in the afternoon. I did not sleep well in the hospital though I don't know why I thought that I would the two nights after the surgery. Even when I got home things were more comfortable but good sleep was fleeting for the first week. Very few positions were comfortable in bed for very long due to the pain that I was still in. This has since gotten better and I am sleeping better at night.

Right now my biggest issue is stamina and strength. This is expected as during an early visit to the doctor she explained that the body uses an incredible amount of calories in regenerating the liver. This leaves you feeling like you have been hit by a truck for the first few weeks after the surgery.

I have already been back to the hospital once since the surgery (Monday 12/22) to see Dr. Baker. She was happy with how things looked and I have another follow-up after another 3 weeks. I am not allowed to lift anything more than 15 lbs until then and was told to not do anything that would exert myself. At this visit I also had my drain removed from my abdomen. This was very painful as the nurse had to pull pretty hard to get the tube out after my body was starting to attach to it during the healing process. (I know - "too much information").

The timing for all of this hasn't been very good especially with the Chicago weather. My wife and daughters have been doing snow shoveling for me while I have been laid up. A million thanks to them for this and the thousands of other ways that they are serving me during this time.

I am thankful it is over and I am seeing progress in my recovery. God is good!

Tomorrow's the Day

Well I am about 11 hours away from surgery. We need to be in Chicago between 7 and 7:30 for the surgery to start at 9:00 am. This means that we will be leaving our house around 5:00 am. The weather hasn't been very good but it sounds like there won't be anything new on the roads between now and then.

I am not sure how long I am going to keep the blog going after the surgery. I started it just to talk about random things (hence the name) but it wasn't long before it became my official "liver journal". I have gotten tired of the subject as it has dragged on and on. Who knows maybe I will have the interest to start posting again on some other topic in the future. In the mean time there will definitely be one more entry after I am back on my feet just to give the last chapter in the liver saga.

It sounds like I will be seeing my doctor for the next 2 years for periodic checkups but as far as I am concerned this saga will be over once I am out of the hospital and have regained my strength which will hopefully be within the next few weeks.

Merry Christmas (in case I don't get back online by the 25th)!

Pre-Surgery Checkup

Today was my final visit to Northwestern Memorial prior to my liver surgery. Today's visit was to do the "pre-surgery checkup". This took a couple of hours and was totally painless. I had blood drawn for a number of tests, an EKG taken and a couple of chest x-rays taken. I also had a pretty standard physical from 2 of the doctors (a resident and a more experienced doctor). Everything was good and we are still green for the surgery next week.

Next Tuesday we have to be at the hospital at 6:00 for me to check-in for the surgery. I am keeping my fingers crossed for good weather so that we don't have to leave home too early. Today we weren't sure about the roads with the light snow that we have been having but it was pretty clear and the traffic was kind of heavy for the way in but very light around lunch time on the way out of the city.

We hit my favorite Korean restaurant for lunch in Lisle. I love the bibimbop in the hot stone bowl. Once my meal was done I kept my hands warm on the stone bowl for another 10 minutes as I waited for my wife to finish her meal (did I mention I love bibimbop). One of these days I may have to invest in these heavy stone bowls and have all my winter meals in them (after getting them nice and hot in the oven). :)

Surgery Date

Well I finally got my surgery date, it will be Tuesday, December 16th. It has been difficult for me to be patient through this whole process but I am very thankful for the thorough care that I have been receiving from all people at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

My Oklahoma trip at Thanksgiving was very good. Lots of highlights including a great Thanksgiving meal with lots of family members, fun playing games with my family, and a really good time seeing my best friend and his sons for breakfast one day. My family does the Thanksgiving meal in a big way with turkey and ham, multiple potato/rice dishes, stuffing made a couple of ways, a giant relish tray, corn-on-the-cob (real popular with my younger daughter), and plenty of pie and pumpkin roll. I am sure that I have left out half the contents of the "buffet" line.

For games, my family has a long history of playing a domino game called "moon". The game is similar to spades in cards though the "trump" in moon changes each hand and is called by the team that wins the bid. My grandfather and great-uncle Louie were great "moon" players as is my dad and a number of others from his generation in our family. My cousins and siblings and I all learned to play the game at an early age at family gatherings at my grandparent home. Now my generation is playing and teaching the game to the generation below us. It was fun over Thanksgiving playing with my brother-in-law as my partner and taking on my nephew and my niece's husband. The game is in good hands with these young guys though we handed it to them on this occasion. :)

The other game that the family played was a game called "Personal Preference" which is a fun non-competitive large group game where the objective is to correctly predict the preferences of the rotating person who draws 4 cards in a general category (e.g. food and drink) and has to secretly rank-order them. The game is a lot of fun as you get to learn things about each other and everyone is sharing how they would rank the same items. The family had a lot of fun with about half of the people playing the game for the first time. The funny part is when spouses start arguing about which of two equally bad items is really the least favorite for one of them.

My last thought today is that OU made it into the BCS championship game after handling Missouri pretty easily in the Big 12 championship game. I am keeping my fingers crossed and hope that they can beat Florida in January in the National Championship game. Up until now it has been very important how the team looked in their wins as the rankings are very subjective and based on how well you played. This is over - in the final game they just need to win and it can be of any variety. Here's hoping!!! Boomer Sooner.

MRI Time

Long time no blog...

I finally had another trip into Chicago today for the MRI following my second PVE. My doctor decided to wait 4 weeks this time whereas we did the MRI last time after only 3 weeks. Hopefully I will have some news next week before taking off for Thanksgiving about today's results and a date for my surgery.

We stopped at Carson's Ribs for lunch today after the appointment. It was a late lunch but very good. I haven't been to Carson's in many years but when I first moved to Illinois I used to go pretty often with a good friend during our trips into Chicago. The ribs were very good today though it was interesting that an option for the potato dish was "potato skins". This sounded interesting as a side dish so I ordered it. I was disappointed as what I got was hollow potato skins without any cheese topping (as you normally get when you order "skins" as an appetizer). I did get some sour cream to put on top but it wasn't quite the same without the cheese.

The past 4 weeks have been pretty good. I have only had a small number of "bad" days with the liver. I think that between the 2 PVEs that I have had that the tumor is not causing the frequent discomfort that it was previously causing.

Tomorrow is another trip to the Brookfield zoo with my oldest daughter to "watch the dolphins" as part of a project for her science class. We will watch them for 2-3 hours which should be our last time there. We were there a few weeks ago as part of this project and it was interesting to watch them for long periods of time. You definitely see different personalities in the different dolphins.