A New Life
In May of 2005 I met a remarkable women by the name of Yang Nian, and in less than a week we were a couple. I met her on the last 3 months of her 6-month stay for an exchange program with U of I in Champaign where she was doing cooperative research for the University of Jinan in Guangzhou, China a university where she is an assistant professor. I proposed on my birthday in July and she planned to go back to China where I would join her in November for the wedding. We could have gotten married here in the USA and maybe we should have, but she had obligations back home and many more friends and family in China than I have here in America. Add to this that I thought getting married in China would be an extraordinary experience and a rare one for both of us.
I had had a small cough while we where together so I had a doctor's appointment and a chest x-ray. The x-ray was unremarkable, but there was a small anomaly that the doctor wanted checked on in 6 to 8 weeks. After a tearful departure for both of us Nian boarded a plane in Chicago back for the long trip to China after a short visit with her brother in LA. A couple of weeks later my follow up x-ray led to a follow up CAT scan and a follow up PET scan and finally a diagnosis of lung cancer.
The clock had kept ticking all this time on our November wedding and we were down to about three weeks when I got the bad news. Nian never really was crazy about living in America has she had a high profile position in China and a relatively better job than mine. She had pressured me a little to look into job prospects in Guangzhou or Hong Kong, but I didn't find anything, a little to my relief since my current job is very stable and pretty good. Marriage itself seemed like a formidable enough life change without moving halfway across the world as well (yes, this is exactly what I'm asking Nian to do, but at least she knows English really well). I gave Nian the option of backing out of a wedding to a man 16 years her elder, and who might have been in great shape when we met, but now was soon going to be down 40% in lung capacity and with a murky future in battling back from and defeating lung cancer.
Her reaction was to get mad at me for doubting her love for me and vowed to stay by my side no matter come what may. I suggested we delay the surgery now being planned and get married while I was still a whole man. But she wouldn't have any of it, insisting I get the surgery as soon as possible for the best chance of being with her as long as possible even though it meant postponing the wedding and giving up deposits and plans already well in the works on her end. And with that our luck began to change. I went to see the surgeon who would do the operation to pin down a final date and surgical plan when he opined that he didn't think what I had was lung cancer despite what my respirologist and radiologist had said. He also didn't think a two or three week delay would be a big deal at my very early and slow growing (if at all) stage. Nian seized on this newfound hope and insisted that I bring my CAT and PET scan films with me to China so we could get third and fourth opinions on my condition while there from top doctors in Guangzhou. Nian and her farther turned out to be pretty highly connected in the Chinese education system and delivered on their promise while I was there. One set of highly regarded specialists that Nian took me too said they felt I had virtually zero chance of having cancer. Nian's father's consultant reached the same conclusion, perhaps TB instead.
We'll skip over all the wedding and honeymoon details (of which there are many) and pick up where I jet back to America with even more hope for a good outcome after another tearful separation in an airport, this time Hong Kong. A week after getting back to Champaign Illinois as a married man I was in a hospital gown, flat on my back on a gurney with an anesthesia mask about to knock me out. I would either wake up with both my lungs intact -- or not. Taped to my ankle was a piece of red jade Nian had given me that had belonged to her grandmother and which I promised to wear everyday until my surgery had passed for good luck. It supposedly has some high monetary value, as red jade is rarer than the much more common semiprecious green jade, but that of course wasn't why Nian was having me wear it.
-- Blackness --
To be honest I don't really remember going under, I didn't have time to feel getting sleepy, the next thing I knew I was coming to in the ICU. While groggy I think I regained alertness pretty quickly, so much so it didn't feel like waking up, just that first I was there and now I was here. The first thing I wanted to know was whether they had taken two of the three lobes of my right lung which would indicate cancer, or stopped short at just doing a biopsy. The granuloma had been situated between the top two lobes of my right lung and not accessible for a needle biopsy. The nurse informed me that my middle lobe had been removed, but wouldn't tell me anything else -- for that I would have to wait for the doctor to tell me whether I had had cancer or not. One lobe I thought to myself, must be cancer after all. Not so bad though, instead of 40% down maybe somewhere between 15-25% down (the lobes are not all equal in size). If they took only one lobe they must have been pretty confident the cancer wouldn't spread, nestled delicately where it was between the two. Maybe it wasn't cancer after all, but still something that had been serious and had required the removal of a lobe anyway. I just didn't know. All these thoughts raced through my head, including that despite the huge pain in my right side and incredible tightness I could still breath and even talk without too, too much difficulty. I knew things would get better, and hell 20% down since I started with over 100% lung capacity for a man my age wasn't too bad. I called Nian to give her the news, as I knew it. There didn't appear to be any phones in the ICU, but the nurse fished my cell phone out for me from my valuables bag, and with a little bit of pride for my ability to do so, I levered myself up to dial for myself Nian's number. She came on and I told what I knew so far, I think she took it well, but I was under a lot of pain killers still and had an IV drip of morphine going. She didn't want to let me go, but I was tiring easily and also wanted to save the cell phone battery for a longer conversation latter after I had talked to the doctor.
I may have dozed off for a while, that first day was really tiring, but I was awake when the surgeon, Dr Lo, came in to tell me the results of the operation. He paced the room quickly, his face down in the charts he was reading. He didn't look at me as he quickly rattled off "No initial sign of cancer..."
"Wait, wait," I interrupted, "If they was no cancer why did you remove my middle lobe?"
"No, we didn't remove any lobes, we did remove the granuloma," he informed.
He then explained that the rapid biopsy hadn't found any sign of cancer, but the granuloma had been sent off for more thorough testing and we should know for sure in about two days time exactly what we were dealing with, but it didn't look like cancer.
I called Nian back to give her the revised good news while I racked my brains for how I had misunderstood the nurse, or whether the nurse had given me the wrong news, or whether it was all some postoperative drug induced haze of a mistake -- though at the time I had felt I had been pretty coherent. What the nurse had said was they had "resected the middle lobe of the right lung." I'm fairly certain this is close to a direct quote. Merriam Webster's (online) defines resect as:
I'm pretty sure the nurse should have said they resected the granuloma from my middle lobe, but that's not the way she said it. It certainly would have saved Nian and I a few hours of worry. Until I just looked up the definition I had assumed I misunderstood what resect means. But no, her language was vague while using precise words, and left the possibility I'd lost my middle lobe. I think it safe to say she misspoke or was misinformed.
On Wednesday the labs came back, I had had histoplasmosis, a fungal infection that many get, but few are ever aware of. It can become serious in some cases, but the doctor doubts it would have in mine. The respirologist came in after Dr. Lo and pretty much apologized for what amounted to an unnecessary surgery blaming it on the technology which often is too precise and delicate. In the case of the PET scan mistaking a small active, chronic but under control fungal infection for an early stage of cancer -- both involve increased cellular activity and sugar uptake by cells.
So there's the surgery story. In on Monday, out on Thursday. Today is Saturday as I lay in my comfy waterbed (oh so much more comfortable than a hospital bed) on my back typing this up for my blog. I've talked to Nain for hours at a time everyday, as we pretty much have ever since she went back to China. Our love is strong, and now so is my health. We are at the start of one hell of a life together!
I had had a small cough while we where together so I had a doctor's appointment and a chest x-ray. The x-ray was unremarkable, but there was a small anomaly that the doctor wanted checked on in 6 to 8 weeks. After a tearful departure for both of us Nian boarded a plane in Chicago back for the long trip to China after a short visit with her brother in LA. A couple of weeks later my follow up x-ray led to a follow up CAT scan and a follow up PET scan and finally a diagnosis of lung cancer.
The clock had kept ticking all this time on our November wedding and we were down to about three weeks when I got the bad news. Nian never really was crazy about living in America has she had a high profile position in China and a relatively better job than mine. She had pressured me a little to look into job prospects in Guangzhou or Hong Kong, but I didn't find anything, a little to my relief since my current job is very stable and pretty good. Marriage itself seemed like a formidable enough life change without moving halfway across the world as well (yes, this is exactly what I'm asking Nian to do, but at least she knows English really well). I gave Nian the option of backing out of a wedding to a man 16 years her elder, and who might have been in great shape when we met, but now was soon going to be down 40% in lung capacity and with a murky future in battling back from and defeating lung cancer.
Her reaction was to get mad at me for doubting her love for me and vowed to stay by my side no matter come what may. I suggested we delay the surgery now being planned and get married while I was still a whole man. But she wouldn't have any of it, insisting I get the surgery as soon as possible for the best chance of being with her as long as possible even though it meant postponing the wedding and giving up deposits and plans already well in the works on her end. And with that our luck began to change. I went to see the surgeon who would do the operation to pin down a final date and surgical plan when he opined that he didn't think what I had was lung cancer despite what my respirologist and radiologist had said. He also didn't think a two or three week delay would be a big deal at my very early and slow growing (if at all) stage. Nian seized on this newfound hope and insisted that I bring my CAT and PET scan films with me to China so we could get third and fourth opinions on my condition while there from top doctors in Guangzhou. Nian and her farther turned out to be pretty highly connected in the Chinese education system and delivered on their promise while I was there. One set of highly regarded specialists that Nian took me too said they felt I had virtually zero chance of having cancer. Nian's father's consultant reached the same conclusion, perhaps TB instead.
We'll skip over all the wedding and honeymoon details (of which there are many) and pick up where I jet back to America with even more hope for a good outcome after another tearful separation in an airport, this time Hong Kong. A week after getting back to Champaign Illinois as a married man I was in a hospital gown, flat on my back on a gurney with an anesthesia mask about to knock me out. I would either wake up with both my lungs intact -- or not. Taped to my ankle was a piece of red jade Nian had given me that had belonged to her grandmother and which I promised to wear everyday until my surgery had passed for good luck. It supposedly has some high monetary value, as red jade is rarer than the much more common semiprecious green jade, but that of course wasn't why Nian was having me wear it.
-- Blackness --
To be honest I don't really remember going under, I didn't have time to feel getting sleepy, the next thing I knew I was coming to in the ICU. While groggy I think I regained alertness pretty quickly, so much so it didn't feel like waking up, just that first I was there and now I was here. The first thing I wanted to know was whether they had taken two of the three lobes of my right lung which would indicate cancer, or stopped short at just doing a biopsy. The granuloma had been situated between the top two lobes of my right lung and not accessible for a needle biopsy. The nurse informed me that my middle lobe had been removed, but wouldn't tell me anything else -- for that I would have to wait for the doctor to tell me whether I had had cancer or not. One lobe I thought to myself, must be cancer after all. Not so bad though, instead of 40% down maybe somewhere between 15-25% down (the lobes are not all equal in size). If they took only one lobe they must have been pretty confident the cancer wouldn't spread, nestled delicately where it was between the two. Maybe it wasn't cancer after all, but still something that had been serious and had required the removal of a lobe anyway. I just didn't know. All these thoughts raced through my head, including that despite the huge pain in my right side and incredible tightness I could still breath and even talk without too, too much difficulty. I knew things would get better, and hell 20% down since I started with over 100% lung capacity for a man my age wasn't too bad. I called Nian to give her the news, as I knew it. There didn't appear to be any phones in the ICU, but the nurse fished my cell phone out for me from my valuables bag, and with a little bit of pride for my ability to do so, I levered myself up to dial for myself Nian's number. She came on and I told what I knew so far, I think she took it well, but I was under a lot of pain killers still and had an IV drip of morphine going. She didn't want to let me go, but I was tiring easily and also wanted to save the cell phone battery for a longer conversation latter after I had talked to the doctor.
I may have dozed off for a while, that first day was really tiring, but I was awake when the surgeon, Dr Lo, came in to tell me the results of the operation. He paced the room quickly, his face down in the charts he was reading. He didn't look at me as he quickly rattled off "No initial sign of cancer..."
"Wait, wait," I interrupted, "If they was no cancer why did you remove my middle lobe?"
"No, we didn't remove any lobes, we did remove the granuloma," he informed.
He then explained that the rapid biopsy hadn't found any sign of cancer, but the granuloma had been sent off for more thorough testing and we should know for sure in about two days time exactly what we were dealing with, but it didn't look like cancer.
I called Nian back to give her the revised good news while I racked my brains for how I had misunderstood the nurse, or whether the nurse had given me the wrong news, or whether it was all some postoperative drug induced haze of a mistake -- though at the time I had felt I had been pretty coherent. What the nurse had said was they had "resected the middle lobe of the right lung." I'm fairly certain this is close to a direct quote. Merriam Webster's (online) defines resect as:
Main Entry: re·sect
Pronunciation: ri-'sekt
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Latin resectus, past participle of resecare to cut off, from re- + secare to cut -- more at SAW
: to perform resection on
- re·sect·abil·i·ty /-"sek-t&-'bi-l&-tE/ noun
- re·sect·able /-'sek-t&-b&l/ adjective
I'm pretty sure the nurse should have said they resected the granuloma from my middle lobe, but that's not the way she said it. It certainly would have saved Nian and I a few hours of worry. Until I just looked up the definition I had assumed I misunderstood what resect means. But no, her language was vague while using precise words, and left the possibility I'd lost my middle lobe. I think it safe to say she misspoke or was misinformed.
On Wednesday the labs came back, I had had histoplasmosis, a fungal infection that many get, but few are ever aware of. It can become serious in some cases, but the doctor doubts it would have in mine. The respirologist came in after Dr. Lo and pretty much apologized for what amounted to an unnecessary surgery blaming it on the technology which often is too precise and delicate. In the case of the PET scan mistaking a small active, chronic but under control fungal infection for an early stage of cancer -- both involve increased cellular activity and sugar uptake by cells.
So there's the surgery story. In on Monday, out on Thursday. Today is Saturday as I lay in my comfy waterbed (oh so much more comfortable than a hospital bed) on my back typing this up for my blog. I've talked to Nain for hours at a time everyday, as we pretty much have ever since she went back to China. Our love is strong, and now so is my health. We are at the start of one hell of a life together!