Happy Birthday Vin

My father was born 102 years ago today.

My body is about to undergo a robot insurgency based on the recommendation of gastroentologist Dr. Matthews which went something like this, "

"Dr Matthews has reviewed your recent results and states Pathology of colon polyps came back as benign but, adenomatous polyps.

Plan:
Refer to Dr. Michael James, colorectal surgery for consideration for partial colon resection for transverse colon polyp that could not be removed completely endoscopically. Polyp was tethered to the deeper layers of the colon wall."

MMkkkaaayy

The partial colon resection procedure is robotic which means that a robot under the control of my surgeon Dr. James will be invading my guts, cutting some of them out and then sewing the remains back together all in the name of removing the mystery polyp that I have come to know as Paulpaula.

Everyone says that Dr. James is a wonderful surgeon. Every person that I've ever known who has undergone surgery has been advised before the surgery that the recommended surgeon is a wonderful surgeon.

It didn't take long for Dr. Matthews to come up with this idea. The first moment I awoke after my second colonoscopy (the first one doesn't count because the cleansing was incomplete even though I followed the instructions to the tee and was up all night evacuating), Matthews said "I'm glad you came back because you're going to need surgery."

Matthews knew just the man to perform the surgery, an excellent surgeon named Dr. James who could do the whole thing robotically.

Kinda sounded like and in and out thing.

We consulted with Dr. James and found that  "in and out" would be 3 days in the hospital, liquid diet, 3 weeks of exhaustive recovery. Each part of the recovery revealed through our questioning. Dr. James was ready to go but understood the dilemma

Paulpaula the polyp tethered deep in my colon wall was of the adenomatous family of polyps. They are the rarest of polyps and even rarer when they are lateral which of course Paulpaula had to be. They are of particular concern because of the risk of malignant transformation.

Malignant transformation.

An adenomatous Paulpaula that reaches a certain size has a greater than 50% chance of cancerous malignancy. Nobody knew exactly how big Paulpaula was but we're gonna find out.

They wheeled me in to confront the robot.

Not exactly.....

Four days earlier, we decided to take another approach. A more "agressive' colonoscopy performed by Dr. James.

When I came back to consciousness, Dr. James was at my bedside with the good news. The second colonoscopy had removed Paulpaula and it showed no signs of cancer but would still have to be be analyzed.

We could cancel the robotic procedure.

We had avoided the colonic resection which if we would have had as recommended several times would have resulted in the hospitalization, liquid diet, pain suppression etc as a consequence of removing a non-cancerous polyp to say nothing of the $140,000 that somebody somewhere was not going to be getting this time around.

The biopsy came back negative although Paulpaula was 1.7 cm in length which is .3 cm short of 50% malignant.

I'm home now.

I'm not in the hospital where I would have been if not for our strategizing.

Dr. James called me and gave me the good news.

The only sour note is that Dr. James suggests another colonsocopy in 3 months possibly setting up a sequel. That would be my fourth colonoscopy in a year. I wonder who holds the record.

Although all the doctors did their job, it was our self advocacy, our willingness to challenge authority, ask questions, tape answers and look for a better way that played a huge part in the happy ending. Believe me there was a lot of navigating to reach this particular harbor.

Happy birthday Vin. 

And thank y'all for the well wishes, hope and inspiration.