I’ve been very light on the posting lately, as you may or may not have noticed.

Lets be honest, you probably didn’t notice, but I did.

I’ll admit, I’ve sat down at least a dozen times over the last 3 weeks to post something on the site. Something funny, something interesting, even just something to chew on for a bit. And, obvioustly, I just haven’t ever finished any of these posts.

So, I’ve decided (with permission, which will make sense in a bit) to give ya’ll a little insight as to why. Not necessarily because I need an excuse, but more because I know a lot of people read this blog to keep up on what’s going on out here in arizona. The fun, the pain, the excitement, the boredom, and everything in between.

So, sit back, grab a beer and have a gander.

For the last month all of those things have been all rolled up into one, and admittedly, it’s been a bit distracting trying to get everything sorted out.

That little item I’m referring to is Claire and the fact that she got diagnosed with oral cancer about a month ago.

It all started before christmas with what we thought was a canker sore on the underside of her tongue, right near the back. We put some medicine on it and shrugged it off. Then it stuck around…. for 2 months. So, we had the dentist look at it. He referred her to an oral surgeon for a biopsy, and next thing we know, we’re driving down the hill to the Mayo Clinic in phoenix to find out what needs to happen to get this thing out of her mouth and done with.

That was the beginning of our seemingly endless journey of trips down the hill for the last several weeks.

We found out that it was a small legion (<2cm in diameter) and we caught it in the fairly early stages. If it was much smaller, we wouldn’t have noticed it. And honestly, it’s probably been around there for a while, cells just chewing away at their surroundings and multiplying to get to the point where they’re at now.

So, the verdict was surgery. Cut out the legion, and cut out all the lymph nodes on the same side of her neck that the cancer was on. CT scans didn’t see anything in the lymph nodes, but that’s usually the first place it spreads to outside the immediate legion, so out they come.

So, this past tuesday Claire went down the hill with my sister for her pre-op, which apparently means “wait around all afternoon while they tell you that you don’t really need any of those tests because you’re healthy so you’ll be just fine”. Seriously, she was there for over 4 hours and I don’t think they did any real tests to her.

By the way, that seems to be a theme around the hospital. Hurry up and wait. Then, just when you think something’s going to happen, wait some more.

I have a theory that it’s because most of the patients down there are old and don’t really have a whole lot else to do, so they don’t mind sitting around. For a 28 year old who runs, bikes, swims, skis, hikes, and has a fair degree of mild ADD, it’s torture.

Anyways, back to the story.

I went down there tuesday night, crashed in the hotel (after a delicious dinner at Switch thanks to a suggestion from Jackie) and took her to the hospital at 5 in the morning on wednesday. Luckily, it was an early surgery.

She was under by 8:00, and out of surgery by 11 (probably before, but that’s when we got the call).

We finally caught up with her at around 2 when she was still pretty doped up, but in her recovery room. The doc said the surgery went really well, they got a solid margin of healthy cells around the cancer, and the lymph node surgery went smoothly.

Well, as smoothly as it can when you have a 4 inch incision in your neck and a couple of drain tubes sticking out of it.

The rest of the afternoon was a painful go of figuring out that morphene and claire don’t mix, and that her only ‘food’ that first day was ice chips and a juice box around 7 that night. Fortunately, they finally let her choke down a percocet she got some sleep.

Once she was somewhat coherent I snuck out for a couple hours and found a beer and some food at Boulders on Broadway with Reichel and some of his cohorts.

That night I did battle with the ‘chair that converts into a bed’ and finally figured out how to make a horizontal surface long enough for me to sleep on (other than the floor). Claire was up and down all night either in pain, feeling nauseous, or dealing with a nurse or tech taking vital signs. Fortunately, she was doing a lot better by the morning, and even mustered up enough of a sense of humor to simply point at me and say “phone home” and insist I take this picture.

She also insisted I take the next one, which I will warn you is simply documenting what it looks like when your neck is draining off about 60 ccs of liquid in a 24 hour period.

She was doing better, and I promised work I would be back the next day. 5:30 came too soon, but I packed down some serious coffee, said goodbye for now and pointed the car north for a couple days of work.

Over the next couple days she quickly transitioned from recovery to stir-crazy. After living on a liquid diet for a couple days, they took out one of the 2 drains and then let her start eating a ‘soft mechanical’ diet and she got ‘patio privileges’ as well.

I’d imagine it was relaxing for a little while, but then it just became annoying. She watched several whole TV series on netflix, did laps around the hospital, and generally couldn’t sit still. Fortunately they told her she might be able to go home on saturday.

So, I packed up, and headed down friday night again.

Saturday morning rolled around and they said “nope, one more night”. That was about the last thing she wanted to hear, and so we started devising ways to entertain ourselves in her room. Fortunately, her brother had sent her a random assortment of items including the following two.

I imagine the doctors may have decided not to visit on saturday afternoon due to the rumors they had heard of a vicious killer on the loose.

Fortunately, it’s arizona, so not only is it legal, but she can carry it under her hospital gown without a permit.

I should also mention that the first day they tried to bring her chicken broth and jell-o along with her juice box. Being a vegetarian, she turned down both of those and got an extra juice box instead. I feel like they just decided to bring her extra juice for all her meals from then on.

(really, she didn’t like it all that much, but when that’s your only choice, you drink two)

Finally, sunday afternoon they gave us the go-ahead, and we busted out of that joint and high-tailed it back up the hill.

She’s recovering well, other than a really stiff neck due to the 20-ish stitches in one side preventing movement of her head. She gets to chill with the dog all week, eat mac-n-cheese, and generally laze around (at least until thursday when the stitches come out).

I know, it sounds good, but the only question she keeps asking me (like I know the answer….) is ‘when can I start running again’.

She’s nuts.

So there you have it. The last month of dealing with all of this has made me a little on the lazy side with posting. Kinda had some other stuff on my mind. Thanks to everyone whos offered their help during this whole thing. I feel like, all things considered, it went smoothly, and it wasn’t that bad in the grand scheme of things.

I definitely feel a lot of sympathy for all the folks out there going through a lot worse things than she did for cancer, and I wouldn’t wish any of it, even something relatively small, on anyone. I’m sure there are folks reading this who have had family or close friends who have been affected by cancer, and I feel for you and wish you all the best. If anyone is still battling it, stick with it, we all are with you.

Just one more thing: Let’s be clear, cancer is a bitch, but I’m still not wearing a yellow bracelet.