insomniac

[arguchik]

i'm in another insomniac phase, this time seemingly sparked by the BBQ i went to on saturday. it's rather a long story. this should suffice: everyone there was either a sufferer, or caregiver to a sufferer, of PMP (the condition i'm at risk of developing because of the tumor that was in my appendix).

people told their stories. most of them have had the "mother of all surgeries" that is used to treat PMP. it was reassuring--because everyone looked healthy, etc.--but upsetting too.

the upsetting part is keeping me awake.

Comments

[crash66.livejournal.com]

Please forgive my ignorance..

So they got "the mother of all surgeries" to prevent PMP? or they got PMP and therefore undertook "TMOAS"

I'm just trying to work out the risk thing and see if i got it the right way around to understand it.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

they all were diagnosed with PMP and had the surgery to get it under control (or hopefully--but probably not--cure it).

MOAS is a dual surgical operation. the first part, which is extremely invasive and takes like 12+ hours, involves removing tumor wherever it's hiding, which could be anywhere in the abdominal cavity--so they have to take everything out, basically. the second part involves filling the abdominal cavity up with chemotherapy drugs (they usually use mytomicin-C) and rocking the patient from side to side for a couple of hours (sometimes as long as 6 days) to "wash" the surface of all of the abdominal organs and hopefully kill any tumor cells that might be hiding out. recovery from this surgery takes months.

one of the women at the BBQ was about to have this surgery--she goes in on friday. she got pretty upset when everyone was describing their situation, and decided to leave early. i don't blame her. if i were in that position, i probably wouldn't have gone at all.