The Smell of Cancer - An Update

Cancer still stinks. Thanks for all the suggestions for solutions to the smell issue that you posted in the comments. I tried a lot of them. I tried rose hip oil in my drain. It smells fine in the bottle but once it's in the drain it smells like rotten roses. It's an ok alternative to just plain nasty. For instance, when I used it, people can still tell there's a smell but they think there's no possible way it could be coming from a human being. I've tried layering the drain in ziplock bags but that doesn't really help either. Just putting vapo-rub under my nose isn't an option since I have to consider the well being of any poor co-worker who is forced to sit in my office for any length of time. Without a solution I would soon find myself without anyone to help me out at work.

Yesterday I did find something that helped. I went to see the ET nurses (ET in this case stands for enterostomal therapy) at the Foothills hospital and they hooked me up. The set me up with a paediatric ostomy bag that I can fit over the drain. It works well at controlling the smell BUT it provides no real anchor for the drain. With no anchor for the drain, the tube moves in and out when I move around and that hurts like hell. So my options at this point are: wear a bag and be in pain or be somewhat comfortable and smell like a family of skunks. I will work at trying to find a way to anchor the tube in the bag but I'm not sure how to do that. I'll have to get my thinking cap on.

On a related note, I went to see Dr. Buie today. Luckily I had Penny with me so she could ask him all the tough questions and put some gentle pressure on him to try and solve this drain thing. He said in no uncertain terms that surgery is the only way to fix the problem. The likelihood of it healing up on its own after nearly 2 years is basically non-existent. But even with that in mind, there is no clean cut answer. The ideal scenario is to put up with the drain until I get a cure and then have surgery to remove all the damage. Even then the surgery is risky due to the amount of scar tissue in the area from previous surgeries and radiation. Interrupting chemo now to have the surgery would be risky since I could have a complication (more likely now with chemo on the go) and spend the remainder of what could be a short life in the hospital. However if my CT scan on January 4 shows that the chemo isn't working then it might be a good excuse to stop and have some surgery while we regroup and come up with other cancer-killing options. We also discussed a less invasive surgery which wouldn't really solve the problem but could make the situation better in terms of pain and smell. The bottom line is we have to wait for CT results January 4 to make any decisions. Wait wait wait. A common theme these past two and a half years.