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You are welcome to apply any part of this article to your own personal use. Please do NOT publish any part of the article or apply any part of it to any non-personal use without the express written concent of the author.
Hi all,
Well, I'm back aboard "Volant," having arrived about 1000 (10:00am) today (Tuesday). I was scheduled for surgery at noon yesterday, but the surgery was delayed a bit because of problems with an earlier patient. They didn't get to me until 1330 (1:30pm). Because they used a general anaesthesia instead of a local with some la-la-juice, it took me longer to come out of it this time. So I stayed overnight.
It turned out that the tumor was, in fact, a nerve sheath growth. It was not a neurofibroma. That means the nerve is not directly involved. But because the growth was so closely intertwined with the nerve they could only shave off about 75% of it without risking damage to the nerve itself. While it was not all that we had hoped for, the results were better than expected.
Because the work was more extensive than last week's surgery, my leg is noticeably more tender and sensitive. I expect it'll take me several days longer before I'm able to get around and about. In the interim I plan to milk as much sympathy as possible until the stitches come out, in about 10 days. After that the co-captain of "Volant" will be insisting I get back to work to finish off our most pressing boat projects.
I'll be seeing the neurosurgeon in about a week. We should have the laboratory results back by then, most likely confirming that the growth is benign. That means we just keep an eye on the area, looking for a reappearance of the bump (which may be many years away) then repeat the shaving surgery unless a more effective technique is then available.
So, unless we get very bad news (i.e. the growth is malignant), this should be the last of my general broadcasts.
A very, very special thanks to those folks who sent me such nice words of support and to those folks who kept me in their thoughts. Knowing you were all out there pulling for me turned a big trial into an almost mundane event. Given my penchant for worst-case scenarios, I was sure that I'd be loosing the use of my left foot, which might end my sailing days. Or, it might even have meant that I'd have to loose the foot and become Capt. Pegleg. Having a vivid imagination sometimes has its drawbacks. And having such friends and family such as yourselves helped me confront the surgery with a much more realistic outlook. Thank you, all.
Fair winds,
Capt. Edmund "Bear" Downing
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