A Quirky Homecoming

Today was an absolute marathon at St. Mary's. We had really bad storms yesterday in Northwest Indiana and Chicagoland, leaving a lot of people without electricity. I actually had no power at home. It meant I didn't mind being stuck at the hospital so much, since I wasn't missing anything back at the house anyway.

We have been spending a lot of time out there. I've been feeling quite sore in my liver, as I've mentioned before. My husband and I arrived at the hospital around 11:00 AM for a 1:00 PM port procedure. There is so much prep involved, especially getting ready for anesthesia. We had the exact same crew who handled my liver biopsy last Thursday, which was great. It was nice to see familiar faces. They already knew my personality was a little quirky because last time, I was joking about the poor fashion choices we had at the hospital and even had them all using Gemini.

My husband sat with me the whole time. We finally got into the operating room around 1:30 PM, about 30 minutes later than scheduled. The port placement supposedly only took 20 minutes, though it felt much longer. The OR is freezing, and it is a very unique and intimidating environment. I got emotional there, just like during my liver biopsy, and the nurses were trying to comfort me. I ended up telling them I'd be fine and to just suck it up. One of them held my hand and asked if I wanted any music. I had just come back from Austin where I took care of my daughter during her big rhinoplasty and deviated septum surgery on April 1st. She asked for Bob Marley during her operation, so I did the exact same thing. It felt like a nice little tribute to her. I felt really good once I went under the moderate sedation, and I didn't feel much after that.

We got out of there around 3:30 PM. I had been fasting in preparation for the procedure, and it honestly had a boomerang effect on my appetite. I was starving. We ended up going to the exact same place we went after my liver biopsy. It is a Mexican restaurant called El Salto, and they have one of my absolute favorite dishes called Pollo Ixpata. Unfortunately, as soon as I started eating it, my abdomen felt pretty uncomfortable.

They put the port on the right-hand side, and now I am wearing this huge, obnoxious bandage for the next 48 hours. I can't shower or get it wet, and I know it is going to be sore. I can't lift anything for the next day, so I just have to take it easy. That is fine, to be honest, because I feel like I need the rest. We just got home, and thankfully the power was restored within the last 30 minutes. All that pent-up excitement and anticipation due to the power outage means I can finally look forward to making this Pastina or getting TiTi (Aunt Tina) back over to carry out the original plan.

Having so much time at the hospital today gave me a chance to charge my devices and make updates to the site. We now have enhanced messaging features where people can leave videos, and I can respond with videos or photos. I have really been enjoying the amazing stream of messages coming from all kinds of pockets of my network and universe. I am so proud of my family, especially the ones who love to tell themselves how technology challenged they are. We are not asking them to do a lot, but they have successfully navigated the site and left messages regardless of their mindset. I absolutely love this distraction of building the site. It has just been crazy dealing with the irony of it. Last month on LinkedIn, I wrote a post about what a site like this might have looked like for my mom. I still can't get over the fact that I wrote about that, and here I am, building it for myself without having any idea it was coming.

Things are moving fast on the clinical side now. There is some genetic tracing happening as the reports come in with the exact typing and staining. When my mom had cancer, I remember them sending her genetic testing and cancer tumor profile to Tempus labs in Chicago. I think the University of Chicago will do the same for me. There is also a test in progress at Caris Labs doing some advanced profiling. With technology being my profession, seeing all this AI involved is extremely encouraging. I always prefer to focus on AI for good, especially since we know there is plenty of AI for bad out there. Tomorrow is the big day. I meet with Dr. Ardaman Shergill. If you check out the Care page team, there's a bio about her. She comes very highly regarded, with a specialty practice in the exact types of cancers I've been diagnosed with.

I am feeling a lot of love today, but honestly, I was feeling a lot of anger too. I felt impatient. I really need to find ways to understand that the pace I used to run at will never be the same. Most people think slowing down is a great thing. I find it terrifying, but I will do my best to figure out how to live within this new lifestyle. Tonight, I am supposed to be in Atlanta, Georgia, with my whole Google team. If I am not mistaken, they are all at a Braves game right now before heading into critical planning meetings tomorrow. It is a very important time of year following all of our new releases and announcements at Google Cloud Next, plus what's coming up with Google I/O.

I do need to refocus my attention completely on my health. Shutting off my work email after I am officially on leave next Friday is the right thing to do, and I am just going to have to deal with it. I really hope my Google family continues to send me these beautiful messages, though. It has been an absolute pleasure checking them every day.

It is 7:15ish now, and I am taking pain medicine that is making me very tired. I am going to go to sleep. I will definitely check in after the big consultation tomorrow, and I hope everybody has a restful night.

Love, GoGo