Now My Belly?

Since about the first of the year, my belly had grown more and more bloated. It was one of the things we had discussed during my last appointment with Dr. Amatruda (it is due to the spread of the cancer to the omentum), but at the time we had not set up an appointment to do anything about it. It seemed that doing so was not that big of a deal once I'd decide.

That weekend, about the 16th of January, it was really beginning to bother me. I tried going about my business early the next week, but it was putting pressure on my stomach which would make me nauseous after eating. So I called the clinic and they made an appointment for Friday the 22nd to do a paracentesis.

This fancy term means that we drained my belly of the fluid. And drain we did. I watched as bottle after bottle filled. My signal to give up was when some bowel interrupted the flow by getting sucked onto the one end of the tube, cutting off the suction (and being a noticeably unpleasant feeling). In all, 5.5 liters was drained.

Since it was a gradual increase, the sudden return to "normalness" itself felt wierd. One thing I recall is that it seemed odd to be able to bend over to put my socks on. They told me that each liter of fluid was about 2 pounds, so I apparently dropped about 10 pounds in a 20-minute span as well. I quickly took advantage of the situation and had Angie stop at the Olive Garden on the way home. So I feasted.

Even this past weekend -- only a day or two after this procedure -- it almost seemed to me that I was getting back to bloated again. Well here it is not even a week later and I can say that again my belly is bloated and again I'm almost an outtie. I made an appointment to have another paracentesis tomorrow.

This time, they might put something in that will stay in and then be able to be "tapped" -- somehow -- to drain off the fluid without always going through this procedure. The procedure itself seems to share a bit with being a pregnant woman: I've got the expanded belly, they look around with ultrasound.

Anyways, I'm not sure about this more "permanent" tube or whatever. I imagine I'll find out tomorrow. But again it will be nice not to be bloated all of the time.