Cut the damn thing out!

In one of my previous posts I mentioned that my left leg was swelling. I went to the doctor who suspected a blood clot and sent me to have a sonagram. No blood clot but enlarged lymph nodes so back to the hospital for biopsy. Turned out to be positive for melanoma. I had a melanoma removed from that leg 25 years ago. So we found a really good doctor at UVA that specializes in melanoma treatment and research. He sent me for CT and MRI scans and the for CT/PET scan (just got the bill for that one - $6000). The scans showed that the tumors were active in my lymph nodes in both legs and on the left up into my belly. Everything else was clear.

The biopsy results happened on Friday 28, July. I began bluegrass dobro camp at Davis & Elking college on Sunday the 30th. Needless to say I was a bit distracted during that week. Rose and I visited the new doctor (Slingluff) on the next Monday and got the news about what options were available. None of them were very good. I chose to "cut the damn thing out". There is still a very high risk that pieces of the melanoma are floating around and could lodge and any organ that filters blood or lymph. My post op treatment will consist of close monitoring to determine if there is still some in there. In the mean time Jenny got married in a beautiful ceremony – overall a great weekend. We did not tell her about this until after the wedding. She was under enough stress!

I showed up at UVA at 11 am on Sept 13 th and was in the operating room by 1pm. After a nine hour procedure I got to my room at 11 pm. That must have been the longest night of my life. Coming off the general, with an epidural and with morphine injected into my drip was a real experience. I would fall off to sleep and wake up only to see that 3 minutes had passed. In less than 8 hours I was up and on the way to the bathroom. Then they gave me perkaset (sp). Things really got colorful with voices and all!!! I decided that was enough and stopped taking all drugs except Advil Sunday morning at 2 am. They released me from the hospital at 12 on Sunday. It looks like my stitches are healing well and the drains are still running off whatever liquid they drain.

I can get around and walk, have taken a shower, and watched a lot of TV. I shoot for shows that really boar me and I fall of to sleep. I'm getting real tired of being on my back so much so I tried sleeping on my right side last night. It worked pretty well although I continued to wake up on my back. So, I go back Monday to begin the next phase (whatever that may be) and hopefully to get some of these drains removed. I would post some pictures of my stitches but can't figure out how to block off some parts that are really swollen :-)

Jenny & Lou's Wedding

Beautiful bride and proud dad!



















Grandmother Carrie and Uncle Allen












The cake


















All of the "babes" in one picture


















My baby!


















Grandson Dodge













Mom, doing what mons do.

local farmers

Jenny is getting married next weekend. People from across the country will be converging in Lisbon Ohio to share in that happy day. I'll post some pictures next week.



August was a really dry month. All of the grass went dormant and even the weeds were drooping. Since I did not water the garden the rest of the corn died out, the peppers are stunted and the tomatoes are not doing well. I think the next garden upgrade needs to be a more effective way to get water to the garden. The tropical storm blew through here here late last week and dropped about two and a half inches of water ... within a day everything turned green again. It's really amazing how powerful water is in nature.


The above picture is taken from the back poarch, across the farm. Vineyard on foreground, then garden and orchard, then pastures into the distance. Two days ago it was all brown! And here is a shot of the main hay field. The second cutting was done last week so the field looks really good.









Here are some local farmers that stopped by to celebrate the end of summer.