Just to let everyone know. Last month I went into the hospital because my appendix burst. I shared that.

As Paul Harvey was famous for saying...here now...is the rest of the story.

On follow up with that surgeon I was informed that the reason for my adult onset appendicitis was moderately defined adenocarcinoma of the appendix. The c word. So much for going in, having him look at the incisions and sending me home.

So, of course, panic set in. We then needed to schedule follow up surgery for staging. Turns out the same doc couldn't do both surgeries...since, unlike the Verizon commercials...he wasn't in my network. So, took the opportunity to get 2nd opinion from oncologist, etc.

So, over the past 5 weeks I've had 5 rounds of tests, MRI, colonoscopy, bloodwork and last week the second surgery to remove part of my colon and surrounding lymph nodes to make sure that with my appendix went all of the cancer, which was the hope of all involved and the leading prognosis after all of the testing.

Tests came back today. Good news. I'm clean.

So, everyone so far down here has been great..but I, of course, now worry that I've put myself behind an 8 ball in the office being out for a significant amount of time.

The good is I am 30 pounds lighter, I weigh less now than I have since enrolling in college. Goal is to keep it that way. I've pretty much given up all vices. The bad that came from all of this (which is actually probably good) is we caught the onset of type 2 diabetes (family history) so now I get to eat less pasta (and this for a guy who married an Italian...torture).

I know that I'm generally one that has shied from putting this much personal info out there...more comfortable doing it with this limited group on Mike's server and wanted my friends here to know, finally. I didn't want to put anything out there before I got the results of this second set of pathology reports..because I really didn't know anything till today.

Thanks to all for simply being here and giving my mind a more postive place to wander.

even if you are an idiot sometimes :-)

Thanks.

its one of the rarest forms/locations of cancer and because it rarely presents itself as it did in my case (early as appendicitis)...its often not discovered until much too late..its a quick spread to liver in men and ovaries in women..so oft proves deadly.

I was lucky.

That said...having to have some portion of my anatomy removed..that and the few inches of surrounding area are probably not going to missed.

throwing the unknown out there like that wouldn't have really helped. Simply chose to wait until I had real test results...which turned out to be really good ones, thankfully.