I would like to apologize to members of this forum...

[Rondoraymundo]

Well I was kicked out of the forum for a week for not being nice to another forum member in the original Angelina Jolie thread. I deserved it, I wasn't being nice. I would like to apologize to any other forum member who read my post and was offended. However, I will not apologize to the member in question.....ever. Oh, don't worry ladies and gentlemen, I will keep the peace in the forum simply by never again responding to this individuals posts. In fact, I'll never read his posts again. He has proven, for me personally, to have nothing of value to say.

But ladies and gentlemen, no one decides to not be nice without a reason...........

************************************************** ***********

Cancer has cut a wide and devastating swath through my family. My mother, father, grandmother, and several aunts uncles and cousins have all succumbed to that disease. One of my cousins died when he was 12. To add insult to injury, cancer also took my step father. In my extended biological family the death rate by cancer beats the national rate by astronomical percentage points.

Within the past few years I had a medical issue. Upon consultation with my doctors, AND KNOWING MY FAMILY HISTORY, I elected to have the most evasive surgical option available. Folks, that was a smart move. The pathology report came back and revealed that the surgeon had removed a tumor before it had a chance to spread. This was a cancer that had gone undected by every test available prior to surgery.

Folks, this story is not a matter of opinion....it's a matter of facts...life and death facts.

If it is your opinion that elective surgery is wrong....for whatever reason, then that is like saying to me, "Hey Rondoraymundo, shouldn't you have one foot in the grave or be dead by now?" And that's the background for my not nice post.

Okay, I'll step down off my soapbox now.

I'm done with this thread. I'm done with this topic. Discuss amongst yourselves.

[callouses]

Well obviously everyone is happy foryou that they discovered a malignant tumor, and were able to get rid of it before it could cause you trouble. Sorry you got kicked off the forum for a week, I didn't know anything about it, I didn't follow the thread more than one day. Condolences for you about your family, you've been hit hard. Welcome back.

[Bill Lowther]

I don't post much, but I'd have to say that in the overall picture, a one week suspension from any forum is of little consequence for being proactive and still being with us for hopefully a lot longer.

[Basalt Beach]

Welcome back!....when topics hit close to home and this one figuratively "landed on your dinning room table during dinner", it can become very personal.

I've lost both my parents to cancer, my paternal grandfather, both my Uncles and an Aunt as well. Right now, I am going in for testing this week as my lymph nodes have been swollen for more than 3 weeks. I can empathize completely.

I suspect you used the week to play your guitars, including those Martins. I hoped you enjoyed them, and again, welcome back!

[Glennwillow]

Hey RondoRay,

Welcome back to the forum. I do understand your reaction on the Angelina Jolie thread, I appreciate your apology, but most of all, I am so glad for you that your doctor advised you well, that you had the preventive surgery, and that you dodged a major bullet. That is a heck of a story, and I'm so glad you are able to tell us from this side of the grave.

All the best to you,
Glenn

[Dirk Hofman]

Awesome story. I cannot imagine for the life of me why anyone would care if another person had elective surgery, except to be happy for a case like yours.

[Borderdon]

I applaud your decision, well done.

[James_214ce]

~

[kydave]

All the best to you, Rondo.

I concur with everything you said, having got bit the same way.

I am glad for your medical progress!

Dave

[Chicago Sandy]

Glad you’re back, Rondo.

But being wisely proactive and taking a prophylactic step that others might think extreme doesn’t just extend to cancer. Hate to hijack this thread, but remember the thread I started a few weeks back about my hip pain? Well, three doctors swore up and down that whatever was causing it wasn’t osteoarthritis--when it first happened (mildly) a couple of years ago, the surgeon who’d replaced my right knee suggested it was because of walking on a banked sidewalk, or a leg-length discrepancy which would be fixed when I had the left knee done--which he did. He manipulated my leg and said that if I had hip arthritis, that manipulation would’ve hurt like the dickens--which it didn’t. Then a couple of months ago, my family doc performed the same maneuver, same result, then had me try to step up onto a small stool with that foot--and when I winced he said “Aha! Trochanteric bursitis!” and prescribed icing, anesthetic patches and mild painkillers (Aleve if it didn’t give me reflux, Celebrex if it did).

After a month with no relief, I went to the walk-in clinic of my surgeon’s orthopedic group. I was seen by a guy who looked like a middle linebacker and his equally formidable assistant (who doubles as a personal trainer). They ordered X-rays, said there was no fracture and (after doing that same maneuver with the same result) even though there was “a little” arthritis in both hips that couldn’t be why I hurt so much. He poked a few triggger points, especially over the bursa, and I nearly punched his lights out. “Aha!” he said, “Bursitis AND IT band syndrome. Do you want a cortisone shot, physical therapy, or both?” I opted for the shot first and the gym for when I got back from my Vegas vacation. So he removed 1/4 c. of icky-looking fluid from the bursa, injected lidocaine and cortisone, and wrote me a Rx for six PT sessions.

Went online to the Bonesmart forum to report my progress, and its admin--a UK orthopedic surgery nurse for 50 years--said “jolly good” about the shot but darn near had a cow when I mentioned the therapy exercises. She said (as someone who occasionally gets bursitis and often observes it) that anything other than the gentlest of stretches would only aggravate it. She asked me to forward her the X-ray report when it came in.

So I did: it said “greater trochanteric pain and IT band syndrome with possible gluteus minimus and medius involvement. Mild bilateral degenerative changes, with osteophytes, are present. Radiography indicates a cortical neck prominence seen in patients with femero-acetabular impingement. Treatment included corticosteroid and local anesthetic injection and observation is indicated.” Now, I’ve been around the bone-and-joint block more than a few times. “Degenerative changes” mean “osteoarthritis.” “Osteophytes” are bone spurs, which are found in...arthritis that is progressing. The “cortical neck prominence seen in patients with” FAI had me worried, especially after I looked up the terms and saw diagrams and sample MRI, CT and X-ray images. So I asked the forum moderator if I should be concerned.

Now, this woman is of the “buck up and carry on” persuasion, her nursing career having started in the military--and is loath to advocate unnecessary surgery. But she replied that I should indeed be concerned--the language “...seen in patients with” FAI was weasel words for “she has FAI but I’m hedging my bets” (aka, if I get it fixed, my insurer might not be amused). She referred me to several articles about FAI, which is a fairly recently recognized syndrome, occurring mostly after injuries to athletes much younger than I. She said the type I have is called “cam impingment” (the “cortical neck prominence” is a bump on the femoral end of the hip socket which catches and keeps the hip joint from operating smoothly and sometimes tears the acetabular lining--a cartilage similar to the knee meniscus). In younger athletes or dancers, it’s normally repaired arthroscopically, with the “cam” ground off and any acetabular tears debrided or if possible, sutured.

She said that if I keep walking around on it I will only make it worse. I could get the arthroscopic repair, but that means 3-6 weeks non-weightbearing and a 10-month rehab and recovery. And that my osteoarthritis would continue to get worse....so 6 months after that 10-month ordeal I’d be facing a hip replacement anyway. She warned me to be careful about choosing a hip surgeon--I need one who is skilled at both FAI surgery AND hip replacement, who would not advise me to get one and then the other so that he could profit from two surgeries. I asked whether I should cancel my trip to Spain this Friday--and she said to just realize I’m gonna hurt like heck till I do something about it, so enjoy the trip, take whatever meds (oral or topical) that work, use my little TENS machine, stay off my feet as much as possible, walk only as far, fast and often as necessary, and take full advantage of others’ offers to help or cut me some slack. (Airport wheelchair, anyone)?

Her suggestion, on which my husband and I agree, is to pick a time frame during which I’d lose as little time off gigging as possible (my performing schedule’s pretty thin right now, but just busy enough to give me no more than a month between out-of-town gigs--with my housekeeper needing to take time off to see her family in AL), and do not pass Go, do not collect $200, but go straight to the OR and replace the hip. Maybe both of them. It’s a shorter, less painful recovery than either knee replacement and possibly even the arthroscopic FAI repair.

Now, some might say I’m nuts--my hip is nowhere near as far gone as either of my knees when I had them replaced. But you know what? I’m still kicking myself (in the shins, not the knees or hips) for having waited so long to get my knees replaced. They’re probably my only joints that feel like they did when I was 30.

So Rondo, I salute you and Jolie for going ahead and doing something that will save your lives even though others might not have seen the need! It’s your life and it should be up to you how to save it.

[buddyhu]

Apology accepted. Welcome back!

The Angelina threads were full of emotional land mines.....

[Larry Pattis]

No apology necessary, IMO.

I hope people are tuning into the new three-part Ken Burns (Barak Goodman, based on a Pulitzer prize winning book by Siddhartha Mukherjee) film "Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies" on PBS...

...this, along with the recent 60 Minutes segment on glioblastomas being cured by the polio virus, is "must see tv", if you ask me.

Review: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...30-column.html

[Dirk Hofman]

Originally Posted by Larry Pattis

No apology necessary, IMO.

I hope people are tuning into the new three-part Ken Burns (Barak Goodman, based on a Pulitzer prize winning book by Siddhartha Mukherjee) film "Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies" on PBS...

...this, along with the recent 60 Minutes segment on glioblastomas being cured by the polio virus, is "must see tv", if you ask me.

Review: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...30-column.html

The latter had my wife in tears. Her father is dying of pancreatic cancer. Fascinating possibilities in that therapy.

[Larry Pattis]

Originally Posted by Dirk Hofman

The latter had my wife in tears. Her father is dying of pancreatic cancer. Fascinating possibilities in that therapy.

So sorry to hear this.

...and yes, it's a fascinating therapy, in using a manipulated polio virus, which cannot replicate...but does have a serious impact on the cancer cells it is injected into. I'm sure the segments can be watched by doing a search on the 60 Minutes website.

[Gasworker]

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&...,d.aWw&cad=rja