Just an aside on tiny tech

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I brought my five year-old iPad Pro on this trip, but didn’t bring it to the hospital with me. I usually rely on it when traveling, leaving my laptop at home.

So since getting out of surgery, I’ve relied on my iPhone 17 Air which has been much more useful than I expected.

I have been able to post on my blog and on Facebook, Follow threads online, get mail and texts, and even post photos in both places.

I’ve asked me to bring my iPad. The next time she visits, but this phone has been surprisingly effective in this unusual circumstance.

I’ve never relied on my phone so extensively, and it has held up well.

The hospital offers guest wifi, which isn’t speedy but does the job, and T-Mobile has bridged a few gaps.

Just FYI for other iPhone users.

Post-Surgery update #4

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3-14-2026

This tiny serving of orange Jell-O was the first food or liquid of any kind that I’ve had my mouth since Saturday night. It tasted wonderful, and I savored each spoonful. Then I moved on to a 4.23 ounce box of apple juice from concentrate. It also massaged my taste buds. And, finally, I got to sip on a small serving of vegetable broth. I’m hoping for chicken broth later in the day, but we’ll see.

I am restricted to a clear liquids-only diet for the time being as my system begins to power up again. It’s not so bad. At least, not as bad as I thought it would be. After not eating for so long, everything taste really good.

It’s been an interesting morning. Non-nursing staff throughout the University of California San Francisco system were scheduled to go on strike this morning. I think it’s something like 40,000 people. So as of early this morning, nursing staff were here, but there were no nursing assistants or other staff on duty.

I waved off Meda and other family members who wanted to visit ,thinking that they would have to cross a pick up line to come and visit. I just told them I’m doing fine and they don’t need to cross the line. But then I read the news and found they had reached a last-minute deal, and not long after that the nursing assistants and other staff started showing up for work.

Meda’s two sisters and their husbands live in the area here in and around San Francisco, and we have several friends who are here as well, so I’ve had a busy social calendar, holding Court here in my hospital room, dressed in my flimsy hospital gown and wrapped in a blanket to protect myself from the ravages of the freezing temperatures here in the hospital.

All in all, I can’t complain.

Post-surgery update #3

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5-12-2026

Post-surgery Update #3

We missed grabbing the brass ring.

The earlier imaging, both in Honolulu and here at UCSF, appeared to show a small obstruction in the Y where two bile ducts come out of the liver and join into a common duct that carries bile down to the intestines.

It appeared isolated, but a couple of areas could not be seen by the various scans.

So the plan was to remove that obstruction by surgically removing the section of the duct, inserting an artificial duct, and removing a section of the liver that it was closest to.

If this was done, it could be “curative.”

But one hidden area changed the whole picture. The surgery was done using a robot-assisted minimally invasive process. It soon found that an artery running through the area also had cancer in it, leading back to the gall bladder.

The doctors now think it is a gall bladder cancer that migrated and spread out into the artery and bile duct.

They removed my gall bladder and scaped out some of the cancerous obstruction. But there wasn’t any safe way at this point to surgically remove all the cancer.

So at this point, it moves to a more traditional period of chemo and likely radiation. A biopsy has been submitted for DNA testing which can then be used to better target treatments like immunotherapy (look it up!).

I’m in a very nice private hospital room with big screen tv, my iPhone, etc. Very little pain. I’ve started walking the hallways getting my balance and some strength back. But I have a tube running in my nose and down to my stomach which means I can’t eat until til it is removed, which they expect to do later today. Then I can start with broth and pudding, and work up to Food!

I expect to be discharged from the hospital on Friday and start the long process of recuperation, after which we hope to head home, hopefully before the end of June. Chemo and radiation can hopefully be done there.

So that’s the situation as it looks today. There are logistics involved. Right now, I’m not supposed to lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk, so getting our suitcases down to Redwood City and into the house will be interesting. I may have to upgrade from Uber to a limo with professional driver used to providing the added services.

And we get cat photos from home at least once a day.

Post-surgery report #1

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The good news is that the robot-assisted surgery was done with minimally invasive procedures, and I’ve been resting comfortably in a private hospital room since late Monday afternoon.

But one of several the “known unknowns” that could not be fully examined in pre-surgery imaging turned into a roadblock. As a result, the surgery could not be fully completed as planned, although a lot was accomplished.

The Surgeon will be here later today to discuss what was done and recommended next steps.