Here are some key indicators that I’m recovering from last month’s surgery. This doesn’t mean that I’m recovering from the underlying cancer diagnosis. That will start with chemotherapy in a few weeks. But I’m starting to feel human again. Here are a few of the signs.

1) Food. I’m actually now looking forward to eating. During most of the past month, that simply wasn’t the case. At first, in the days immediately following my surgery, nutrition came via the IV drip along with antibiotics, pain meds, and basic fluids. Later, I quickly found the pureed diet I was anssigned unpalatable. And, once past that, I just didn’t feel hungry. All that has changed. For the past week, I’ve eaten a bit more every night, and that has paid off in increased energy.

2) Increased energy. Around 3:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon, it suddenly dawned on me that I had been up—and upright—since around 6 a.m. without the need for a short rest or nap. And the day included lunch out with a friend, a short spin through a Menlo Park thrift shop, and a stop across the street in a Penzeys’ store.

3) Worries about unwritten blog posts. Suddenly I have a list of blog posts I feel guilty for not writing and sharing! Yes, I know this runs counter to my declaration of a medical leave, but feeling these posts organize and start to write themselves in my brain is another clear indication that my recovery from surgery is well on its way.

4) Lists. Yes, I’ve caught myself starting to make lists. Things to do before leaving California. Things to get done the first few days after we get back home. Lists of potential blog posts. They all indicate planning ahead, looking beyond this particular day.

All good signs. Now I have to turn a couple of those lists into check lists to encourage actually getting some of those jobs done.

I received more good news during a video appointment on Tuesday with my surgeon’s nurse practitioner.

After she walked through a list of repeatedly-asked questions (How much pain do you have? None. Any nausea? No. Etc…), I asked whether Dr. Adam has any idea of ballpark dates when I’ll be able to fly home.

Did I see a sly look cross her face?

She said that I’ve been making good progress and have been healing well from the surgery, which she has discussed with Dr. Adam.

The bottom line: In his view, I’m good to go. He’s turning control of my case over to the medical oncologist here at UCSF, who will in turn hand off primary oncology duties to Jared Acoba at Queen’s on my return.

So this means that we’re free to return home. I had to make a couple of schedule adjustments here, and then we booked a flight back to Honolulu next Tuesday, June 9. That gives us a chance to wrap up things here without rushing, to see several people we wanted to connect with, etc.

I have two more blood tests to do here, one scheduled next Monday.

And then we’ll be on a flight back to Hawaii. Psych up, kitties!

Update. Saturday, May 30, 2026.

Monday, June 1, will mark three weeks since my surgery at UCSF in Mission Bay, and just over two weeks since I was released from the hospital to start the process of recuperation.

We are still ensconced in a pleasant house on a flag lot in Redwood City, right on the border with the luxury estates of Atherton. The house is hidden down at the end of a 350-ft tree-lined driveway, shared with the neighbors, according to my quick foray into measuring distance in an online mapping program. The house is owned by one of Meda’s sisters, who generously offered it for our use during this post-surgery recovery.

The isolation means that it is normally very, very quiet. It also creates an irritating and continuing error in Google Maps. If you look up the address on Google Maps, you are directed to the next street, which is considerably close physically to this house. Unfortunately, there is no access to the house from that street, despite Google’s insistence, leading to repeated lost delivery drivers, ride share drivers, etc., as we’ve been relying on these services since arriving.

There were two significant advances during a visit with my surgeon’s nurse practioner the following day. First was the removal of the external drain tube coming out of my belly to remove fluid from the surgery site and deposit it into a collection bag. The drain didn’t hurt, but it was inconvenient at best, and required careful effort to hide it under a couple of layers of clothing so as not so gross out friends and neighbors or scare small children.

After it was declared unnecessary, removal was simpler than I ever expected. I asked if the removal would hurt, and the answer was an equivocal “not usually.” The tube was held in place by a suture or two, and after carefully cleaning the site, the nurse practitioner began to snip and remove the sututes. She asked me to breath deeply, which I did, while averting my eyes. Snip. Suture gone. Snip. Another gone. As I steeled myself for the main event, I was surprised to hear her say, “All done.” The tube had been pulled out without my feeling a thing.

For those wanting more detail, here’s a selfie taken just before the removal. You may not want to click for a larger version. The selfie shows the drain tube in place. The collection bag was dangling below, just out of this photo. Also visible are three of six incisions through which the Da Vinci Xi surgical robot and its tool set were introduced to do their thing. The incisions are sealed with surgical glue, and are healing at their own pace.

Of more longterm importance, however, was approval for me to “graduate” from a diet of pureed food to “soft” food, a category which includes “real” food including soft fish, well-cooked chicken, some ground meat, white rice, pasta, etc. Pureed food and I never really got along, so I envision this as a huge step forward.

But I quickly learned that it’s much harder to start eating again than to stop eating. I thought I could just sit down and enjoy a feast. Nope. I’ve pivoted to tiny amounts of real but soft food, and even then my stomach is slow in learning that it’s all right to eat. So the process of ramping up has been slow and gradual. But I woke up this morning feeling much better than I have all week. Progress that I can feel!

I’ll defer a medical update until early next week after another blood test and two more medical appointments via Zoom.

I do expect that we’ll be heading home within the next couple of weeks. I’m hoping for more details after a Tuesday appointment with my surgeon’s office. He’s calling the shots for now.