As of tomorrow I will have been home three weeks from my sojourn in hospital, and I have been happy hiding from the world. I've ventured out very little, screened every phone call, content to keep my head buried. This has been much harder than last time.

My skin feels like a too-tight shirt whose buttons are about to burst.

Pain is minimal, discomfort is high, sleep is poor, meditation is out of the window, diet still on track, though I'm supplementing my protein intake with eggs and fish on a semi-regular basis. There are only one or two raw holes open in my new set of scars, they're healing slowly, the problem compounded by the need for the skin to stretch when I breathe. Unlike most of the fainting-at-the-knees Haines clan (my mother excluded, she should've been a nurse), my wife, who can handle looking blood and guts, gets shuddery knees when watching me clean and dress the weeping flesh pit.

I'm getting there. Slowly slowly.

I had CT scans and ultrasounds done today to determine radio frequency ablation feasability. RFA, as it is also known, is a procedure whereby they drill a hole into my flesh, stick in a wire and fry the probed area with electrical current.

The ultrasound showed some good news and some bad news.

The bad news is that there is another tumour growing in the liver, small and to the back and rear of the piece of liver that was left in for me to survive, and the same piece that has the troublesome tumour growing close to my portal vein. 

The good news is that both tumours are accessible for RFA, that the tumours are small and are good candidates for the treatment, and also that due to their small size, the statistics present as 90-95% successful for killing off these sorts of tumours. The portal vein should remain unaffected as it has blood flowing through it, and is therefore going to be cooled enough not to fry when the electrical currents come surging. The bile ducts are nearby though, so there is the possibility that there could be some unpleasant complications (ie pain, jaundice, bile needing to be drained by the kind hands of a doctor etc) but there is also the possibility that there won't be.

It will only be an overnight procedure, so that makes me happy. Hospitals. Ugh. I still haven't summoned the energy for Hospital Fragments #3, but that will follow soon, for closure and my peace of mind.