Roller Coaster

I apologize in advance for any spelling or grammatical errors.....my brain isn't functioning today

Well to say my life has been a roller coaster ride this past 5 weeks is an understatement. As I wrote in my previous entry, my Daddy had surgery on July 23rd. Really and truly everything seemed to be moving in the right direction. Then on August 11th, I was driving to Harrison's open house for school (mother's day out) and my mom called me and told me Daddy was going back to ICU. She didn't give me many details but told me to go to the open house because everything would be fine. So I started my day out with my biggest worry being when I would sit down to call and wish my sister happy birthday...to this. We rush at the open house and then rush to the hospital. I find out my dad was put on a ventilator and thought to be septic. To top it off, his treating physician is on vacation so a fill-in doctor is taking care of him! How in the heck did this happen? I just spoke to him earlier that day and he was in good spirits...talk about coming out of nowhere!
So here is a daily breakdown of things:
8/11/09 - Back in ICU, vomitting blood, trembly uncontrollably, fever of 105, put on ventilator
8/12/09- we were told his prognosis was grim and he would not make it through the day
8/13/09 - Still hanging in there, WBC going down a bit
8/14/09 - Improving some, writing us notes to communicate, WBC going down a bit, kidneys doing well, the fill in dr said he was encouraged by his "small" progress
8/15/09 - dad is heavily sedated and pretty out of it, WBC still going down, a new fill in dr told us we would not take him home alive and gave some mis information that scared us all
8/16/09- His treating doctor was finally back in town again and reviewed his case. He told us that he could not make any promises but that he didn't see why Daddy can't make a full recovery. His white blood count continues to go down a little each day which means the infection is getting better. His kidneys are functioning on their own. He is still on dialysis to pull off the extra fluid but the plan is to wean him off dialysis this week. He is still on the ventilator and did not tolerate it well when they reduced the oxygen so weaning him off of this is a slow process. Right now it is at 60% oxygen. They took out his AV line. He still has a central line and pic line. His drainage tubes all are slowing down. He was extremely sedated again so he was not responsive to us again. CT Scan will be done Monday or Tuesday to check on is pancreas and any infection in his abdomen. This day was the first day any of us had any real hope since he's been back in ICU.
8/17/09 - I haven't seem him yet this morning but Mom called to tell me that he has some blood coming out of one of his drainage tubes. They are going to do an endoscopy to see where the blood is coming from. The endoscopy is a major risk for him in his current state but they have to locate the source of blood.
8/18/09 -CT Scan revealed necrotic tissue in his abdomen, had surgery that same night to take out necrotic tissue and repaired an erosion in his stomach and his incision was left open..that night he was losing a ton of blood and it was unknown if he would make it through the night. His condition was called DIC (Disseminated intravascular coagulation) google it...it is scary
8/19/09-Daddy was stable and clotting again
8/20/09-WBC way down, scheduled for another procedure to remove necrotic tissue (surgery #3) repaired his stomach again but not much necrosis this time
8/21/09-pretty stable day
8/22/09-Surgery #4, put on contact isolation due to some baceteria in his cultures, tolerated surgery well, taken off of dialysis
8/23/09-he had a rough day in general, vitals not stable, blood loss, etc
8/24/09 - Surgery #5 - repaired stomach again
8/25/09- rough day, bleeding out of control, vitals all over the place
8/26/09- Surgery #6 - total gastrectomy! His whole stomach was removed. Another small part of his pancreas was removed again. The doctor said his stomach just looked awful and rotten and there just wasn't anything worth saving. Rather than attaching his esophagus to his small intestines right now, he has a tube in his esophagus that drains externally and his small intestins are sewn shut. Within 1-6 months he will re-attach them...basically when he is good and stable! On top of this, he has developed MRSA where his AV line was.
So the good new is that he thinks this should resolve the bleeding. There were some big veins that were causing problems from his splenectomy 10 years ago and his stomach had big veins that would just not stop bleeding. The bad news is that if he has uncontrollable bleeding in his esophagus there is nothing they can do surgically. Basically this was the last resort surgically. So we are praying that his esophagus remains healthy. He had an ERCP a week or so prior to this which didn't show anything alarming so we are praying for the best.

So one might ask...can you live without a stomach? Why yes you can! Weird huh? When they re-attach his esophagus to his small intestines he will be able to eat mini meals. He will probably have dumping syndrome and have to avoid surgary foods..kind of like a gastric bypass patient but all in all, he can resume a pretty normal life. Now my dad loves to eat and he loves pies so this may be hard on him but we will deal with that when we get there.

So for those of you praying and keeping up on him....he was doing well today. No alarming blood loss and vital signs all look pretty stable. He will obviously have a super long road of recovery ahead. You can pray specifically for the following things:
*healing of the staph infection (MRSA)
*a healthy esophagus with no bleeding
*post surgical healing
*pancreas to continue to heal
*weaning him off the ventilator to go smoothly
*wisdom for his surgeon, infectious disease specialist and his nurses

So that is where we are right now. I'm praying that the roller coaster ride will slow down!

My Hero...not invincible after all!

I will never forget July 21, 2009. This is the day I found out my dad had cancer. Let me back up to how this all happened.

First of all my dad is 71 years old. He takes really good care of himself. Tries to watch what he eats and takes daily walks. He was an alcoholic for many years but stopped drinking December 1999.

Around the beginning of June he started feeling sick to his stomach. He thought maybe it was spicy food and chalked it up to developing GERD. He basically felt bad on and off all month and even thought he had a virus, went to the doctor..the whole nine yards. Well on Father's Day he started feeling really sick and then about 1-2 weeks later starting turning yellow with jaundice. His doctor ran Hepatitis tests on him which came back negative. Then he was sent for a gallbladder scan. The doctor said it looked like his gallbladder and referred him to a surgeon. The surgeon took a look at his tests and felt there was more going on and refferred him to an oncology surgeon because they found a tumor in his ampula. The oncology surgeon decides Daddy needs a whipple surgery to remove the tumor which they found to be Stage 1 cancer. His surgeon said because of the location of the tumor, they found it early which is obviously a huge blessing.

Where we are right now....
Well obviously we have no idea if the cancer will come back. He will more than likely need chemo/radiation after recovery. He has been in the hopsital for just over a week and will hopefully be discharged by the end of this week. He is on a feeding tube but he started a clear liquid diet this weekend. He is regaining strength every day and has good days and bad days. For the most part, he isn't taking any pain meds. He is getting his days and nights mixed up and having a difficult time sleeping in general. I think he is just ready to be home.

I must say, he has pretty much been seemingly invincible my whole life. I never in a million years thought my dad would get cancer. It just goes to prove that you really never know and you can never prepare yourself for it! To see him so helpless, so vulnerable...it is a sight I never thought I would see. He has always been strong as an ox. Throughout this experience he has proven what a fighter he is and it has really united my sisters. We definitely do well in a crisis. My prayer is that he continues to fight and can finish out his life as a long healthy one.