Free at last

I escaped from the hospital on Saturday, 31 October 2009, after I literally begged my oncologist, Dr. G, to let me go home. The results from my CT scan were not all in yet and he was thinking about keeping me in another day.

But now I'm home and it's where I need/want to stay.

return of the Hospital Food

First of all, I apologize in the delay on posting this.
Doug got admitted into the hospital 11pm on Wednesday evening with a temp of 101.4 F.
By the time they finished with his vitals and hooking him up to an IV, it was 2am and time for me to head home.
I talked to Doug this morning and they are keeping him for an extra day so a doctor from dangerous diseases can check him out before releasing him.

If you wish to go see him, he's at the Florida Hospital Orlando:

601 East Rollins Street
Orlando, Florida 32803

He's on the 10th floor, room 238

If you wish to contact him directly, use this number or you will be told that he has been discharged...I kid you not.

Number to contact Doug directly:

(407) 303 5600

then press 1

then 1410238


I will post another entry tomorrow as soon as I know about the status of his discharge.

- Marjorie

Jail break...

was a success!!

We had just parked the car and we were walking though the parking garage when we got the call to come pick him up at the front entrance.

He is now at home.

Next blog entry will be done by the slack one, so I guess it's time for me to hand this bad boy back.

Thanks for reading!

- Marjorie

Get the cake...

the one with the secret file filling. We're going to need it. :D

I just got back from dropping Kyle off at school and was making coffee in preparation to head up to the hospital when I heard the phone ring.

It was Doug.

The doctor has posted the order for Doug to be released, today!

HUZZAHH!

We're hanging out around the house until Doug calls to let us know he's ready to be picked up.

He doesn't want us waiting like last time when it took 18 hours for him to be finally allowed to go.

So the curious thing is that they are allowing Doug to head home with his JP Port, which is the little drain attached to his side.

I am guessing that they are planning to remove that the next doctor's appointment he has.

I will update as soon as I get the call.

- Marjorie

Food!

The doctor gave orders for Doug to have real food (well, as real as hospital food gets anyway) and no one was more thrilled by this news than Doug himself.

I showed up at the hospital on Thursday morning to find him staring in awe at the full breakfast tray in front of him.

He wasn't eating a lot of it but it didn't matter to him. He was just thrilled that he had food.

By the time I returned to the hospital with Kyle in the early evening, he had three meals under his belt and so far managed to keep it all down, which is great news.

Doctor M managed to swing by to see Doug before his evening meal and it looks like there is a good chance that he can be released from the hospital in the next day or so.

Doug is looking forward to it. I'm just hoping that it's not a big fiasco like last time.

I will post another update as soon as I hear anything and I'm not dog tired...hehe.

- Marjorie

No Jello for you

Doug got his tube removed from his nose around 2 PM this afternoon but right now he is still on nil by mouth.

Dr M. came in to check on Doug's progress and he is happy with the way Doug's incision is healing.
If he continues to heal well, the plan is to remove the staples in the next day or so.

Doug is pretty hungry now but the decision to restart the clear liquids diet and when is ultimately in the gastro specialist's hands, who is apparently taking a more conservative approach to Doug's treatment.

I guess we need to hold off on sneaking in the mashed potatoes and gravy for a little while longer.

I will post again as soon as I have more news.

- Marjorie

Showing the Colon who's boss...

I never dreamed in a million years that I would be this excited over bodily functions but arriving at the hospital on two separate occasions to find that he had gone to take a dump twice, really made my day.

Doug was pretty excited too. He said that it was dark, messy, smelly and truly a wondrous sight.

While this is huge progress, there is no news yet as to when they plan to put him back on clear fluids.

He still had the drain tube in his nose and down the back of his throat today but that can change tomorrow.

Again, it's another case of wait and see what the doctor decides to do.

- Marjorie

Progress!

I am preparing to get ready to head up to the hospital here to see Doug shortly but I thought I would do a post before I leave the house since I have some news.

I called Doug and he announced that he farted. This is good news. It means that his bowels are finally starting to function.

Dr. G, his chemo doctor also paid him a visit this morning and it turns out that they had removed two spots from the liver to be biopsied rather than one spot as I had originally assumed.

One spot was benign and the other contained the same type of cancer cells that were in the tumor from the colon....again good news.

He has a tube back down his throat to alleviate the nausea but it certainly sounds like things are starting to move.

- Marjorie

Curiouser and curiouser...

I kinda felt like I had dropped down into the rabbit hole this morning, especially when I received a phone call on my cell from Doug at 6.30.

Doug: Hey honey...
Me: Doug....are you okay?
Doug: ...I think they moved me while I was sleeping. I woke up in another room.
Me: .........do you know if you're on the same floor?
Doug: ..............uh, no....I don't think so.
Me: Okay...let me call the hospital and find out what's going on, okay?
Doug: ...........okay, sweetie.

So, it's at this point that I am a little wigged out as well as a little hacked off and ready to rip someone a new one.

I am now putting on my glasses and I am about to bang on Kerry's bedroom door when the house phone rings five minutes later.

Me: Doug! What's up?
Doug: Hey honey....it's okay. I'm in my room. I just realized it was a bad dream and thought they had moved me into a storage room.
Me: .......are you sure?
Doug: Yes. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to worry you.
Me: Do you want me to come up after I drop off Kyle at school or earlier?
Doug: No...after you drop Kyle off at school is fine.
Me: You sure?
Doug: Yes. I will see you later.

As soon as I got back from the school, Kerry and I got our butts up to the hospital to find Doug sitting calmly in his chair.

He started throwing up again last night and they had to put a EG tube down his nose to get rid of the muck in his stomach and ended up giving him a medication that causes some side effects.

I am guessing the weird vivid dream is one of them.

The good news is that he's looking better than he did yesterday, especially now that the green bile was removed and yes, there was enough of it to start a new ecosystem.

The doctor had been in to see him before I arrived and he's still on a nil by mouth diet until his stomach settles down before they try introducing clear liquids again.

So, Doug is fine despite the cruddy night but it's hard to say at this point when they plan to release him from the hospital.

I did suggest to Doug that maybe I shouldn't go over tonight with Kyle but that suggestion got shot down in flames.

If you wish to go visit him, I know that he will appreciate the company...just don't hand him over the cake with the secret file filling just yet.

I will post another update as soon as I hear anything.

- Marjorie

Do Not Feed the Doug

So.

I called the hospital this morning, only to discover from Doug that the nice folks at the hospital had taken Doug off the fabulous clear liquids diet and put him on the Ethiopian Empathy diet instead.

Yep...nothing but IV fluids and the occasional additive courtesy of the pain pump.

Yummy.

It turns out the strawberry milk they gave him last night after we left, didn't agree with him and his stomach was a little distended this morning...which is an indication (to me anyway) that it was a little too soon for poor Doug.

I am not sure when they plan on reinstating his liquid diet or even when they plan on start feeding him something a little more substantial but I am hoping that it will be in the next day or so.

Hopefully the doctor should shed some light on all this tommorrow when he does his rounds.

- Marjorie

Mmmm....Jello

.......It's what for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Doug started his second day of his clear liquids diet and you can tell that he is ready for me to sneak in a nice, juicy steak...preferably something a bad vet can still save. lol

He's doing a little better today but he's not getting a lot of sleep so he was ready for a nap when we left at 2 this afternoon.

No news yet when they plan to introduce something a little more solid to his diet but the nurses explained that they are still waiting to hear some activity from his bowels.

Fun.

I am still perplexed as to how Jello can make Doug fart but I'm guessing that it's not the standard box variety they're using over at the hospital.

I will post another entry when I have more news.

- Marjorie

Update

I know there are folks who are watching this blog for updates, so here's another post for you.

Doug is doing well considering he just had surgery yesterday.
He is now on a clear diet, has gone for three walks around the floor and is now going to the bathroom on his own.
We finally connected with the rectal surgeon, Dr. M and the surgery went without a hitch...which is great news.

Doug's hernia was also repaired in addition to his colon being reattached. Doctor M was happy with both procedures and Doug's recovery.

He was also able to reach up and feel Doug's liver for the spots and found a hard spot not far from the place where he extracted the lump during the last surgery.

It has been needle biopsied and it was confirmed to be cancerous.

We suspected that to be the case when it showed up in the Petscan and we're going to start the new round of Chemo in two to three weeks.

Judging by the way the doctor was talking, it's possible that he could be released by early next week at the very latest.

As soon as I have a definite date of his release from the hospital, I will post another update.

- Marjorie

Stupid bureaucrats

On Wednesday, 23 July 2008, I was all set to go home, except that the hospital folks insisted that I have a visit from a home health nurse scheduled for the following day. Well, since they couldn't seem to make that happen, I got to spend another night in the hospital. (I'm sure my insurance company is gonna love that.)

Anyway, the next day they announced that I could go home and I asked, "what time is my home health nurse coming over?" I was informed, "oh, we don't have an appointment, but she'll call you before she comes over." Yeeeeeah, oooookaaay. I believe you all. Bye!

So, Friday, 25 July 2008, rolls around and, you guessed it - no call. No visit. No nothing.

I'm a bit chapped by this. Basically, I could have gone home a whole day earlier and received that exact same level of non-care that I got by staying an extra day. Stupid bureaucrats.

Random notes from the hospital

1. My sister-in-law and brother are the best people in the world. They flew down from Chicago the day before my surgery. On the day of my surgery, Norman, my brother, went with me to the hospital for surgery while Kerry, my sister-in-law, helped Marjorie get Kyle off to school. After that, Norman and Kerry carted my family to the hospital every day, played with Kyle, and helped-out immensely. I don't say this enough, but love them both.

2. Thanks to everybody who dropped-by, sent cool stuff, or called. I really appreciated it.

3. Having a tube down your nose that sucks goo out of your stomach is not fun.

4. Waking-up from surgery is a good thing.

5. Waking-up from surgery with five different tubes going into or out of your body is not much fun.

6. Walking with all five tubes is difficult (at best). (Hospitals are very big on walking as soon as you can, even if it takes 30 minutes or more to get all of your attached gizmo's moved to an IV pole with wheels.)

7. Staples (instead of stitches) look weird and when you have over twenty of the little suckers, it looks like a freaky zipper down the middle of your belly.

8. Many nurses are bright, energetic, and proactive. Many are not. My nurse my second to last night fell in the latter category. She started her shift by telling me my blood sugar was high and that she would be back shortly with an insulin injection. Five minutes later, she came back and said, "sorry, wrong room."

9. Some nurses can be intimidated (usually the ones that are not bright, energetic, and proactive). When Nurse Wrong-room woke me up at 3:00 AM and said it was time for me to get IV's put in my feet, I yelled, "YOU GOT THE WRONG GUY. I'M GOING HOME TOMORROW!" and she backed-out of the room in less than a second.

10. IV's in your feet really, really hurt. Before my surgery, I signed-up for this study on a new blood thinner. In classic double blind technique, I got a "mystery injection" every day and only some dude in the pharmacy knew whether I was getting the standard drug or the new drug. On the last day they wanted to see how everything looked by doing a "veinogram", which involves sticking and IV in your foot, injecting dye, and taking lots of x-rays really quickly. (So Nurse Wrong-room wasn't entirely off base, but the order said to start the IV's around 8:00 AM, not 3:00 AM.)

11. Getting out of prison is easier than getting out of a hospital. When I was in the FSU Circus, we preformed a show at the Jack T. Rutledge State Correctional Institution outside of Columbus, GA. After the shows, we tore-down our equipment and loaded it in my pick-up truck. It took less than 30 minutes to have to guards thoroughly check my truck and its contents before I was allowed to leave. In contrast, it took nearly 18 hours (yes, I said "hours") for me to leave the hospital once the word "discharge" appeared on my chart.

12. Being on a "clear liquid" diet for seven days straight sucks.

13. Three spoonfuls of Cheerios will make you full if you've spent the last seven days "eating" nothing but water, juice, broth, and jello.

14. Coming home is the BEST THING EVER.

Finally home

So I'm finally home. It feels great to finally be out of hospital.

More news/posts once I get a little caught up.

Small hiccup

Okay, we were hoping to bring Doug home today from the hospital but that has turned out to be an adventure in itself. Alright, adventure is an understatement. It's been more of a series of unfortunate events.

We ended up going home and we're currently waiting to hear from Doug.

They won't release him from the hospital until the home care arrangments have been made but the good news is that he may be released sometime this evening, so we're hoping that he calls to ask us to pick him up.

I will post another update as soon as I know anything.

- Marjorie

Quick Announcement

First of all, I apologize for not updating until now.
Doug has been making a lot of progress at the hospital and it looks like that he is tolerating the small amount of solid food he is able to eat, so they are talking about releasing him today.

I am not sure when today but I am guessing that it will be mid afternoon.

- Marjorie

on the loose

Doug had his drainage tubes removed this afternoon and took his third walk around the ward for the day with Kyle.

He was tired out from the exercise but he is doing better and is drinking water without the aid of a green sponge on a stick.

I mentioned to him that I had been posting updates on the blog and he told me to mention that he's still waiting for the strippers that his friend Sam offered to send to cheer him up to arrive in his hospital room.

Um, yeah...I hate to break it to you but that's not going to happen in this lifetime...sorry, babe. *chuckling*

If he's making little quips like this...then, he's definitely showing signs of his old self. :)

- Marjorie

Does this hospital gown make me look fat?

He's amazing, isn't he? He still manages to crack a smile despite the fact that he's feeling like death warmed over.

The staff got him up twice yesterday to walk around the ward and he managed to do it without stopping.

nurse: "Do you need to take a break, Mister Lynch?"
Doug: "No. I'm fine."

Yeah...fine. Understatement of the century but he's determined (okay, stubborn) to get better.

He's currently on an IV diet but we're hoping that they will remove the drainage tubes in the next day or so and Doug will be able to have a drink of water.

The sponge on a stick is nice but it gets old after a while, especially when you're thirsty.

I have had a couple of folks call the house. It looks like the hospital is restricting calls to immediate family right now but he is allowed visitors.

I checked with the hospital and apparently any time after 10 am is fine.

I forgot to mention it in the last post but you need to take "Elevator A" in order to get to the ninth floor if you plan on dropping by.

The box from Oregon (Thanks, Jonatron!) and the fruit basket from the folks at work were a huge hit....with Kyle.

I think I heard Doug chuckle when a small hand snapped out and snagged a plum before he started driving the new electric green matchbox car all over the floor and furniture.

I've been impressed how well Kyle has been dealing with his father being in the hospital.
He's handling it better than most folks would in his position and Doug is thrilled to see him.

Right now, Kyle is the best therapy for Doug and if regular visits from his son is what makes him happy, I will continue to take him.

I've noticed that Kyle can be just as stubborn as his father.

Doug keeps insisting that there are no stubborn Lynchs but I'm not buying it anymore. *chuckling*

Me: "Kyle, if you want to stay here at daycare for a little longer - that's fine."
Kyle (gets mulish expression on face): "I want to go see daddy at the hospital."

Since I need to live with these two, I am more than happy to let them have their way in this matter.

I need to go for now and get Kyle organized but I will post another update this evening once we get back from the hospital.


- Marjorie

Invasion of the Blog Snatchers - Update on the Slack One

I just thought I would post an update to let everyone know how Doug is doing.

The operation went well and Frank was removed as well as his sneaky little friend who was found hiding on Doug's liver.

Doug is currently recovering in his hospital room and despite some discomfort, is doing well.

The doctor is estimating that Doug will be in the hospital recuperating for roughly 7 to 10 days before he can be released.

Folks who wish to send flowers, call or visit - he is staying at the Florida Hospital, Orlando and his room number is 9238.

- Marjorie