Solid!

Solid in, solid out.

Finally.

Firsts

Friday, 20 March 2009, was a day of several firsts: it was the first day of Spring, it was my first day home from the hospital, and it was the first "birthday" of the late, great Frank the tumor.

A year ago, as the effects of the anesthesia from my colonoscopy were wearing off, my gastroenterologist told me that I had a moderate sized mass in my colon and that it was most likely malignant. A week or so later, my surgeon, Dr. M, told me that Frank was "big" and that the tumor was five to ten years old.

Five to ten years old? WTF!

That means I could have had Frank when I was 34 to 39 years old.

So, two things:

1. Friday wasn't really Frank's birthday

2. Go tell your doctor that you want a colonoscopy right now. Don't wait. Do it now.

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

The slack one is sleeping...

so this is the perfect time to hijack his blog account once more. :D

Doug got out of surgery at 9.54 am and is now currently resting in his room as of 12.30 this afternoon.

The good news is he's looking much better than he did last time he went in for surgery.

Folks who wish to send flowers, fruit baskets, tools to break out of the hospital, visit or just to call him to say hello, he is at the Florida Hospital South, Room 9228.

Address for the hospital is:

Florida Hospital Orlando (Main Campus)
601 East Rollins Street
Orlando, Florida 32803
Phone: 407.303.6611

He's sleeping off the anesthesia tonight but he might be up for visitors Friday afternoon.

- Marjorie

Reconnecting with old Friends, Part 2

Tomorrow, 12 March 2009, I go into the hospital to reconnect with an old friend: my colon.

When my surgeon, Dr. M, evicted Frank, he chopped out about ten inches of my colon. To give my poor colon time to heal, he rerouted my small intestines into an ileostomy bag.

While pooping into the bag has been loads of fun, I'm really looking forward to using the toilet like a normal person.

Reconnecting with old Friends, Part 1

I recently set-up a profile on Facebook. In addition to giving me a place to post a bunch of old pictures and "chat" with my crazy circus friends, Facebook has enabled me to track down some of my old high school and college friends who I have "misplaced" (to use my until-recently-misplaced friend Monica's term) over the years.

It's been great catching up with the people who used to be a vital part of my daily existence. Part of me wonders what was so damn important that I lost track of these friends in the first place, but then I remember that Life is messy and things (and people) sometime slip through the cracks.

Hopefully I'll do a better job in the future.

Well, that sucks

I had my three month follow-up appointment (to go over last week's PET scan results) with my oncologist, Dr. G.

The short version is: I start chemotherapy back up in three weeks.

The long version is: I have four spots on my liver and two "little" nodules in my right lung. The new treatment will be much like the old one, only with different drugs.

I'm more than a little bummed and mildly freaked-out about all this. I was hoping that I was past all of this crap, but apparently I'm not. Still, I have lots to live for, so I will do whatever needs to be done.