Doing laps..

I just talked to Dad's nurse, she said he walked two laps around the halls this morning and is doing well. I talked to him and he wondered how I knew he did laps so I told him I'm psycho...er..psychic. He sounds well and I told him Bury's reaction to seeing me this morning as he will be my Non's oncologist now. Poor guy probably threw a party when he didn't have to deal with me anymore....heh.

So I think I will start a new blog for my Non's journey. That way if any of you want to know what's going on with her you can read it - it will also give me a release for that without mucking up this one on details about her.

Keep thinking goods thoughts, he can still use all the positive energy he can get.

No Spinal

So, Sunday went well sorry I didn't post. Today they changed everything in his room and that went well also. He was very groggy afterwards. I didn't go today though. His next one is set for Thursday afternoon. There is a rumor he may get to go home Friday, but I don't know. That is all for now.

No morpine

So Dad is going to surgery again tomorrow morning at 8am. They will try to do it without the spinal. His nurse said he was doing really well today and only had extra pain meds for 6 hours after surgery yesterday...so progress. I will update when he gets out tomorrow.

In other news, my gram is back in the hospital with possible congestive heart failure and will be there until at least Monday.

Think good thoughts

Dad's an old pro now

Surgery again this morning - 5th one so far, it was going to be Saturday but it was changed to 7:30 this morning. He just got back into his room and it has wi-fi! wOOhOO! I am waiting for them to finish giving meds and then I will go to work. Surgeon said they are only using about half the packing gauze as they were last week, so that is good. She cleaned out some more dead tissue and they will do it again on Sunday morning. They will try it without the spinal (only IV sedation) and if that goes ok the will try to just do oral sedation on Tuesday. So as good as it can be.

Have a good weekend!

Update

This is Dad & my children when we were camping at the end of June. It's a nice picture and he looks pretty good so I thought I would post it.

Dad went into surgery on time yesterday. He wasn't in for long, which is good. I did not go so these are the things I heard from Ruth. The surgeon said there was no new infection and there was a minute, tiny sign that it may be trying to start healing. Sounds iffy but at this point I will take anything we can get. It also sounds like they will need to do this every 2-3 days until it heals all the way. He won't stay in the hospital that whole time though. If everything looks positive he should get out next week sometime. They are trying to set things up to have it changed at home eventually. He is scheduled to go again Saturday morning unless something happens, then it will be Friday. I will be there for the next one because Ruth and two of my sisters left this morning for N. Carolina. Ruth is going to a GEMS (?) convention and was told by the surgeon to still go because she needs the break. We told her to go because there are still three of us around to take care of things and she needs the break. That is all I know, I will tell you more when I know. I will call and check on his shortly too.

How much wood can a woodchuck chuck...

I swear if crap news were logs I'd have a really nice house by now!

Dad went to surgery again last night. He was scheduled at 5 but did not go in until 8:30. Wow was he pissed (understandably). The oral surgeon got sick of waiting so he did his part in the pre-op room. He filed down some rough edges of Dad's jaw and took out the drainage tubes in his jaw.

Dad came out of surgery loopy but fine. He said he had no pain. They gave him a longer acting spinal because I guess the problem on Saturday was that the spinal wore off before they were done so he could feel the surgery. NO WONDER HE WAS A BASKET CASE! He will need to have a spinal again to go in surgery on Wednesday and Friday. HE will be at the hospital until at least next Tuesday ( a week from today) I did not talk to him today so I will post a small update tomorrow.

In other news, we got the "official" diagnosis of cancer for my Non today. She has a "very unusual" type of small cell carcinoma. I will not give many details on her here because this is mainly for Dad's cancer. Forgive me if I do bleed into here on occasion though.

In still other news, I got my new laptop today so now I can get some work done when I'm not at work. Since I am spending a ton of time at hospitals and Drs offices instead of in my office, I hope this will help me keep up a little. I can also update things a little sooner because I will have it with me most of the time.

So have a good night, I have had enough for today.

More yucky stuff...

Dad had another surgery this morning. They took out all of the gauze out from yesterday and found more infection and some dead tissue. The surgeon took it all out and put on a "VAC bandage" which is like a really sticky saran wrap they can seal around the incision so he can still go to the bathroom; it also has a vacuum tube coming out of it so it can remove the fluid from the infection. He does have a cath tube in, but the vac bandage is fairly new and it at least prevents an ostomy bag. He was in a huge amount of pain when he came back up from recovery. I stayed until he got a morphine shot and it was under control, I will say that was really hard to see him in that much pain. He said it was the worst pain he has ever felt, like someone was pulling his lip over his head. He will need to have the bandage thing changed every two days, the one they do on Monday will be in surgery again. After that it will depend on how much it has healed by the next time it needs to be changed. The infection does not seem to be responding much at the present time. The swelling in his jaw/neck appears to be going down a little, the labs came back showing a strep infection. They have not gotten the lab results back to see if it is the mrsa virus in the other area or something else. Right now he will be there until the middle or end of next week, it will all depend on if his body will start to help fight the infections.


I will post more as I know more.

Trust us dad!

So, here is the 4:30 am surgical team...just kidding. Dad is in "isolation" because of the infection so we need to put on gloves, gown and face mask before entering his room.

I am running on about 2 hours of sleep, have been up since 3 am and I am emotionally on the edge so I will do my best to make sense...

As I told you he was admitted to Holland Hospital to get antibiotics in him. He had emergency surgery this morning to drain the infections he has. He ended up with drainage tubes in his lower jaw to drain that infection and a fairly large incision in his personal areas. The infection down there was worse than they thought, it actually stretched from between his belly button and groin, between his legs and past his anus. That is all the detail I can give without getting too personal - after all it is slightly yucky to talk about because he is my father. In addition to the one larger incision they made 2-3 smaller ones to drain more. We were worried as it took longer than they said it would. There was also the fact that because of the lung tumors they did not want to knock him out completely for fear he would stop breathing. He got a spinal, local and a sedative. As it stands he will be there until at least Thursday, maybe longer. It will all depend on if his body will start fighting the infection that is having a huge frat house caliber kegger in him. His immune system is not the best from the cancer, that is why it got so bad, so fast and why this is fairly serious. We stayed at the hospital until he was out of recovery and said he didn't feel any better or worse than before he went in. After we filled him in on what they did we all left so he could rest. He will have another surgical procedure at 8 tomorrow morning to take out all the "antibacterial impregnated" gauze they stuffed in him.

So now I am back at work trying to stay caffeinated so I don't fall down. I will update as things come up.

So start up the good thoughts (or continue them)

me, the redhead

Hospital stay

I hope my family will forgive me, I was suppose to do this last night. I was working and then fell asleep.

Dad was admitted to Holland Hospital last night so they can pump him full of antibiotics. He has infections and abscesses in his mouth and another one of the sores that is pretty bad. The oral antibiotics he was on do not seem to be strong enough. We don't know how long he will be there at this point, it could be a day or two or a week. I will update when I know more.