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I could start with the mundane absurdity of our refrigerator leaking this morning. I discovered that at 2 AM when I went downstairs because I couldn't sleep. I think that was God's way of giving me something else to think about. It's not an emergency. I will deal with that later.
We arrived for check in at 5AM and at 7:30 George was off to surgery.
I had asked Dr. Bastidas if it would be the same routine and he said yes. Off to the waiting room I went (after getting myself a large breakfast).
The last time he had CRS/HIPEC I got word about 9:30-10 that it was a "go" which meant that the HIPEC would occur. At 11:30 Dr B had come out with his update.
Today, 9:30 came and went. 10:30 came and went. Hoping for the best I thought that perhaps they were not going to announce he would have HIPEC and just moved forward. If this were the case then I expected to see Dr. B sometime around noon.
I had plenty of company. Rosemary, Denise, Sara and Chloe, Stan, Cathy P, Victoria. At noon the waiting room volunteer came over and told me that someone would come give me an update at 1:00. I was still hoping for the best and thought that perhaps the surgery took longer because of all the detail work that needed to be done.
At 1:00 Dr. Bastidas came out and took me to the consult room. As soon as we walked in he said, I don't have good news for you." He went on to explain that upon opening George they saw cancer everywhere. There were not a lot of mucin out materials like the last time, but the cancer was all over his small intestines and I think he said on the liver too. They couldn't get it all. There was just too much which, of course, meant that they couldn't do the HIPEC (chemo). A good deal of the time was spent unraveling the small intestine and trying to find a portion that could be saved. They ended up cutting out half of it, leaving him with 105 cm. Doctor says that nutritional sustenance needs 100 cm so George had just enough to cover that. He did not need stoma bag. He also said that there was some small bowl obstruction (SBO)... Which totally explains the nausea even more.
He said that it would probably be difficult to find an oncologist willing or able to do chemo. We will need to meet with Dr. Sheh to see if there are other options out there. We will now probably be needing to use Immodium and Lomotil a whole lot more to manage chronic diarrhea.
He said that he does not believe the pathology changed, meaning that he believes it is still low grade appendiceal (i.e. Non aggressive). He said something about tumor markets which he ran for the last set of labs... But I don't know enough about that to know what he was talking about.
He explained the various tubes and lines that I would see. Two of them will go home with us. Although George will be able to eat, his nutrition has suffered these past weeks. One of the tubes will be used to pump food directly to his belly and is something I will need to learn to hook up at night. The other line is to extract excess gases off his stomach. These should be temporary if he is able to resume eating. 30 days or so. If he is doing okay and at least maintaining weight, they will come out. If not, I guess they stay in longer.
I'm trying to think if there was anything else they talked about, but you can imagine I and the kids and family are reeling from this seemingly disastrous news. We don't know the short or long term expectations and may not know that for days or weeks. Pathology report should be done by early next week.
I dread having to tell George when he wakes up. As I said in a previous posting, he already feels useless... We need to figure out how to learn to live WITH cancer, knowing (at least for now) there is no other treatment. I am trying to wrap my head around all of this. I think God was preparing me for this because I just had a sense of dread for the past few days, more than before. Up until a few days ago I was not feeling this way... Hence what I wrote last night... I wanted to believe the best... I wanted another miracle... God doesn't always answer us the way we want or expect... So now I need to see if we can figure out the why of all if this... Try to make sense of this...
I will go home sometime tonight to try to rest (it may be ambien induced rest). I don't know if we will be able to tell George tonight. More likely it will be tomorrow so I want to come back bright and early to be here when he's told (by myself or Dr B).
Thank you today for Sara who helped make two very difficult calls. For Cathy and Victoria for shoulders to cry on. For Rosemary and Denise being here for moral support.
We have a new battle to attend to now. Well, perhaps the same battle, just different lines have been drawn now. We were not expecting to have to ramp up this soon.
I will post daily to keep others informed. I think I need to restrict visitors to family and closest of close friends for at least a day or two to give us all time to digest this information and start to come to terms for how this impacts us in the short and long haul. I pray that we are able to get George to a place where he is comfortable, to where pain is manageable, bodily function in control as much as possible... So we can do a bit more living and experiencing joys. Right now it looks bleak but we don't have all the information yet. Pray, pray, pray!!!!
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