Saturday, July 27, 2013

The day after the day after

So this is Sue typing.  I’m assuming I know at least some of you. You will no doubt notice that  I have not been able to reach quite the same level of “well isn’t this an interesting new adventure” in my attitude to this journey as my marvelously pragmatic husband has.

Brad’s surgery was Friday, early early in the morning, and it ended up being a long, hard day for all of us.  Although the surgeon was hoping to do the surgery laparascopically (that’s maybe not the real word.  I can’t do any better than that.), that approach didn’t work, and so Brad ended up with a rather long vertical abdominal incision, in addition to the three lapar. . incisions.  Apparently much of the colon was removed, although the tumour was “average size.”

Brad spent several hours in recovery while they attempted to get his breathing stabilized, so even though he left for the OR at 7:45 am, we didn’t see him again until almost 5 pm.  I cannot begin to express the depth of relief I felt when I was finally to touch him again.

Today he had a peaceful day – he is getting enough painkiller for the pain to be manageable, but he was very groggy.  He did get up and go for a walk at least twice, and he spent a lot of time thanking nurses for being nice to him.  One small praise from today – he ripped his IV out in his sleep, but a) I noticed it almost immediately and b) he came out of the OR with two IV lines in, so they simply switched his medication to the second, now unused line.  As it can be very difficult to find a vein (his tend to shrink away from needles) to put an IV into, it was a blessing that he did not have to go through that ordeal this afternoon.

The challenging news is that the CT scan he had done on Monday showed spots on his liver.  Although spots on the liver are not necessarily cancer, the surgeon said that they looked like cancer that has spread from the bowel.  We will know more when the lab results come back from the portion of colon that was sent away yesterday, but it looks like chemotherapy will be a part of Brad’s not too distant future.  He needs to recover from the surgery first, however, so now you all know how to pray J

The verses that have been running through my head today are “Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:  Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning.” (Lamentations 3:21-23)

Thank you all for caring.
Susan

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