Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Update on Steve

Well, went and saw Steve at the hospital after Mr. Fantastic got home from work. Got some mixed news. The good news is they were able to remove the chest tube this afternoon.

The bad news is, he had some kind of reaction to something last night that cuased his heart rate to get extremely high - over 200 - and his white blood cell count is elevated. He is still up and about and spending as much time out of bed as possible and the pain isn't too bad.

The heart rate has settled down now, but he's also started having the same crazy skin reaction that he had shortly after the brain surgery last summer. Last time the doctors thought it was an allergy to Dilantin (an anti-seizure med), but because he didn't have any of that this time, now they think it's a reaction to one of the antibiotics he was on. Hopefully the skin thing won't last as long as it did last time since he was only on the antibiotics for one day this time. Because of the new problems that have cropped up, he most likely won't be going home tomorrow but they didn't give us an ETA on when they thought he might get sprung.

None of the doctors seem all that concerned about the skin thing, and he's even got the same attending (Dr. Sutarik) this time as he had last time. So she's seen how awful this got before and she's just not that concerned. Steve and I don't know what to think about that. On the one hand, well, okay, if the doctors aren't worried, then maybe neither should we be. But on the other hand, it was so terrible last time, you know, I had to take him to the ER and they had to treat him like a burn victim and...and these people may be doctors but they don't know everything.

So, I'm torn. I mean, I guess there's nothing I can actually do, short of fretting about it, which doesn't do anybody any good, so I might as well not do that. Guess we just need to be vigilant and hope for the best. If you have any spare good karma, feel free to send it Steve's way.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Update on my brother

Steve's still doing great, still up and about walking or sitting up in a chair. We had hoped he was going to go home tomorrow but looks like it will be Tuesday at the earliest.

What we're waiting on is for them to remove a chest tube - a drain in the lung that is helping get rid of fluid and air. Once the drainage slows down enough, they'll take out the tube and he should be able to go home the following day.

For the first few days, they had him on an epidural to manage the pain, but they've removed that and now he's on Percoset. Doesn't do nearly the job at managing the pain, but it's better to have him off the epidural - another step towards going home. Unfortunately, the Percoset makes him sweat like crazy and last night he had horrible nightmares, which I've heard can be a side effect of Percoset. He didn't sleep well at all last night and didn't want to take any more of the Percoset today, so he was in awful pain all day until he finally relented and took some about 4 p.m. I told him to ask for something else when it's time to take his pain meds tonight. Hopefully he'll quit trying to tough it out and ask them for a different drug. He hates to do things like that, is worried about being a hassle to the nurse but they all say he's a model patient and I keep telling him he has to speak up when I'm not there.

Otherwise, he is mobile and has much more use of his right arm than I had expected from what the surgeon told us. Because of that, I'm not worried at all about how he'll do once he is able to go home. Things are looking good.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Update on my brother

Just a quick update on Steve - the operation went well, he did great and had no complications. They ended up having to remove the whole lower lobe of the lung, but we had sort of expected that's what they were going to have to do.

He is still mostly sleeping a lot, but they've got him on an epidural to manage the pain for the next couple of days, so he is really feeling pretty well. The drug they're giving him in the epidural makes him itchy, so they're giving him something else to combat that which makes him pretty drowsy. They were about to move him from the ICU to a regular room when I was visiting earlier this evening, which is great.

I'm doing great myself, not worrying about him nearly as much as last time. I had to pick him and my dad up at 5:30 a.m. yesterday to be at the hospital by 6. Was a really long day yesterday, and I spent a lot of time at the hospital today, so I've just now finished up working for the day. I'm wiped. Otherwise, we're all good. That's pretty much it for now, so far so good. Keep us in your thoughts!

Friday, March 14, 2008

Another brother update...

As I previously mentioned, my brother Steve has to have surgery again. He’s scheduled to have the tumor in his right lung removed on Tuesday, March 18th at 8 a.m. He’ll be at PSL for 4-5 days, then at home for 2-3 weeks.

The surgery will involve a large incision on his right side that goes from front to back. They are hoping to only have to do a wedge-resection, where they take a pie-shaped piece containing the tumor out, but if it’s in a difficult location, they may have to do an entire lobectomy. If they have to do that, the good news is that the right lung has three lobes (as opposed to two on the left) and most people never miss it if they have to have one lobe removed from the right. Because of the way they have to do the operation, he'll be unable to use his right arm for a while, but other than that, he should be up and about as soon as he gets home. Hopefully even before then!

As always, please keep him in your thoughts.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Vacation! All I ever wanted...











So, little after-misadventure notwithstanding, our vacation to Mexico was lovely. We went to Puerto Vallarta and the hotel was beautiful (if under construction, and believe you me, our travel agent and everyone else in the world that I can think of is going to hear about that) and the weather...oh, the weather. Was fabulous. Beautiful, beautiful mid-70s, warm breezes and so humid. I had the softest skin ever there. Of course, now we're back to Colorado, I have turned into a raisin. I may have to flee back to more humid climes in self-defense.

Anyhoo, it was all very romantic and warm and I wore a big floppy fabulous hat a lot of the time and no makeup and felt very beautiful. And it really was so wonderful to spend so much time with Mr. Fantastic, just doing whatever, wandering on the beach and frolicking and whatnot. We did a lot of laying around - at the pool, on the beach, in the hot tub, etc, although I did force him into a Canopy Tour one day and a "Snorkel Adventure" another day, both of which wore us out and made us decide that while they were fun, next vacation we're literally doing nothing.

The first night we were there we walked on the beach at night like sappy romantic fools and listened to the waves and looked at the stars - oh, the stars. Well, aside from them being all wonky and backwards and upside down (took us three days to find the big dipper!) the stars were so close and huge and bright. That first night, we sat tangled up on an abandoned beach chair and drank our Corona Lights with lime (because we are ever mindful of our figures, damn the taste) and snuggled and kissed and talked softly and I wanted to cry it was so damn sweet. And as we were sitting there, all by ourselves in the night, out of nowhere there came fireworks. Fireworks! I - well, I have no words. Fireworks, just for us! I am a huge sucker for fireworks - god you should see me on the 4th of July, I'm such a patriotic sap for things that go boom - so you can imagine the look of childlike glee on my face as I sat there on a warm beach in Mexico, snuggled up with my honey watching our own fireworks display reflect off the water. It was like my own personal Say Anything moment. I nearly cried, you should ask Mr. F. God, I'm such a girl but it was awesome. I think my favorite moment from the whole trip. And well, of course you know I fell a little bit more in love with Mr. F right then, like he's the one who made the fireworks. Maybe he did.

Sunday we went to a restaurant called PiPi's, recommended by my friend Kathy, whose daughter lives in PV (that's what they call it, don't'cha know). Great food - they make the guacamole at your table to your taste and my god, it was good. I didn't even need to eat anything else. And Mr. F and I shared the world's largest margarita, although I think Mr. F got the lion's share by dint of it being too heavy for me to hold. Oh, and then on the way home, we missed our bus stop or something and it resulted in me using my high school Spanish to rescue us. I think Mr. F was suitably impressed at how much Spanish I've actually retained. Good on you, Senora Palabra!

On Monday we went on a Canopy Tour, otherwise known as the Zip Line, which is something I've wanted to do for ages. (Okay, something I've wanted to do ever since I saw it on The Amazing Race, shut up.) Anyway, it was totally cool! And kind of funny, since I'm afraid of heights - but I was so psyched to do this, I never even thought twice about the heights. There was more hiking involved than I had thought about but made sense once we got started. You'd hike up a little trail, clip on the the line and zzzzipp across the way, then hike a little trail to the next platform. Eventually we started going downhill to the next platform so it got easier toward the end. It was absolutely beautiful and exhilarating and I'm thrilled we did it. Plus, a year ago, this is something I physically wouldn't have been able to do - wouldn't have been able to take the hiking, would've been too heavy for the zip line - so it was really kind of a milestone for me.

Monday night we went to our "fancy" dinner - got all dressed up and everything. Had absolutely excellent food at the hotel next door. Mr. F and I decided we should just always share filet mignon and scallops and never eat anything else. Yum.

On Tuesday, we went on what we thought was going to be a snorkeling trip but which turned out to be more of a booze cruise. Eh. It was fun, once we realized that the 20 minutes of snorkeling in cloudy water was all the snorkeling there was going to be. We'd really love to actually snorkel some time, but I guess the Pacific side of Mexico isn't known for that - you're better off on the Gulf side. It was a really great boat ride, and we even saw some whales and dolphins while we were out. The boat - I have no idea what kind it was - had these little net thingies at the front where you could sit and sort of ride over the water, and Mr. F was eventually able to convince me to sit in it with him. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get back out of it once I got in! Well, I got out, but not gracefully. It was a long day in the sun and Mr. F's shins got pretty badly sunburned but it was a good time. I think next time, we'll skip that one. Also, when I jumped off the boat, I hit my big toe on something and it chipped my pedicure and is still a nasty black-and-blue.

Wednesday we spent mostly at the pool and ate lunch at the swim up bar, which I had been dying to do. I enjoyed it, although eating while sitting waist-deep in warm water mostly just made me have to pee. That was a really nice, relaxing day and I think next vacation, we plan to do more of that sort of thing as opposed to booze-cruising and zipping through the jungle. Mr. Fantastic lived up to his name and was fantastic about doing whatever I wanted. Tottenham was playing in the FA cup Sunday night and he went out to dinner with no complaint even though he would have a thousand times rather stayed at the hotel and watch the game. I still feel kind of bad about that, especially since they won and he had to miss it.

In all, it was a really great time and I'm so glad we got to spend it together, just the two of us. So often our vacations involve a whole bunch of other people and we don't get time to be sappy and romantic and walk on the beach and make me feel twenty again. And I forget that it's not just me that's the sappy romantic one. That it's Mr. F who wants to sit in the hot tub together and watch the sun set. Do you know, everywhere we went, people asked us if we were on our honeymoon? They kept saying how happy I looked. Maybe that's just a thing they say there to all the couples, but I felt like we were on our honeymoon. All giggly and hand-holdy and just...you know.

Oh, here. Stop rolling your eyes at me and go look at the pictures.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Adventures in Medicine, or; Eat at the Airport the Last Day of your Trip


I will tell you about my vacation soon, but first I have to tell you about the adventure after my vacation.

The day we left Mexico (Thursday), Mr. Fantastic and I shared a sandwich for lunch that made us sick. Like, we both spent the plane ride home feeling like we had food poisoning. Although his was more typical food posoning symptoms, mine was basically just this really, really awful pain in the middle of my belly. It would come and go in waves. At one point, I almost passed out in the airport - just standing in line, I started pouring buckets of sweat and feeling dizzy and had to sit down before I fell down. At that point, even taking a sip of water would cause a wave of this horrible pain.

We finally got home Thursday night and went to bed. On Friday, Mr. F was also having an earache so he went to the doctor. I tried to eat some lunch but literally minutes after I put something in my mouth, I got waves of that awful pain. I put a call in to my surgeon and by the time Mr. F got back with magical eardrops, I was feeling much worse, and his tummy wasn't any better either. I got a call back from Amanda, the nurse at my surgeon's office, and she told me to go to the ER and that she would let Dr. Snyder know. She was really worried about dehydration since I pretty much hadn't had anything for almost 24 hours. It's really easy for a gastric bypass patient such as myself to get dehydrated and really hard to get caught back up without medical intervention. So at the very least, she wanted to make sure I was hydrated.

Since Mr. F was spending so much time running to the bathroom, I told him not to come with me, and I drove to the ER at Rose Hospital about 3:45. I had to wait a long time for them to have a bed for me. And I was sitting there in the waiting room just feeling worse and worse. The pain I was having became a constant pain, with these excruciating waves that would spike every few minutes. Let me tell you, I can handle pain. Ask Mr. F. But this was seriously the worst pain I have ever felt in my entire life - and it just kept getting worse with each passing hour. I was sitting in that waiting room just sobbing from the pain.

Eventually they got me back to a bed, took some blood, had me pee in a cup, took some XRays and a CT scan and got me started on an IV. I couldn't take the pain sitting down, so I was pacing around the little room, stopping to bend over the bed when the wave of pain would hit. Finally they decided to give me some pain meds which meant I had to call and have Mr. F come in and also they made me sit down in the bed which sucked because it meant I had to try and curl in a little ball when the pain came.

The CT scan was apparently very scarily abnormal and made them think I had a twisted loop of bowel. Which, turns out, feels just like it sounds. It felt like my intestines were going to pop. And I guess the pain was coming in waves due to the peristalsis motion of digestion. Anyway, the pain meds helped a lot - first it was fentanyl, then later something that lasted longer. As the night wore on and the pain got worse, I started getting nauseous and dry heaving, which just made things hurt worse.

Then Dr. Snyder got there and he and his resident decided they needed to do surgery. They couldn't confirm for sure from the XRay and CT scan that I really did have a bowel obstruction but I was in so much pain that they wanted to be safe and make sure. So about 10 pm they whisked me off to surgery. Three of my incisions from my gastric bypass have been re-incised so they could put in a camera and tools and look around and fix anything that might need fixing. Thankfully, Mr. F and Steve were both there to see me off and help me calm down a bit. By the time I was getting ready for surgery, I was nearly hysterical with the dry heaving, pain and being scared of such hurried surgery.

Unfortunately, they couldn't find anything wrong. Or, fortunately, I guess. Once they got in there, they couldn't find an obstruction or anything. They guessed I had some kind of twist or obstruction that resolved itself but can't really say for sure what the hell was happening. What I think happened is that I got the same food poisoning that Mr. F did but because I was seriously dehydrated, I didn't get the, er, runs. Instead, I got my body trying to expel the nastiness but being unable. Each wave of pain was one that would've sent me running to the bathroom.

Anyway, spent the night in the hospital and got to come home late Saturday afternoon. I'm sure you will be happy to know I have pooed, and the pain I was having is gone. Unfortunately, it's been replaced by the pain from my healing incisions. It pretty much sucks that they decided to do surgery and it basically was unnecessary, but it's better safe than sorry, especially with the amount of pain I was having.

Mr. F is still feeling a bit wonky in the belly but he seems to be on the mend. It sucks when we're both sick because then there's nobody to be the mom!

So. Lessons learned. When on vacation, I need to be super vigilant about keeping hydrated. And eat at the airport the last day of the trip.