Fuck Cancer

It looks like my 7-10 day hospital stay will end today. I think that would be 20 days, but I’m a bit fuzzy on some of them what with the fever and all.

I’m free of staples, but covered in steristrips. (Does steristrip glue smell like fir trees or spruce trees?) I’m taking my festoon of drains home with me, even the best beloved butt drain.

I will wear shoes for the first time in three weeks, and a garment that covers my butt. I will not be woken every two hours by a nurse who needs to record a vital sign, or feed me a pill. (As I’ve become healthier, the nurses have backed off, favoring sleep over exact documentation, but it’s still not restful.)

I’ll get to see Nick, and the boxer, and the velociraptors, the latter three under careful supervision. A boxer to the gut would put me right back in the hospital.

I’m taking with me a cocktail of bacteria (the preliminary culture said “a mixture of species of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria,” which covers all the bases at least).

Interlude: Attending strides in, followed by a pair of residents. “Are you ready to go home?” I reply in the affirmative. “Have you been eating?” I reply in the affirmative. “Well then let’s get you out of here.” Exeunt doctors.

I’ll be taking with me the antibiotics to deal with whateveritis I’m infected with. I don’t know yet if those will be IV or oral. (Infectious Diseases says they will be here “later.”)

I’ll be taking pain pills with me too, oh my yes! Three drains, an enormous line of staples, and all the internal healing bits? Drugs are my friend.

So now we’re waiting, on discharge instructions, prescriptions, Infectious Diseases. If they take too exceedingly long, we’ll check out and stay at a motel tonight, as driving home in the rainy night sounds unappealing (no, I’m not driving). But if we can, home tonight!

One thing I’m not taking home with me? The Wursts!

It looks like my 7-10 day hospital stay will end today. I thing that would be 20 days, but I’m a bit fuzzy on some of them what with the fever and all.

I’m free of staples, but covered in steristrips. (Does steristrip glue smell like fir trees or spruce trees?) I’m taking my festoon of drains home with me, even the best beloved butt drain.

I will wear shoes for the first time in three weeks, and a garment that covers my butt. I will not be woken every two hours by a nurse who needs to record a vital sign, or feed me a pill. (As I’ve become healthier, the nurses have backed off, favoring sleep over exact documentation, but it’s still not restful.)

I’ll get to see Nick, and the boxer, and the velociraptors, the latter three under careful supervision. A boxer to the gut would put me right back in the hospital.

I’m taking with me a cocktail of bacteria (the preliminary culture said “a mixture of species of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria,” which covers all the bases at least).

Interlude: Attending strides in, followed by a pair of residents. “Are you ready to go home?” I reply in the affirmative. “Have you been eating?” I reply in the affirmative. “Well then let’s get you out of here.” Exeunt doctors.

I’ll be taking with me the antibiotics to deal with whateveritis I’m infected with. I don’t know yet if those will be IV or oral. (Infectious Diseases says they will be here “later.”)

I’ll be taking pain pills with me too, oh my yes! Three drains, an enormous line of staples, and all the internal healing bits? Drugs are my friend.

So now we’re waiting, on discharge instructions, prescriptions, Infectious Diseases. If they take too exceedingly long, we’ll check out and stay at a motel tonight, as driving home in the rainy night sounds unappealing (no, I’m not driving). But if we can, home tonight!

One thing I’m not taking home with me? The Wursts!

Sarah MAY be coming home, finally, in a few days. MAY. Details when I get them, which may not be tonight.

So, Sarah is FINE, but her beat-the-world curve is apparently leveling off. Basically, they are having some glitches in dialing in the meds to get aspects of her recovery to be exactly what they want them to be.

This is not something for people to worry about, but I am going to be a grumpy little bitch for a while.

-Nick

Sarah just emailed me! With her own fingers! From a CHAIR!!!!!!!!!

So, I’m home for a few days checking on the critters; Sarah’s Mom, Maureen, is back in Danville with her.

Sarah continues to do well (for a girl with cancer, who just had major surgery, etc.)  Her surgeon says she looks ridiculously healthy on the inside, too. She (Dr Halm) got them to up Sarah’s Dilaudid dosage, and told the nurses that if Sarah is still complaining about pain after a couple hours of the new level, to bump it up again.

Aside from the pain – which is both normal and expected, even if it is also both excruciating and annoying – Sarah continues to heal very well. All of the weird things they check, like her various drains and such, indicate everything is healing well, VERY well, with no issues.

She had a stent out, leaving (I think) one stent to go, which is probably coming out tomorrow.

Time for some damn food, probably with another Scotch.

-Nick

If you mainly follow Sarah on Twitter, you might need to check here or FB to stay in the loop.

Posts here are SUPPOSED to echo to Twitter and Facebook. But, about half the time, they have been giving a time-out error when I post them, which results in the post going up on WordPress (here), but NOT going through to Twitter or FB. I have been crossposting manually on FB, but I don’t have the credentials set up to do that to Sarah’s Twitter. So, if you are following Sarah on Twitter, you might want to check here directly, or on FB, to actually keep up to date. Sorry for the tech problem.

We have had visits from several nurses, and a drive-by from the resident (?). We are waiting on a visit from Sarah’s lead surgeon, Dr. Halm. Sarah is doing very well by all objective measures they check, but she really would like better dosing on the pain meds. So, right now, here is her theme song for this morning.

-Nick

Sarah had major abdominal surgery yesterday.

Today, her main thought about that is that she is very, very, VERY sore.

We just talked to the liver surgeons. Their phase of the surgery went very, very well, and Sarah is now in the last, least serious phase of her procedures, where the abdominal surgeon goes back, closes the incision, and installs the drain(s) and the diversion.

The liver surgeons said she absolutely looked as good, and did as sell, as any surgery candidate they have had.

Of course, this was major, invasive, abdominal surgery. Sarah will be here, in the hospital, for at least a week, possibly ten days or more; then, she will need a couple weeks of, basically, bed rest, and then at least a couple months of VERY light duty; and then several more months until she is back up to her full strength.

But for what she was going in looking at, she is doing as well as can possibly be expected. Through the whole course of chemo, radiation, and everything, Sarah has come through it better than expected, with few side effects and excellent function and recovery. She is young, and absurdly healthy.

All signs are that she might well perform – heal – well ahead of the curve for this phase as well, do here’s hoping.

Team Science, Sarcasm, and Snark, bitches.

FUCK cancer.

– Nick