Christian's Cancer Journey

  Wanted to share the results from my follow up appointments with my oncologist and surgeon. I hope everyone has a great week. - Christian

Didn't want to leave everyone in the dark on how Christian is doing, so here is a quick update. She has some fatigue and tiredness. It is definitely present. I would say it is comparable to a chemo treatment week.  That fatigue and tiredness is there somewhat because her body is trying to re-grow her liver of course. The other part of it, is not getting 100% normal rest. She is definitely getting rest, but it may be in 2-3 hour segments. She doesn't go to bed, and sleep for 8 hours. She will try to go to bed, and end up moving to the recliner after an hour or two. Then move around and try to get comfortable. That is why her sleep pattern is split up into a couple hours here and there. She said "it is just impossible to get comfortable". When she was discharged, she was only in a small amount of pain. They had gotten her off of the stronger pain meds, and were giving her ibuprofen every 8 hours to manage it. That was knocking it down to the dull pain that it still is.

 She is doing really good today. She ate breakfast and we are warming up some left over Elizabeth's for lunch. She was up loading the dishwasher, folding clothes, helping put groceries away when I got back from the store, and she took a shower. She said the shower was the best. I told her not to do the other stuff because I was doing it, but she insisted that she felt fine and wanted to do it. I can't stop her if she is feeling good. No pain. She has been taking ibuprofen twice a day to help with inflammation, but that's it. Her back being sore from the hospital stay is going away. She walked out and checked the mail earlier. Hard to keep this one down. She is doing great. Long way to go to get back to 100% obviously, but for 5 days post surgery she is doing phenomenal. Just wanted to send an update for the day.

This morning Christian was feeling better than the day before and ready to go home. Dr. Clark came around and said she looked good and was going home today. He said the incision looked great as well. We waited around for them to get the discharge orders and everything put together (which usually doesn't happen super fast). Meanwhile we got all of her stuff packed up from her room.  They put a new dressing on her incision and went over a few things. Then we were able to get out of there a little after 2pm. They said they were going to call for Transport to come get her, and Christian asked if we had to use Transport, or if we could just leave on our own. The nurse said we could leave on our own if we wanted and that she would go get a wheelchair. Christian said she felt good enough to walk. The nurse said that was fine if she felt good. So I carried the bag, and she walked, and we got out of there!! When we got home, I don't know which one of them was more excited to see the oth

It is Monday Oct 4th a little after lunch time. She is showing more signs of improvement today! I got here this morning and she was already awake, watching some TV and drinking some orange juice. We talked for a bit, and then Dr. Powell stopped by to see Christian which made her morning. The team came by this morning and said that since Christian was doing well, that they were going to discontinue her order for fluids & the push button pain meds. She has not used the push button pain meds much over the past 24 hours. She says she is not really in any pain at all, just a little sore, which is great for being right around 36hrs post surgery. Since the order for the fluids and pain meds has been discontinued, she has no reason to be hooked up to anything via IV.. so she is now off the leash!! I asked the dr. when her three IV's would be removed since she is not using them anymore, and she said they would not be removed until Christian is about to be discharged to go home. They lea

 It is Sunday Oct 3 around lunch time. Yesterday I stayed here until around 4:30pm. I would have stayed longer but she was doing a lot of sleeping yesterday. I asked if she wanted to do a little video call with anyone from her family while I was here, and she didn't even have the energy to do that. As several people have said, sleep is good!! Yesterday afternoon I ordered her some chicken broth and apple juice. She had a little of each. I helper her up to get to the bathroom a few times, and we actually did one lap around the hallway yesterday. We took it slow, but she did great. When we got back to the room, she was pretty tired and went back to sleep. She slept pretty good last night. She used the green button pain medicine some as needed thru the night. She had the nurse help her to the bathroom a few times last night. This morning when I got here, she was in the bathroom by herself. I asked her where the nurse was, and she said she was ok to get up by herself now, she just move

Yesterday was a long day for both of us in different ways.  My long day is nothing to complain about in comparison to hers. I did not update the "Live Updates" post yesterday evening when she finally got to her room and settled in, because I was worn out, went home and went to sleep after being with her for a little while.  So after talking to Dr. Clark about the surgery at 5:30pm yesterday, Christian stayed in Recovery for 2.5 hours. I went and got something to eat during that time. They finally got her room ready and transported her at 8pm. I met her in the room after they got her settled in.  She was in quite a bit of pain, as the nerve blockers were wearing off from pre-op. She was very uncomfortable, and was still kind of out of it. he nurse put her on a 6-hr schedule receiving Percocet thru-out the night, and that helped manage the pain. We talked for a little while and I gave her the good news on how well the surgery went, and that the surgeon thinks he got it all out.

We got here to the Surgical Services dept. this morning at 730am.  Dr. Clark was running a little behind with the operation he is doing before Christian's.  We finally got called back to the staging prep bay around 10am.  She got hooked up to all the monitors, and IV. They took a little blood and went over some things. A few of the anesthesia docs came and talked about the nerve blockers they are going to give her. When they were ready to get going on that, I was asked to leave, so I am in the waiting room for the rest of the day pretty much. I have downloaded an app, that lets anyone involved in her operation send me updates.  The next update I get, should be her being moved from the staging prep bay, to the operating room. When I get that update, and any following updates, they will be added to this post below. Thanks, Kenny Update: Surgery started at 11:30am Update: At 12:30 one of the OR nurses called me and said that when the status was updated to "Surgery started at 11:3