Lori's
Journal
By Lori's Husband - Jimclawfinger password torrent
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March 24, 2006 We are finally getting caught up on rest, last night was the first full night sleep I've had since she went into the hospital...she is getting to where she can get herself out of bed at night to go to the restroom now.clawfinger password torrent Lori, our daughter and I arrived at the hospital about 5:20am, less than an hour later they called Lori and I back to the pre-op area where she was prepped for surgery. I stayed with her as long as they would let me. She went into surgery about 8:30am, about 9:45am they gave us the word that she was out of surgery and doing well. Many of our family members were there in the waiting room for support. She went in so early that she didn't get to see any of them before surgery, but she knew they would be there.clawfinger password torrent About 10:00am the surgeon came to get us, we all (well, about a dozen of us) went into the conference room with the surgeon to hear the results. He said it took longer than he expected because it had doubled in size and was adhering to her right lung and esophagus. He was very surprised by the size, saying it was about the size of a lemon. He was going to remove the entire bottom half of her right lung but was able to cut the tumor away for the most part, only removing the very bottom portion of her lung. While he was there he checked some other areas and found a bean size tumor growing on her phrenic nerve, it wasn't there in the last scan. He was able to burn it off leaving her phrenic nerve with just a bruise. That's pretty scary for us, a person only has two phrenic nerves and they control your ability to breath. The surgeon repeated two or three times that he believes he got all of the cancer, but she will need to undergo chemo and possibly more radiation as soon as possible. She should be on it now but they have to give the wounds some time to heal because treatment can interfere with healing.clawfinger password torrent The incision is about 8 inches long and runs from her back to her side, about 2 or 3 ribs up. She also has an incision where the chest drain tube was inserted - which is normal, but this time the surgeon filled her chest cavity with sterile water which he said new data suggests it will act like osmosis on any remaining cancer cells and cause them to basically drown. They had to pry her ribs apart to gain access to the tumor, between that and all the cuts she's been in quite a bit of pain. It's a lot more painful than the last surgery.clawfinger password torrent The nurses at St. Luke's are fantastic, they keep close tabs on you and make sure you have everything you need - a stark contrast to other hospitals in the area. When I had lung surgery at St. Vincent's hospital here around 1986, the nurses would steal my pain meds. They would wait until it was near the end of their shift, steal my meds and write down that I had received them. I would call for the meds but they would never come. Then when the shift changed the next nurses would say "sorry, it says you've already been given your meds". The nurses taking care of Lori made sure she stayed out of pain as much as possible and checked on her often. They told her "this is not a time to be strong with the pain, you need to be out of pain and if the epidural isn't doing it, call us and we'll try something additional".clawfinger password torrent Lori was on an epidural, same as when you have a baby but in a different spot. It was placed directly in the center of her back and was intended to block pain in her mid section. She had a button she could push as often as every 20 minutes to get relief, and she found she needed to push it every 20 minutes. So, during the first couple of nights we didn't sleep much, so we could stay awake and make sure the button got pushed...the first night we fell asleep for two hours and that caused the pain to build up, it took another two hours of pushing the button to get enough relief, and they finally had to give her a shot of some kind of anti-inflammatory which helped.clawfinger password torrent She was attached
to her epidural, a couple of IVs, heart monitoring wires, the chest
drain tube that attached to a collection device on the floor, a catheter,
and each leg was hooked up to a pump that would inflate devices on her
legs so she wouldn't get blood clots. After the second day they had
her out of bed and walking the halls, devices and all. She couldn't
do as much walking as they wanted because, for some reason, her blood
pressure remained very low, at one time it was 77/42. They removed her
catheter first, for a bit we juggled all of her devices in the middle
of the night so she could use the restroom. On Thursday they removed
her chest tube, and then took her off the epidural and put her on Demerol.
Friday morning the surgeon said if she felt ok she could go home later
that day. He wrote a prescription for Demerol, saying "you might
have a hard time filling this prescription, it's funny that in other
countries it's never a problem"...our surgeon is originally from
Cape Town, South Africa. Her Oncologist is originally from Paraguay.
I get the feeling they believe the government interferes with medical
treatment too much in this country, they're probably right. We arrived home Friday evening and were completely exhausted. We began a 7 day sleeping session (haha). Lori had problems with the Demerol, the first day was ok but on Saturday she began having some side effects and by Sunday she was hallucinating, carrying on conversations with no one, and getting very shaky. So we took her off Demerol and put her on Oxycodone. Then on Monday she started taking just some Darvocet, but she built up a tolerance to it fairly quickly and is now on Oxycontin at night and Oxycodone during the day. So far it's working pretty well for her. It doesn't stop the pain completely but makes it somewhat tolerable.clawfinger password torrent One of the best parts about being home, for me, aside from getting away from that hard as a rock recliner I slept in (actually I'm very thankful it was there so I could spend the nights) is getting back to home cooked meals. The hospital food is completely inedible. And we are one of the last few holdouts with a water bed, so getting back to it was a life saver for me and my bad back.clawfinger password torrent Lori is resting well and letting it all heal, and I'm back to cooking and cleaning and trying to get caught up on things.clawfinger password torrent ___________________________________________ We went to see the surgeon last Monday, it was mostly uneventful other than he thought she was doing really well. We have an appointment to see the oncologist on the 26th. She'll likely go back on chemo then. She's dreading it and hoping for a miracle that he won't put her on chemo, her hair is just starting to get a little long and it's very curly. She's always had straight hair and has really enjoyed having it curly for a change, maybe if she does go on chemo it will be a different kind and not so bad on losing hair.clawfinger password torrent ___________________________________________ We went to see the oncologist on Wednesday and he set up an appointment with a radiation doc for Thursday. We saw the radiation oncologist to see if he could give her more radiation, to make sure nothing grows back where the latest tumors were found. Unfortunately that area is too close to the last radiation field, he said her heart has already received its max lifetime exposure and her lungs have almost as well as her spine and that he couldn't give her more without exposing those areas, so radiation is out.clawfinger password torrent She'll start chemo again on Monday morning. This time they are going to use two chemo drugs called Carboplatin and Taxol. They tend to knock the white blood cells down really bad so she'll get a Neulasta shot after each chemo session in hopes of keeping her levels up. She'll be on chemo for the next 3 months, the schedule is for 5 hours of chemo one day, then a shot of Neulasta the next day, and then she is off for 3 weeks while the drugs do their job. Then the cycle starts all over again. One problem we may face is that these drugs tend to cause neuropathy pretty bad, just like Cisplatin did to her last time, if that happens they may have to pull her off the chemo. And both of these drugs are known to produce hair loss. So, her beautiful curls are probably on their way out, at least for now.clawfinger password torrent She is planning to go back to work starting Tuesday, probably just part time until we see how the chemo affects her. It doesn't usually get bad until halfway through the second cycle.clawfinger password torrent It looks like we'll
be going to trial in February 2007 for our lawsuit on the doctor that
ignored her symptoms. I'm not looking forward to it; she shouldn't have
to be dragged through a trial after all she's endured. If he was a decent
man he would admit he made a mistake and settle the case, if just to
keep from inflicting more emotional trauma on her. |
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