It's Good To Be Back

It's so great to be back online again!!!  I have had a very rough time of it these past few weeks.  I felt so miserable, I didn't even have the energy to make it to the computer room, let alone keep up with my blogs.  I think I had some kind of flu bug, since when I went to the hospital last weekend, they couldn't find anything wrong to explain my horrible nausea and dry-heaving.   I had a CT scan and everything was OK with my surgery.  They pumped me full of IV fluids and Zofran for the nausea and sent me home.  It took me another two days to keep anything down.  I couldn't even turn my head, the nausea was so bad!!  I hope I never go through that again so soon.....if ever!!  And to think I had a flu shot, too.  But those don't cover EVERY strand of flu virus.  Leave it to me to get one that it doesn't cover!!

Anyway, the nausea has slowly left me and I can now go back on my protein drinks and liquids.  I seem to be stuck on liquids.  Every time I try to eat something like chicken or something solid, it just sticks in my throat and won't go down.  I have to "chase" it down with milk or applesauce.  Since April, when I had my surgery, I've been on soups, yogurt, protein drinks, milk, Crystal Light, puddings and Jello.  When I got weighed at the hospital, I lost another 13 pounds, so I'm down to 269!!  I was happy about that!!  Before I got so sick, my hubby and I were going to the gym and to my sister-in-law's pool.  That was so much fun.  Hopefully we can start that back up.  I feel weak as a kitten after this recent ordeal!!

I sometimes regret having the bariatric surgery.  It seems like since I had it, I've had so many problems with nausea and advancing my diet.  I don't know if that is normal and it's only been three months since the surgery, so maybe I am hurrying things.  I miss taking pills the way I used to....with a glass of water.  Now I've got to take them with yogurt or applesauce.  When you take as much as I do, you can get very tired of both of those!!  But what can I do?  I also miss taking a big bite out of a hamburger!!!  But then again, those bites of the past is what got me into trouble with my weight in the first place!!  So I guess the surgery was the only way to go to save my life, since nothing else was working.  It's just hard to get used to my new way of life.

My fibromyalgia is acting up, too. I guess it felt left out!  I've had sinus headaches to beat the band.  Of course, we had a horrendous dust storm the other day and that got everyone's allergies all in an uproar!  

I hope this post finds everyone happy and healthy and trying to stay cool.  It's a balmy, lovely 110 here in Phoenix!!!  I can't wait for fall to arrive!!  I decided to keep my blog decorated like it is for the month of July, then I'll re-decorate it in August for fall.  I think it looks cute with the firecrackers on it, don't you????

Before I leave, here is a new picture I took of myself this morning.  My hubby is in it, too, as he was doing his hair and wouldn't move out of the picture...guess he wants to be in the limelight, too!  Ha!  I'm wearing 3x clothing now, which tickles me pink, since before the surgery I was a prisoner of 6x clothing.  Not bad for three months, huh?  90 pounds lost and 3 shirt sizes!!!  Pretty soon I'll get back to the gym and strive for more weight loss.  Wish me luck!!  Hope you all have a good rest of the week and weekend.  I'll be posting again soon.

Hugs,

Here We Go AGAIN!

Hello, everyone!!

Well, as the title of the this post reads, HERE WE GO AGAIN!  Back to the hospital for Frankie.  Ever since he had his surgery in June (for all you that are newbies to my blog, you can read about all his surgery complications in the June and July posts in the archive) for the AVM in his intestines, he's had problems with severe nausea and vomiting.  At first, it just was every other week or something like that.  Nothing too serious, I thought, as he is on a lot of medications that can cause some stomach upset.  But this past week, it has been very severe and he has been vomiting after every meal.  And I don't mean a little heave....I mean a GIANT heave and I'm cleaning it off our bathroom wall and floor behind and around the toilet.  I don't know where it all comes from, since there can't be too much more down there!  He can't keep anything in!  And his blood pressure was low, lips pale and very dry, he showed all signs of classic dehydration.  Sooooo.....we called Cigna, his insurance and they sent us to their urgent care.  I brought along my camera to break up the boredom as we have been down this road so many times.....here he is in the urgent care.  As you can see, he looks just thrilled to be there!  LOL....

 

I even took a little video, too, of the experience.

I hope nobody thinks I'm goofy or anything....just a little something to break up the time.
We waited for quite awhile in the urgent care and then saw this really nice young doctor that told us there wasn't much he could do there.  Even if he got a CT scan right there, he'd have to send him to the hospital anyway if it found anything.  So off we went to the hospital.  We went to the same one where he had his surgery in June, since they had all the records there.  It was a zoo in there!!  I knew we were in for quite some wait and I was right.  I took another picture of him when we finally got a room.

Doesn't he look all nice and comfy with a heated blanket, TV remote and nurse call button planted in his right hand?  Meanwhile, poor wife is in the corner shivering and snapping pics and videos like some kind of maniac!!  LOL!  To make matters worse, my diabetes decides to act up and what do I have in my purse?  Sugarless gum!!!  So Frankie was a dear and asked for some juice and crackers for me.  The nurse wasn't real thrilled with this and I only got two packages of crackers and one very small juice.  Oh, well.  I treated it like it was a rib-eye meal!  Neither of us had eaten in quite awhile and I completely forgot to stock my purse with some sugar candy for when my sugar gets low.  I hate diabetes!!!  I hope, if I ever get the bariatric surgery, that the diabetes will go away.  It has been known to happen with a lot of people who have the surgery.

Anyway, Frankie had blood work, an IV placed and then he had to have some yummy contrast for a CT scan of his abdomen.  The contrast was berry fusion and he wasn't too excited about it, as he hates fruit.  I took another pic of him and his "cocktail."

 

Look at how thrilled he is!!!  :0)  I had to coax him every "sip" of the way!!  And he had two bottles to guzzle down.

He finally got the contrast down and then waited for a really long time for the CT scan. It was getting to be very late (around 11pm and we had started this adventure at 3pm) and it felt like my rear end was one with those comfy plastic chairs!!  My shoulder and legs were killing me.  I think what saved me was having my Literati e reader there and while Frankie watched TV, I read my book on my reader.  It was soooo nice!  And really did make the time go a little quicker.  

The ER doctor was really nice, too.  He stuck his head in at one point and said that even if the CT scan showed nothing, he was still going to be admitted because his heart enzymes were elevated.  He thought it had something to do with all the vomiting.  I'm glad he told me that plan, as Frankie was falling asleep and I was exhausted myself.  So I left him like this:

He looks so serene in this picture, don't you think?  He's in good hands.  I kissed him good-bye and left.  I actually could find my way to the front lobby without any instruction!  The ER is like a rat's maze and I usually get so lost!!   I found the car, hefted my walker into the trunk and I zoomed off.

When I got home, it hit me.  I missed Frankie already.  Do we know how to ring in 2011 or what?  I hate this so much, I could scream.  I want them to FIX MY HUSBAND NOW!!  And have it last forever!!!  I want my surgery NOW and lose 150 pounds.  I want to go back to work NOW and get money so we can move out on our own.  I want so many things, yet it seems like we keep landing in the same spot.  Nowhere!  Anyway, my sweet mother in law met me at the door with a nice bowl of soup and a grilled cheese and ham sandwich.  She is so sweet to me! :0)

Jackie was really confused to have just me in the bed.  He laid on Frankie's side for almost the whole night.  While I was gone, though, he got "mad" and bored and climbed on top of the computer and my desk and knocked over our external hard drive and left kitty litter trail on my keyboard.  I may have to close Mr. Jack out of the computer room while I'm gone!!  So then he wanted into the towel cabinet and the second I opened it for a towel, he rushed in.  I went to scold him and he looked at me with his cute, killer face and I ran for the camera instead!

The little stinker wouldn't look up when I called his name....he knew he wasn't supposed to be there!!  But he looked adorable, all the same.

Frankie called me this morning and said he didn't get into a room until 3:30am last night.  And the CT scan was normal.  So the gastro doctor came and they are going to put the camera scope down his throat and into his stomach and see what's up...or down!  He'll have that tomorrow.  They have the poor guy NPO (nothing by mouth).  I'll be going to see him soon, so I'll close this post.  Please keep us in your prayers and I will do the same for you.

Hugs to all!!

God bless you,

Siggy bar by Helena

Here We Go Again

Howdy, my friends!

Hope you all have been happy and well this past week.  My husband and I have been trying very hard to get a sense of "normalcy" back into our lives. We haven't had much luck.  We thought we had the nausea/vomiting problem licked, but it returned with a vengeance  this morning.  He was supposed to get a CT scan of his abdomen this morning, but he kept vomiting that I saw NO WAY he could keep the oral contrast down.  So we called and rescheduled it for tomorrow at 9am.  Check in at 8am.  I hope and pray that tomorrow will be a better day.  There's always hope!

As soon as he has the CT scan, the surgeon will call us and let us know what it said and what the "game plan" is from here.  Will he keep the abdominal drain for two weeks or will he get rid of it in one week....that is the million dollar question.  I don't want to remove it too soon, especially since it still is getting a little drainage out of it.  Only about 20cc/day, but if that drain were gone, it would build up inside him and block the intestines again.  We definitely don't want that!!!

Frankie went to the oncologist on Monday and he said that as soon as the CT scan is done, he will look it up and see where we should proceed with the Gleevec.  He already has told us that he will start Frankie out at 400mg/day for awhile then increase it to his usual dosage of 400mg twice a day.  We just don't want to take a chance that the tumor will return if he is off the Gleevec.  He also had labs drawn to see if he is anemic still. The doc said that if he was, he could get an outpatient transfusion.

That pretty much is all that's going on so far.  I still am just absolutely worn down from this past month of going back and forth to the hospital in this drastic heat.  Yesterday I slept from 5pm to 7am the following day! I couldn't believe it!!  My husband was right beside me, doing the same thing! We both are just so worn down....come on, B vitamins, kick in soon and give us some energy!!!!  LOL!!

As you can see, I did a little redecorating of the blog.  I hope you like it and it's easier to read.  I signed up for Google AdSense (which is where you can earn money by the ads on your blog) and was rejected.  First thing, they were looking at a totally different blog that wasn't even mine.  Then, they said that it was too hard to read and I had broken links.  So untrue!  I always check my links and they lead right where they should.  If you should find a broken link that I missed, please let me know.  But I was pretty bummed out.  I work hard on this blog and when they rejected me, it was like an arrow to the heart.  I can resubmit it, but I don't have the link to do that so I wrote Google for the link.  Wish me luck!!

Thank you all for being such a good friend to me. I cherish each and every one of you!!!

God bless you!
Until next post,
Missy

A Little Good News This Time

Howdy, everyone! Just wanted to write real quick and let you know how Frankie's test turned out. We've had a really long day and both of us are exhausted, but it turned out OK. The surgeon came out and talked with me while Frankie was in the recovery area and he said that his stomach was completely clean, didn't see a tumor or mass anywhere. This had had happened once before, when we very first got to Phoenix after my mom died. Frankie was having some problems swallowing and he told the primary doctor, who then referred him out to the gastro-intestinal specialist who then did an EGD...the test where they take a scope that has a camera on the end and put it in your mouth, down your throat and into your stomach and portions of the small intestine.  At that time, he had a CT scan that showed a "shadow" in his stomach, so they did the EGD to confirm as we thought the GIST was coming back. BUT, at that time like this time right now, it was a false alarm and they couldn't find anything then, either. Thank God above!!!!

Now we wait for the PET scan results and then he will be scheduled for surgery to have the little tumor removed from his small intestine and biopsied for cancer. Keep your fingers crossed that Frankie will dodge the bullet again and miss having a relapse. That would be absolutely fantastic!!!!

Oh, and I drove us home without glitch....after my mother-in-law and I  found him! We were told the wrong suite number, so when we came, we parked in the lot by the outpatient clinic. He was going to the endoscopy lab, though, and we had to hike it to the hospital and of course, my walker was at home as I forgot to put it back into the trunk after our shopping expedition last night!!  I made it, though, and when he was ready to go home, my mother-in-law and me hiked it back out through the hospital and the outpatient clinic and got the car. Then, we couldn't find the main entrance. After a little comedy of errors, we did find Frankie and as I went past, he was in the wheelchair waiting for us and he gave me a little wave.  He's so sweet!!!

My legs are killing and it's Frankie's turn for the computer so I'll close this post. I hope you all are doing well and are happy.

Until next post,
Missy