HOME!

Howdy, everyone!

Sorry this update is a little late.  I've been enjoying my hubby's time at.....HOME!!!  He came home yesterday from the hospital.  Unfortunately, we didn't get the answer we were seeking for in why he is always nauseated and vomiting.  I think it's just going to be something we have to live with - like his leg and muscle pain from taking his cancer drug, Gleevec.  He couldn't have that upper GI test again due to there was still too much barium inside his system.  So the doctor said he could have that as an outpatient and said that if he could eat some regular food and keep it down, he could go home.   So they sent him up a tray with a chicken salad sandwich (which he wouldn't eat....he doesn't do "salad") and replaced that with a ham and cheese sandwich and some chips.  It was between lunch and dinner, so he had to take what he could get or wait around for supper.  I didn't want that....I wanted to get out of there!  So did my husband.  He said that earlier that morning, in his old room, his new room-mate flipped out and it was really quite scary.  Security was called and they had him in restraints.  So they moved Frankie out to another room.  With a much nicer room-mate!

So far, so good.  No vomiting since he has been at home.  He found that if he takes his nausea pill with the Reglan, before he eats, he is OK.  He's had sandwiches, some Pop Tarts, iced Tea, chicken and soup.  I'd say he was a little hungry after four days of nothing!

I'm just glad he's home!  My shoulder is killing me after lugging that damn walker in and out of the trunk.  My hubby is so kind to take care of that for me.  But when he's in the hospital, it's all me!  I tried going up to his room on the 6th floor without the walker and regretted it so much.  I was in even worse pain, because of my lower back.  When I use the walker, it helps keep me "aligned."  If I don't have it, I hunch over and with having all my weight on me, it really hits my back something awful!

Well, that's about it.  I better get off the computer and put my feet up before they start swelling.  I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and don't want to go all swollen up!  I have enough problems to deal with!  Hope you all have a great day and thank you for your thoughts, prayers and comments.  And please do sign my guest book down at the bottom of this page.  I LOVE seeing who stops by!  :0)

God bless you all,
Until next post,

PRAY

Howdy, everyone!

STILL NO NEWS from the hospital.  Frankie is still there, still bored and still hasn't had any food.  He tells me he definitely is hungry and all they show on TV is FOOD!!  Isn't that just life?  Same goes for when you are on a diet.  EVERYWHERE you look is food of some sort.  He is supposed to have the upper GI test today and if all is normal, my boy is comin' home!!  So please pray that will be the case.  He's had every test known to man and they all are coming up clean, so he might as well come home and we'll start over again.  But this time, I'm going to make sure he eats smaller, more frequent meals and doesn't move around too much right after he eats.  He tells me that is when he gets nauseated.  It will work out perfectly if he is released today, as he has his primary care doctor appointment tomorrow.

You noticed how I named this post "PRAY"?  Well, yesterday, I received a call from Banner Bariatric clinic and guess what?  They have ALL my records.  FINALLY!!!  After all the calling and visiting of doctors to have them fax their reports to the clinic has paid off.  So the next step now is they are going to submit my records to the insurance agency to see if they will approve the surgery.  This is where I need your help.  Please pray with me and my family that they will approve the surgery.  I told my hubby that the NEXT person in the hospital is going to be ME.....for my surgery!  Sooooo.....if the insurance approves, then I have to go to the educational class about what to expect with the surgery and life AFTER the surgery.  And I've also got a whole page full of tests to do....labs, upper GI and doppler studies to make sure I don't have a blood clot again.  I already had the IVF filter placed (to prevent blood clots in my lungs) when I was in the hospital with the blood clot in my left leg in 2009.  That was so much fun having that sucker placed, too.  I kid you NOT!  I'm just glad it's in and I decided to keep it in, as you can have it out in 5 weeks after it is placed.  I chose to keep it in.  I went through hell getting it there, it's staying!

I'm so nervous.  And scared.  And excited.  So many emotions swirling around me.  I keep thinking, this is so drastic, removing 85% of my stomach.  But it has to be done or the statistics aren't looking too good that I will make it to 65 yrs old if I don't lose this weight.  And I'm excited in that I can take "belly" photos too, like I see on the pregnancy blogs.  Except in MY case, we all clap when my belly goes DOWN, not UP!  Lol..... no, don't worry, I won't gross you out.  I'll just show before and after pics.  :0)  With me clothed, of course!  And, of course I'm scared.  Who likes surgery?  But I tell myself this is just one moment in time.  I keep going forward and with the good Lord above watching over me, I will be OK.

Well, gotta run.  (I wish!)  Shall I say, gotta move?  I'm not moving too well these days due to the fact I'm on just 10mg of prednisone a day.  I used to be on 20mg.  I have to get down to 5mg for surgery.  Man, this is a bummer!!  Anyway, before I go, wanted to share with you a cute pic of Jack.  He is underneath my computer desk and I was just typing away, not a care in the world, and I go to put on my massager slippers and I'm having a problem putting my feet into them.......

I swear, there is NOT one thing in this house he has not laid his furry body on!!!  What a cat!

Oh, and before I leave, please notice my fancy new guest book below.  Please sign it!  I'll love you for life!!  OK, don't wanna scare you.  :0)  I would appreciate it, though.  Right now I feel like a dork because the only entry there is mine.  I'm signing my own book....reminds me of high school!!!

Have a great Tuesday, everyone!
God bless,

Thanks, Gina, for my nifty siggy logo! :0)

Back To...Normal?

Woo-hoo! Yippee!!  Can I officially say that we are back to "normal?"  What the heck IS normal, anyway? Frankie is doing fabulous. Even his pain levels have decreased some - he remains on the Duragesic patch, however, and Percocet for breakthrough pain.  He resumed the Gleevec (for the GIST cancer that he has) two days ago after a 2 month hold due to the surgery and all the complications that ensued.  Now that he is back on the Gleevec, the leg pain will resume full force.  I hope not - I truly do. But that side-effect is one he has always had with Gleevec.  But I'd rather him be alive than to stop the Gleevec all together and have the cancer return.  He feels the same way, although it was nice to have that little pill "vacation" for awhile!!!  It's like returning to work after a vacation. You don't really want to be there, but you have to because if you don't, how will the bills get paid?

I took a two photos of Frankie just about 10 minutes ago to show you how he's coming along. The first one is of him sitting in his favorite spot on the couch, eating a bowl of cereal.  The second one is of his drain-free belly!  All that's left is the incision (which is all healed up) and a band-aid over the drain site.  I'm keeping it there because he's a "picker" and always picks or peels scabs off before they are ready to come off. He even has scars from old scabs he's picked years ago. I told him if he even remotely touches the scab over that hole, that I will personally cut every one of his fingers off!  I'm mean, aren't I?  It's just that hole goes down into ultimately his intestines.  I don't want any repeat of infection or ANYTHING to land us back at square one again!!  Here's the pics for your viewing pleasure:

                

        NO DRAIN!!  Do ya like the neon green band-aid? :0)

Doesn't he look good, though?  He's pale, still, but his red blood cell count went from 8.2 to 10.  My mother-in-law's cooking is great AND very healing, since he is on NO iron supplements.  The only thing I have him on are Vitamin B Complex, Multivitamin, and his regular medications.  He can't really go out in the sun too much because of the medications he takes don't mesh well with sunlight.  If he sweats too much, his pain patches fall off or even worse, his body absorbs all the medication from it and he gets a little "loopy."  Luckily, that has happened only once. He sounded absolutely drunk that day and slept all day and all night!  So we try to keep him nice and cool. Which sometimes is very hard in steamy Arizona!!

Jackie feels left out, so I took a picture of him, too.  He is in his "house" which REALLY is his carrier. (Shhhh...don't tell him that!))  He loves his "house" and is in it quite frequently.  That or his little cat bed that I have right next to his "house."  He only wishes he could put the bed INSIDE the house....then he'd have it made!  But his bed is too big. :-(

Isn't he just adorable? He knows it, too.  Silly kitty!!!  He has both me AND my husband wrapped around his fuzzy tail!!  I just love his new "house", too. It's rugged and has rods inside that keep the ceiling up and the sides. His last carrier was awful....it was too soft and kept collapsing on him.  I've picked out from Amazon what looks closest to what Jack has now and the same price I paid for it, too.  I highly recommend it to any pet-owner!

Well, that pretty much is it.  I'm in a flare-up mode (when am I NOT is a better question!) and just so exhausted.  Like I can't ever make up sleep.  My limbs feel like heavy sand bags and when I get to my feet, all my weight just drops and my knees sometimes will buckle underneath me.  I cannot WAIT to start this Lap-band "journey" as they call it in their brochure.  Next Wednesday is the initial appointment where they tell me what insurance will pay and what we will pay.  I hope it's not too much....so please pray for me that it won't be bigger than the national debt! LOL!

Tim, the visiting nurse is coming over one last time to discharge Frankie off home health services.  I will miss him!  He's funny, nice and easy to talk to. Very helpful, too.  And then I have a doctor's appt. at 12:30.  Much to do yet I sit here playing on the computer.....

Be sure to check out my blog award page. I've entered more blog sites you MUST see...they are fantastic!  If you have a blog, leave the URL in my comments section and I will come visit your blog.  I love blog-hopping!

And PLEASE, please vote in my poll up above, to the left in the side bar. You can't miss it...it's the first item there.  I would greatly appreciate it!

You all have a fabulous Friday and a great weekend.  I hope you don't have flare-ups or pain of any kind, my friends.

God bless,
Until next post,
Missy

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1.03.01

Enough Is Enough!

I wouldn't believe all this could happen to us if I weren't living it day by day!  It just keeps going on and on, this nightmare of Frankie's post op course.  He is STILL in the hospital as I write this post.  Right now, that is where he needs to be.  As I ended the last post, when I went to check on Frankie in our bedroom, he had another temperature, his blood pressure was in the basement and he just had a pale look about him.  I received a phone call from Cigna insurance (they make a courtesy call every time Frankie uses the ER or urgent care to follow up on how he is doing) right then and I told the case manager all that had happened to date.  She was extremely caring and offered to call Frankie's surgeon for me and fill him in on what was happening. I could never get past the switchboard, so I figured if she could get in to talk to him, more power to her and I appreciated the help!  She called me back within 30 minutes and said that the surgeon was in surgery (imagine that!) and that his nurse was texting him the information. But she said that I should just take him back to the ER with his pressure being that low.  She also asked me about home health care and I told her we kept missing the nurse because of having to take Frankie to the hospital all the time. I also couldn't flush his drain like I should have because the discharge nurse only gave me ONE flush and I had used that the previous day.

So, my mother-in-law and I took Frankie back to the hospital.  In the ER, his pressure was still very low, so they hooked him up to some fluids and it came back up to life sustaining numbers.  He still looked deathly pale to me. Maybe it was my eyes or the lights in the room, but he just looked like a ghost.  He had to provide a urine sample and couldn't even do that, he was so dehydrated.  And that was after a whole night of pushing liquids down his poor throat!  I just feel for him so badly, it hurts. When will this stop? ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!

We weren't in the ER very long (only about 5 hours) and they got him a room way up on the 6th floor on the progressive telemetry (heart monitoring) unit.  They put him there probably because he was going in and out of atrial fib and his heart rate was variable from 90's to 140's.  Yesterday (Saturday) they replaced his JP drain in his abdomen, thinking maybe that was a source of infection and that is was clogged.  Gee, I wonder why! One can only do so much with ONE flush!  I just feel horrible that he had to go through the procedure again of having that drain replaced.  But, being the trooper that he is, he went and never complained about a single thing.  In fact, he kept apologizing about this whole mess.  I told him that not one thing was his fault. It's not like he was making his blood pressure low on purpose!  Silly guy.  We also saw the medical oncologist (his regular oncologist is on vacation and doesn't go to the hospital Frankie is at) who was really nice and suggested that we wait on restarting his cancer medication until we see Frankie's regular oncologist. That will give his body a rest so it can heal. His lab report showed anemia...hemoglobin of 8.4 (norm for men 14-18), which is why he is so pale, and his white cell count is down, too, meaning his immune system isn't fighting off germs as well as it should.  I hope they give him a blood transfusion, but the nurse there said that each doc has their own range of when to give a transfusion and she would see what they had ordered up for him.  Hopefully they will start him on some iron or something!

So that is pretty much up-to-date at where we stand right now.  It's a drizzly-rainy mess outside and the sky is gray.  Hmmm...matches my mood at this point.  Things just have to start turning around!  I feel like I'm starring in my own soap opera!  I just can't believe all that has happened in one month. I sure hope August is better!!  As far as I'm concerned, they can take July and drop it from the calendar!  Ever since my mom died in July, 2008, every July since then has been a problem.  I had that monster blood clot in my leg and was hospitalized in July 2009 and now all this in July 2010!!!  So NO MORE July on my calendar!

My fibro has been so bad, I don't know where to even begin on that.  My leg muscles feel stretched beyond their limit and I walk like a penquin if I don't have my walker with me.  It's such a pain to keep getting it in and out of the trunk of the car, so I use it for long trips such as going to the hospital or the store.  I sleep off and on, maybe 5 hours at best, if I'm lucky.  I just ache from head to toe and my temperature gauge is off....first I'm hot and sweaty and then the next second, I 'm cold.  And then my back has to add in to the fun and ache like a toothache and my discs that are pressing on my nerves in my legs are going full tilt.  So, as you can see, I feel just wonderful! NOT!  My body always reacts to the events in my life, so I'm not surprised by any of this.  I just hope it ends soon and we can go back to normal.....whatever the heck that is!!

Hope you all are happy and well. Thank you again for your continued support and notes of encouragement and prayer. I appreciate each and everyone of you and so does my husband.  We love ya all!!!

Until next post,
Missy

PS...at least with this hospitalization, Frankie can eat all he wants. He's on a regular diet and no naso-gastric tube this time!  So there IS one small ray of sunshine in all this mess!!  :0)

GIMME FOOD!

Howdy, all!

Are you sitting down? Ready for some GREAT news? Frankie can eat again!! On Friday he had his NG tube clamped and they started him on clear liquids. Because he doesn't like fruit (but he'll consume sweet and sour chicken like it's going out of style or have oatmeal with raisins but yet he doesn't like fruit!) the clear liquid diet was NOT made with Frankie in mind.  They sent up cherry Jell-o, mango ice popcicle, apple juice, chicken broth and coffee. The only thing he liked was the chicken broth, but because he hadn't eaten in a month, it was too rich for him. So he had half of that and my mother-in-law made him some iced tea and he gluggled that down like a man just coming in from a 40 day trek out in the desert!

Yesterday (Saturday), they started him on full liquids since he did really well with keeping everything down from Friday. He had a little bit of nausea, but I think some of it is in his head since he hasn't had food in so long and the previous trials at it failed, his brain could be causing the nausea because its so used to feeling it! The brain is very mysterious!  So we got his mind onto other things - his pocket poker game- and he was OK.  He also gets nausea meds with his Morphine now.  We got him off the Dilaudid (Thank God!) and onto the Morphine.  I hope to wean him off of that before he comes home.  He can continue the same meds his pain specialist in Scottsdale has him on at home, they worked just fine!  He still is in significant pain in his legs still, even though he has been off the Gleevec for a month.  Maybe his pain is NOT from the Gleevec. Oh well, that investigation will have to come later. When Frankie gets out of the hospital, we are working on ME next. I want to start the process of getting that lap band so I can start losing weight to feel better and maybe I can work again.  Isn't THAT a novel thought?  I haven't worked in two years and I'll have to take a nursing refresher course if I don't work in five years. So I have three years to get in tip-top shape!!!  So Schranz Boot Camp, here I come!! LOL!!

Back to Frankie...according to the CT scan of Friday night, the hematoma in his abdomen has shrunk some, but not enough to remove the drain yet.  At least he will be getting rid of the NG tube. I'll take my camera and get a picture of this milestone.  I have all the pictures in a folder called "Frankie's Recovery."  I'll even get a picture of him eating dinner tonight; that will be a sight I haven't seen in some time!!!

Well, better get to the hospital to see my man.  I need to keep him motivated. Walk. Sit in the chair. Take a short nap. Repeat process.  No holds barred...we are sooo close to bringing Frankie home that I can taste it!!

Hope you all are happy and well and trying to stay cool.  We had a little reprieve from the heat on Friday when it rained so hard and cooled things down a little. Then the rain stopped and yesterday the heat returned in full force.  Hot and sticky....my favorite combination.....yeah, right! LOL!

Thank you all for your continued support, prayers and kind words.  My fibro is doing the same, I'm no worse for wear.  I still have the horrible leg cramps, but I think they will relax some now that I know Frankie is going to be OK and not require anymore surgery. I was so worried about that.  And maybe I can go back to sleeping better, but that may be when he gets home and is with me in the bed again.  I miss that!!  So keep everything crossed he comes home this coming week.  Wouldn't that be just absolutely fantastic??

Big, gentle hugs for everyone,
Until next post,
Missy