Recovery

Well, the surgery is over, but it didn't start out well. Jim needed platelets. They gave him 4 units. They put them in soooooooo fast. His eyes started to itch, and I noticed a swelling underneath his eye about the size of a 1/2 of a pencil eracer. The nurse told us to get him if Jim has any reactions. Normally Jim would be calling the nurse right away, but he had just put cleaning gel on his hands and thought he got some in his eyes. But I went to get the nurse and when I came back in, the swelling was about the size of a dime, and then a quarter and then the other eye. They had to rush in and take his vitals, which turned out to be okay, but they had to rush and give him some IV benadryl. He was having an allergic reaction to the platelets. In pre-op he started to cough. I know they were concerned about his throat closing, but I guess it was okay.

Down in the prep room, they could not find a vein to put an IV in. Because he was NPO, he was a bit dehydrated, and they couldn't stick him. They decided to use his hand, which causes extreme pain and he screamed out. It almost killed me. I can't take this poor dear having any more pain.

All of this delayed his surgery.

But now Jim's out of surgery. The doc spent about 15 mins with me explaining what they did and why. It's not pretty. They had to do a Seton, and with Jim's bowel problems, it's tricky. He's not out of the recovery room. He will be on the pain pump again, because this is painful. There are many many hygiene issues and needs. One of them is that Jim has to bath often, and when he has a BM he has to sit on the edge of the tub and spray his bottom off with water because he has strings hanging out of his rectum, and they will get dirty. Then there is wrapping and such that has to go on. Every week or so, Jim will have to go to the doctor and they will have to tighten the string a bit further until it cuts through his sphincter muscle. If they had cut straight thought it, he would have been incontinent. Seton is inserting the string so that all of that is avoided. Plus the string provides drainage.

Well, I know that I'm on my own here Health America will not provide any home nurse care for Jim. So this is scary. And how do I do this when we drive to the NCI? What if he has to go to the bathroom on the way there? And how do I do this at the hotel room? What if they don't have a shower hickie?

OH MY. How do I do it at home. There is broken tile laying in my bathroom. I'm handy, but I can't go home and repair my bathroom. Calgon, take me away. I guess Jim can bath without the tile being repaired, although he'll say he can't. I may be able to install the hand held thing. Does anybody know if they still sell those rubber hand held shower hose thingies that you can put right over the tub downspout so that Jim can use it as a butt cleaner? LOL. I'm sorry. Geeze....Hey, it is what it is.

MARK..........HELP!!!! I don't know where we would be without Mark. For those of you who don't know, Mark is my sister's husband. He's a wonderful man. MARK.....HELP!!!!!

Okay, well. I have to say, it's a miracle that Jim is alive after all this. Heck it's a miracle that I'm alive. A year of straight chemo is enough to kill him alone, but with all these other problems and such, I really do think it's a miracle that he's still got fight in him.

This rectum/anus problem can cause a lot of complications for Jim. Cleanliness is key to there not being an infection. Doctor Crandall called the NIH and they said that as long as the fluid and other stuff is draining and there is not an infection, they will do the SCT. The hanging strings are not only there to tighten cut off the muscle slowly, but to help provide drainage, and they can't clog. We also don't know if the tightening of the strings to slowly cut through the muscle so it's not damaged, will be done before the STC. If not, that provides problems as well, because Jim will be so weakened and cleanliness again is the issue.

Also, Jim cannot be constipated or have too loose of a stool. This is another hurdle that we have no idea how we will leap through, as Jim's bowel problems are what caused this is in the first place.

Well, that's enough of that for a while. It will definately be a miracle if Jim gets through this. This is just too unbelievable. What a strange trip it's been.