Michael is doing fine and resting comfortably but he had a rough day. One of the tests he had today involved getting a new IV in one of the most sensitive parts of the arm which, because he was severely dehydrated, took multiple attempts and several hours. I guess I jinxed him during the morning update post when I said today’s tests wouldn’t cause him additional discomfort. 😬

He ended up having a barrage of tests that took well into the afternoon so he was pretty wiped out by the time it was all over. That, combined with the uncertainty of what was causing the blood pressure issues, took its toll on him so it was probably the most difficult day he’s had since leaving ICU. 

The good news is that they’ve ruled out things like sepsis and most other concerns that would be considered major setbacks and have narrowed it down to a bladder infection being the most likely suspect. After a day of speculative conversations that went in a lot of directions, I was really glad to hear that it might come down to that because it’s easy to fix. We’re still waiting for the results, which will come in overnight or first thing in the morning. 

This is probably a somewhat scattered and boring update but please be assured it’s not because anything is wrong that I’m not sharing. It’s just been a long day for both of us and I’ve got a few logistical things to take care of before I can turn in so I’m going to leave it here. I’ll be back in the morning with fresh eyes and more news. ❤️

Michael’s night was overall fine but he needed some pain meds for discomfort. His vitals are acting up a little, particularly his blood pressure which keeps dipping lower than it should. Despite that, he still feels fine so that’s a good sign. (And, to ease any concerns, Michael has always had unnervingly low blood pressure to begin with but extensive cardiac work ups in the last couple of years confirm that’s just how his body is. Of course, in medical situations, that doesn’t give him a lot of wiggle room if it dips. So a small drop from someone with BPs in the standard adult range wouldn’t be a big deal but he doesn’t have the same cushion.)

They’re running a few tests this morning to get to the bottom of it but they’re non-invasive so they aren’t causing him any additional discomfort. Rest assured, the staff has said everything they’re doing is precautionary to catch anything before it has a chance to become something.

I’ll be back this evening with more information, or sooner if there’s any news to share before then. ❤️

Michael is doing well and resting comfortably after an up and down day with his energy levels. As I mentioned this morning, the doctors overcorrected with a medication that ended up lowering his blood pressure more than was healthy for him. They gave him a little of this and a little of that to bring it back up and it stayed just fine the rest of the day, so that little health detour is behind him.

However, another equally solvable issue cropped up as a result of that medication. Michael ended up very dehydrated and is now back on a cocktail of IV fluids to get that resolved. This wasn’t carelessness by his doctors, but rather it came about because Michael has two things working against him: a new GI system and that frustrating drain. 

Michael can’t eat or drink too much all at once until his system is done re-learning how to behave, so he can’t guzzle water as needed like the rest of us to stay on top of his hydration needs. Meanwhile, the drain is pulling fluids as intended but that means Michael has to do a delicate dance between not drinking so much that his system get irritated but drinking enough to offset what the drain collects. That was going well until the one-time medication came along and upset the apple cart. But, like I said, this is solvable through IV hydration which is much easier for the doctors to fine tune as they go. 

So that’s where we are now. All his labs and vitals still look good, he has an appetite, and is up walking around regularly. Unfortunately, this has added some time to his stay so we may now be looking at not going home until closer to the end of the week. That’s definitely not what we wanted to hear but we’re focused on the fact(s) that he’s not in danger, his overall recovery timeline is right where it needs to be, and he’s not in any kind of pain (there’s mild discomfort as his system rebuilds, but not enough to even need painkillers). 

As far as setbacks go — and I hesitate to even call it that — this is very minor and in no way life-threatening. Let’s call it a nuisance.

Tomorrow will involve sitting around watching him rehydrate and sleep. It sounds boring but I’m grateful for it because no other alternative would do. 

I’ll be back with another update in the morning after the doctors come by. ❤️

Sorry for the late update but I was waiting for doctors and whatnot. Micheal is doing fine but there was a small hiccup overnight with his blood pressure, which dipped lower than it should have. It is back up to normal after he got some additional fluids and now he just needs to sleep off the effects.

The doctors believe this is a result of a one-time medication they gave him and not an indication of anything going wrong that’s related to his surgery. They were trying to clear up the drain issue he’s been having (which they seemed to be able to do by the time I left yesterday) but one of the doctors thinks they may have overcompensated a little bit. He was monitored continuously while it was low and all other vitals and cardiac stuff stayed looking just fine.

I’d venture a guess this has delayed his release by a day or so but only because they’ve been consistently overly cautious and I’m certainly a big fan of that. I’ll be back this evening with another update. ❤️

I am back this evening with a broken record update. We took another four laps around the unit this afternoon and Michael has spent another full day resting. I can tell he continues to improve because he looked over at me today and said, “you know what’s ironic?” I said, “no, what?”

“Rain on your wedding day.” 

Bad dad jokes are a bold move for someone who will be at my mercy once we leave here. 😂

Anyway, Michael has had another big improvement besides getting his funny bone back. The drain situation has improved dramatically since yesterday and the weekend doctor reinforced that they can send him home with it if need be. So we were glad to hear once again that drain removal isn’t a requirement for him to go home. 

There’s still not much news on his release date but Michael’s main docs have been gone all weekend so we weren’t expecting any. His surgeon is still out of town but the other doctors on the team also have decision-making authority so I expect we’ll get a clearer picture on that tomorrow. At this point he has no IVs, is eating well, is fully mobile with no assistance, and feels… well, not great of course, but is feeling well enough to satisfy the doctors. It’s been a challenging week for him but as recoveries go, his has been astonishingly rapid. 

I’ll be back tomorrow morning with a new update as soon as we see the doctor. ❤️

All is well here in Miami. I was hoping the doctors would come through earlier today so I held off on an update, especially because there’s nothing major to report. But I’m not sure when they’ll stop by so I thought in the meantime I’d let everyone know he’s still doing just fine.

Eating has been giving Michael some acid and heartburn issues for the last 18 hours or so, which is part of the healing process. It made him not feel like eating breakfast so they gave him some pain and heartburn meds and he’s feeling much better now. In fact, we just came back from four laps around the unit (new record!) and then he downed an Ensure so hes definitely doing better.

Sundays are quiet as a church around here so he should be able to get plenty of sleep today. We’ll still have the weekend doctors on rounds today so I doubt I’ll be able to glean too much info while they’re here but I’ll be back with an evening update either way sometime after 9:00 pm. ❤️

As predicted, today was a very quiet day. There was more walking, sleeping, and a shower but little else to note. The hospital food isn’t too great but they do allow me to get stuff from the cafeteria for Michael so he was pretty happy about a chance to have some familiar and predictable cereal. Even their sugar-free jello is a step up and contains some fruit. 

Michael’s labs and blood sugars look good and he’s having no issues with eating. I’ll spare everyone the squicky details but one of the only lingering issues is with his drain. It’s not causing him any pain or discomfort but they want the drain arrangement to reach a particular benchmark it hasn’t gotten to yet. No one is concerned and it doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong, it’s just taking a while for the drain to do what they want. 

The hospital is really good and they’ve been taking excellent care of Michael. Tomorrow is likely to be another slow news day so I’ll check back in sometime in the mid-morning after the doctor swings through. ❤️

It’s only 8:00 am and Michael has already had a great morning! After what he says was “the best night of sleep he’s had since surgery,” he’s seen the doctor walked around a bit, and sat up in the chair. 

The doctor says Michael continues to do great and he can now have soft food! He even said I’m allowed to bring in any outside food that is on the approved list from the dietician yesterday. The psychological factor of being able to choose his own foods will no doubt be a big help toward his recovery. 

The doctor said everything else with Michael looks just fine and there are no concerns. They would like to see a little less fluid in his drain before they send him home but they’re in no way alarmed by it. Overall, it sounds like that’s the last of the hurdles before they boot us back home. 

Michael is able to hold longer conversations,   stays awake for longer stretches, is joking around, and overall getting back to his old self. The biggest clue that he’s feeling better is when he discreetly asked today if I could acquire a small item for his roommate, who needs something and has no visitors. Five days out from major, major surgery and he’s already looking out for the people around him. Show of hands, who’s thinking, “yeah, that’s the Michael I know”?  He really is the kindest soul. 

Since he’s doing so well and it’s a Saturday, it’s unlikely the doctor will swing by again today so I imagine this evening’s update will be even shorter than this. And that’s what we want because no news is good news. ❤️

Michael had another great day. He spent it slurping jello and juice, sleeping, and then sleeping some more. Eating didn’t give him any unexpected issues but he will still need to take it slow while his system figured out what just happened to it. 

A couple of new data points from the doctor. Today we learned they removed about 15% of his stomach. As a frame of reference, gastric sleeve surgery typically removes about 80% of the stomach, so the fraction they removed from Michael is negligible. The eating challenge is more about the digestive enzymes throughout the GI tract relearning their job than a smaller stomach size being an issue. Since they also removed his gallbladder (standard in this procedure) and the tumor pushed a bunch of organs around to make room for itself, essentially everything in his body that’s related to food management needs to figure out how to work together going forward. So far, they seem to be learning their new jobs well. 

We also learned today that the doctors won’t know if he will need radiation or follow-up chemo until the entire pathology report comes back sometime next week. The good news is that when we asked the doctor, he said it depends on that report and not, “oh gosh yes, you need it as soon as possible.” He then mentioned some positive signs he saw during surgery that also reduce the possibility, but we’ll have to wait for the final report to know for sure. 

And, finally, one of the hospital’s dieticians stopped in to talk about Michael’s future nutritional needs. I won’t bore you with all the details of that but he can eat mostly normally by the time he’s released but will need to avoid hard to digest food for a couple months. So, no cabbage rolls and roasted broccoli for a while, I guess. He should be able to eat nearly anything he wants in the next few weeks (with an eye on what’s best for his diabetes). 

Speaking of boring, I know I’m coughing up a lot of details in these posts and I don’t expect people to give all these long-winded essays their undivided attention. But different people want to know different things so I’m trying to cover all the bases and trying to reduce the number of duplicate questions Michael will be asked down the road. There’s nothing wrong with questions, of course! It means people care! Info dumps like this just seem like the best way to answer as much as possible at one time. 

Tomorrow will probably be the slowest news day yet. Ancillary staff is gone for the weekend so there won’t be any departments other than nursing checking in, and the lead docs are out tomorrow so one of their colleagues will be stopping by in their absence. 

Thanks again for everyone’s support. ❤️

It’s been a busy morning for Michael so this update is a little late, but everything is going well and he hasn’t had any issues or setbacks. Since his tube came out this morning, Michael has been enjoying his water with the gusto of someone rescued from the desert and he’s tolerating it just fine. He had his first water around 7:00 and by 10:00 they said he was getting a full lunch tray of clear foods! If that goes well, he graduates to bland solids and then protein-rich, low-fat regular food.

After the big water moment, Michael got up and showered then we walked a couple laps around the unit. He’s no longer a fall risk so they said he’s free to walk as much as he wants. I figured we’d slowly creep around the unit, but no. He cruised down the hallway at a regular clip and, had it not been for the fancy hospital gown, he could have been mistaken for a visitor. 

The doctor looking after him while his main doctor is out of town says he’s doing wonderfully (he was in the OR so he’s been with Michael from the beginning). He allowed the final IV to come out and, though many patients are routinely sent home with their temporary drain, they may also remove that soon too. He also said his incision looks great and there are no signs of internal leakage at any of the re-connection sites. 

There’s still no word on when he gets to go home but we seem to be getting to that point quickly. They don’t speculate on release dates so patients don’t get their hopes up but they did tell us before surgery of the milestones they watch for and Michael has been leaping over those hurdles like a champ so it won’t be long now. 

This afternoon will be all about seeing how his food settles and also trying to get more sleep. The doctor will probably be back at least once more as well. If you had told me last week or even Monday (especially Monday!) that Michael would be zipping through the halls and ducking into the shower unassisted by Friday I would have laughed myself silly. He is blowing my mind with his recovery process, his attitude, and his rapid healing. 

Is it weird to say I’m proud of him? Well, I am. The last two years have been harder on him than anyone reading this will ever know. He endured ghastly side effects from various treatments, hundreds of tests, multiple letdowns from surgeons who didn’t feel comfortable taking on his case, and endless fear that he’d run out of time to find a definitive treatment. He never lost hope and kept going even when it looked like that hope was running out. Michael has referred to cancer as a battle and I’ve never seen a more heroic warrior in my life. 

I’ll be back tonight after 9:00 with the next update. ❤️