I started my blog with the intention of faithfully keeping it current, but then life just exploded. 'So many things have changed over the past few years that even now I can hardly grasp what has happened to my little family. Hopefully over the next posts I can share and begin to deal with all that has happened. I feel it is important to share what we have experienced- maybe it can help someone else as they navigate the murky waters of healthcare.
In some of my last posts, I recounted how in 2010 that both Len and I had a reoccurrence of cancer. That seemed awfully tough at the time, but little did I know that worse was even to come! In 2011 Len was yet again diagnosed with cancer... colon cancer yet again. He was tested to see if it was genetic and thankfully it was not (we have a son and were concerned about his odds of this occurring to him). He underwent his 3rd colon cancer surgery and were told that he was once again all clear. That was a good report for certain because they discovered that the cancer cells were the type that did not respond to chemo. Makes me wonder now if the first 2 times of surgery/chemo that it was the same way and the horrible chemo experience for him didn't really need to occur. Well, we will never know and I try not to dwell on that.
At the beginning of 2012 Len underwent his follow-up colonoscopy and to our horror we discovered that the cancer had returned. This time we knew the surgery would involve having a permanent ileostomy (bowel routed to outside to drain into a bag attached to his abdomen), Len was very concerned by this but I just kept reassuring him that it would be okay and that I would help deal with it. He had his surgery March 1st and all seemed to go well. The surgeon assured us that the surgery had gone smoothly and despite finding a tumor outside the bowel, he felt he had got all the cancer out. The first day he slept a lot but was more awake the next day. The days following were NOT so good at all. He progressively became "sleepier and sleepier", would not eat or drink, and was lethargic. I told every doctor and every nurse and every PERSON that stepped into his room that something was wrong, that he normally bounced back rapidly from surgery. They all reassured me that it was normal after a "big surgery" like he had done. A little over a week later, I found out in a hard way that this was NOT true.
About 8 days after surgery, I walked into his hospital room to find him totally non-responsive, ashen-colored, and his oxygen saturations were in the 40's. The alarm on his monitor was ringing continuously but NOBODY was responding to it. I ran into the hallways and yelled for help. His nurse finally came and then called for respiratory therapy to come. Nothing they did helped. I asked her if he was in a coma and she replied, "No, why would you ask that?" Well.... uh, he is nonresponsive, his breathing had changed and he had no spontaneous movement at all. Eventually a doctor was summoned and he told us that he WAS comatose and that he must be moved to ICU immediately and put on a ventilator. They rushed him to ICU, put a tube down his throat to his lungs, and put him on the ventilator. His blood pressure was low so they had to start medicine drips to help keep it up enough to circulate blood to vital organs. He was diagnosed with Massive Overwhelming Sepsis (severe infection in blood stream) and it was causing his body to shut down. Several IV antibiotics were started and I breathed a sigh of relief, believing that these would soon take care of the problem and he would be fine. NOPE, it was the continuation of a nightmare for us and him. What followed was an ordeal of a broken body, medical errors, happenstance, and horror. I will delve into those things here in future posts.
