Day 19 - Surgery #4

Nate went down to prep for surgery at 10:45 this morning. He was anxious to get surgery #4 over with so he could start "healing with purpose", and not just laying in bed waiting for another surgery. As anesthesiology prepped him, three different doctors asked him when the last time was that he had anything to eat. Nate politely told the first two that it was last Monday. When the third one asked the same question, Nate just looked at me like, "What the heck?", so I stepped in and answered that it was 7 days ago, yes, 7 days. Nate's been very patient through this, and I truly don't know how he's managed to do it without getting grumpy.

They finally took him to the O.R. at 11:45, and started the surgery at 12:15. It was a long 2 1/2 hour wait until Dr. Lambert came to find me in the waiting room. Nate's white blood count was up pretty high today, so they were anxious to get inside to see what was going on. Dr. Lambert found a big pocket of infection just under the ruptured bowel. She was able to clean it out and place a drain so fluid and infection wouldn't accumulate. He's still on four antibiotics so he should be covered for whatever he might have going on.

Everything in his abdominal cavity is still pretty swollen, but they were able to close him up (sigh of relief), and pull his illiostomy up enough for it to function properly. They sutured his abdominal muscles together tighter than normal to allow for the muscles to relax as they heal. This causes a tight, painful feeling. Nate has to be really careful not to strain these muscles for the next couple of months. He's in a lot of pain, but I think it's controlled as much as possible right now.

Nate will have to stay in the ICU until at least Wednesday. They can take his NG tube out as soon as his bowels start working again. He might be able to have sips of clear fluids on Wednesday, but will be on ice chips only until then. He's starting to get a little hungry, so it's getting hard for him.

After he gets out of the ICU, he'll be transferred back up to the 7th floor Oncology Unit. At that point, he'll be working on advancing his diet, getting some strength back by walking, pain control, waking up his bowels, getting over the infection, and wound healing. As you can see, his I.V. pole is full again! We love to see them take things away, and we love to see a "skinny" I.V. pole! It's a sure sign that things are getting better, and we know it's coming!

Dr. Lambert thinks Nate will be in the hospital for another two weeks, and another week at the Hope Lodge. We can't wait to get home!


The silver lining to all of this...? I mentioned in an earlier post that during Nate's second surgery, Dr. Lambert was able to see that the HIPEC seemed to work on the mucin on the small bowel and that there was a little left on the colon that looked compromised. When she went in this time, she couldn't see any sign of cancer anywhere! It definitely makes this all seem more worth while. We're so thankful for this blessing. We don't have a great way of tracking Nate's cancer, so we've been anxious about what had to be left after the first surgery. It's a huge blessing that Dr. Lambert was able to get a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th look at the aftermath of the HIPEC.

We weren't sure how much of this information we should share because we are feeling pretty guarded about it. Nate definitely isn't out of the woods with this cancer, but we know how many of you have fasted and prayed on his behalf that he could have a successful surgery, and we wanted you to know that many of our prayers have been answered. We've seen so many blessings come our way, and we know that our (meaning ours and yours), combined faith have brought miracles. We want to share our victories with you and hope we can convey our gratitude to all of you.

Nate will still have to do more systemic chemo after we get home, and after he recovers for a while. It'll be the same regimen as before, but they'll substitute one of the drugs for a different one. The hope is that the chemo will kill whatever cancer cells still remain in Nate's body.

Nate's excited to be able to sit up tomorrow and possibly get out of his bed for awhile. We miss our friends, Tara and Andy. They were a great support for us during this particularly hard week. We love you guys!