<$BlogRSDURL$>

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

(Dave is transcribing this:)

My dear friends,

Two days after my 'good news', I started not to feel so well (on Saturday). At the moment I'm at the UW Hospital. Evidently, sometime on Saturday I went through a severe bowel perforation. I guess the chemo worked too well and burned a hole through my colon. I've never been through such extreme pain in my life, even after having two babies without even a Tylenol. In the middle of the night on Saturday, Dave insisted we go to the hospital, and he called 911 for an ambulance. It was snowing, but the ambulance got me to the UW Hospital early Sunday morning. I had to have emergency surgery, where they removed my nasty colon. I proably will have an ileostomy bag for the rest of my life, but since it got rid of what was the source of my constant discomfort and pain, I'm not so sure I'm terribly upset about this. What does upset me is how weak I seem to feel, but I guess its only 3 days from surgery, and I'm still in ICU. The good news from the CT/PET hasn't changed any, and in fact there was still a little 'hot spot' on my colon, but it's now gone! They got me up to walk today, which was painful but I walked across the room and the nurse promised me an M&M if I did it. She brought me a whole (small) package, not just one - 'I can't believe I ate the whole thing'!! This means I won't be on chemo until I recover from the surgery, which also may be a good thing, as I'm ready for a break from the chemo. But it may actually be eaiser for me to deal with the chemo in the future, since it bothered my colon the most, andits gone! My husband is a good writer, but I"m not sure I trust him (verbatim transcription!!!!!!)

I want to thank the people that have found out and visited me-- you are so wonderful! I'm praying for a speedy recovery because this is not very much fun. (The morphine they gave me gave me good dreams, but now they've taken it away! But the oxydodone also does the same thing. Then I wake up and realize I can't move very well and can't go home yet. I know Apolo misses me, but my Mom is here to help. But there is no way I could be at home right now).

So I hope to get back toTYPING MY OWN blog soon. What a journey this is.