getting a round to the blog

All is well. On the cancer front his next scans are in Boston in January. But that's peanuts compared to what else is up! On 9-29-09 Aylin Grace was born at 8lbs 4oz 21 inches! Life with such a long awaited child is awesome!

Stolen car returned

We got the car back. We got a call to meet the officer where the car was parked. They had found where the guys were staying. The "bad guys" ran out of the back of the house, but... one of them said to the other, "don't forget to grab the keys" (the keys to our car) they said as they ran out the door in their underwear. They know who the guy is and know some of the places he hangs out. So... they value our keys more than they value pants. a bit disconcerting! Needless to say, the locks on Dave's car will be getting changed out. (a key to his car is on my key chain) The Subaru was used as a "get away" vehicle to break into someone else's home. They stripped the guy's house clean and loaded it all into our car. Our car is missing the kayak rack, tie down straps, car seat, speakers, radio, .... and they slashed the dash board, put graffiti on the steering wheel, .... They got frustrated with the sun roof. Its been broken for years. It will open, sort of, then not close. It looks like they ripped it apart trying to close it. In the mean time, the "cow horn necklace" that Liam just got, the necklace he made for me, and the special rosary I keep in the car have all been recovered. (they actually hung the rosary from the rear view mirror!) The car smells bad so in addition to all of the repairs, it would need to be detailed before any of us drive it! We hope to have a claims adjuster here soon.

The subaru has been stolen but the nursery only needs one thing - just a baby. 4wks to go till the due date.

Utter shock! The only Dunkin Donuts in town does not have decaf ice coffee! Only hot decaf or reg iced! Oh am i glad i got a big one when

Yay! We are home!

Left MA on sunday. Really enjoyed seeing all the rocks and hills as we left MA. Didnt realize how much we missed the north east geology. (

all clear

The results of the scans are great. What a relief. Next scans in January.

Back to Bean town

We are back in New England for a few days. Dave has another set of scans in Boston on Friday the 10th. I am fully prepared, I think, for another "spot scare" where they find some mysterious spot to scare us with and it turns out to be nothing. We have been through that a few times already. We get the results on Tuesday at 4pm or so. We can get more scans that night if needed. In the mean time, we have a special wedding to attend (two people I introduced are getting married), some time with Grammy and Pop pop, some time with Grammy and Grandpa, then off to home. It takes us awhile to drive from here to Milwaukee. Although it is technically only 17 hours of driving, we tend to stop a lot.

"A near miss"

In February, about a week before Dave went to the hospital, he had an evening where he did not feel well (vomiting and general ucky). At the time we just assumed it was a short lived bug. He felt fine the very next day! Once he was hospitalized (a week later) we realized that maybe what he had the week prior was actually some early symptoms we just didn't know enough to realize. Last week Dave had another "ucky" evening. We called some local Doctors that we had gotten to know back in February. He ended up seeing his general physician who took some X-rays. The x-ray seemed to show some build up with a potential for a larger event brewing. 2 days on a liquid diet, some things to help the build-up move along, and all (crossing fingers) seems well again. Maybe if we can catch these warnings, we can prevent another trip to the hospital. In the mean time, my pregnancy is doing well. At 22 weeks. The ultra-sound showed a healthy baby ______ (if you really want to know the gender you will just have to contact me at this point). The belly is very in front and ball-like! I have only put on 5 lbs. When I was pregnant with Liam I could not wear my rings at 12 weeks. The pregnancy ended with some ugly pre-clampsia . I am still able to spin my rings so I think I can hope to avoid the pre-clampsia this time around! I had to work on Saturday and Sunday this weekend. The weather was wonderful which made it an easy couple of shifts. I had asked for either Mothers Day weekend or Memorial Day weekend off. We hope to have some fun family time together on Monday / Memorial Day. Kayaking maybe? -K

not much to say...

I have heard there is someone, that has complained a few times that I have not updated the blog. Okay, JM, here ya go! Dave eats, works, and has all functions up and running. He is back to his usual routine with no changes in life style. Liam is smart, busy with Swimming, indoor preseason baseball, Irish Dance, and occasionally attends Fencing on Saturdays. It looks like, per his request, he will be taking violin lessons this summer. When school starts he will have to chose only 3 activities to carry over into the school year. They stock the local park's ponds with full grown edible fish in March and only kids are allowed to fish for a month. He will probably get dragged to the edge of the pond a few times later this month due to his mom's excitement over it all... not because he wants to exactly! Kerri is pregnant, 11 weeks, less tired, less nausea, but kind of cranky and withdrawn. Although I have a provider for my pre-natal care - the place is a factory and about as personal as a brick wall. So I am still looking for the OB that I would want for to attend the birth (and maybe I will get lucky and find one that Tricare health insurance actually will cover!). I have secured a Doula that is prior military. Liam knows about the baby, is still convinced it is going to be a "sister", and is very excited. I have an ultrasound scheduled for May 11th. At this point Tricare is saying they won't cover it. So "the factory" is working on figuring out what to do about that. If they do the ultrasound, at that point, we would know, and tell ya-all the gender. is that better? Sincerely The pregnant cranky pants!

Drum Roll Please.......

The news of the day is: We have one healthy flashing "Lima Bean." At this stage it is not really shaped at all like a baby. More just a Lima Bean with a heart beat. The heart beat flashes on the ultrasound. I am at "7 weeks 5 days" and the size of the "bean" measures correctly for how far along. All is well. The due date is Oct 4th. I have some names of some OBs. I need to see if they take our insurance. Meeting them will be the next step.

Home

He is home. Tired. But ready to be home! He is being told to eat a few small meals every day, and never eat just one big meal per day. They never found the cause so the can only assume it was some scar tissue acting up. We are just so relieved he is home.

Feb 2 - It was the worst of times, it was the best of times.....

This morning was awful. I have never seen Dave so low. We have been through a lot! He was not crying. He was not moaning. He was just slumped over and deathly still and quiet. He said some things that really shook me up. The humor was gone, heck... it felt like the light was fading. We went down together to the X-ray department and stayed there for a few hours. They put contrast down the (NG) tube (so he wouldn't have to drink the nasty stuff) and then using an X-Ray machine tracked it's progress looking for blockages of any kind in the small intestine. At one point the surgeon caught up with us there, and said that if this scan showed a blockage, the surgery would be tonight! After over 3? hours they brought him to his room for over 2 hours, then brought him back for the final check with X-Ray to make sure the contrast made it to the large intestine (the Large intestine they have looked at backwards and forwards these last few days, so if they made it there, he was in the clear - no surgery!!). The radiologist told us that it made it through with no sign of any problems anywhere. We got back to the room. The Coast Guard Chaplin came in at that point and did an amazing job of telling funny anecdotal stories and breathed some life and fresh air into the room. Dave had trouble talking from the tube, and I had been tapped beyond my abilities to give any more. I was worried that it would take hours to get the tube out ("Sorry, can't do it until the doctor signs this and he just launched in the space shuttle, gotta go, another patient needs me." type fear) The nurse came in quickly and removed effectively that Nasty Gross (NG) Tube that went up his nose down into his stomach. The sun was setting casting a glow on the buildings as we could see from his room on the 11th floor for miles. (Wisconsin is very flat!) But it felt like, to us, that the sun was rising!!! What an awesome relief!!! Within moments Dave seemed to spring to life!!!! I really want to just spend the night calling everyone and sharing the good news. But... in my gut, ....I know it is time to sleep a long deep sleep. (8:30 pm to 6:30 am ought to do the trick!) There may still be a few days in the hospital ahead - I think they have to have his system up and running right before they can release him. Chicken stock and jello will probably be his diet for a bit! If you are local, visit his room. Patient Tower - 11th floor - 131. As of 8 am, call my cell if you want... no fear of bothering me! (if you are one of the few with the phone number to his room, go ahead and call it tomorrow) I will pick Liam up from school and take him in to see Daddy around 2:45.. We are so excited! Thank you all so much for all of your support. It has been amazing!!!! The folks here were right on top of pitching in to help. And many folks were wonderful over the phone just letting me vent! Thank you! Thank you!! Thank you!!!

baby steps

All - Okay... so the new phone is cool and fancy and all... But I can't figure out how to send an email from it! So if I can't post to the blog with the phone, what good is it?!?! I will try to figure that mystery out over the next few days. In the mean time you get stuck hearing me blog when I am home and wiped out tired. So this will be short and ... whatever... (probably not sweet). The nasty "NG" tube is still up his nose down into his throat. It is not longer attached to suction (minor relief) but to a "gravity bag"... To sum up, it is one step closer to getting the thing out! Monday morning they will be performing a "small bowel follow through" exam. They will get some contrast down into his stomach (via nasty tube so he does not have to swallow it) and then they watch how it progresses through the system. There will be lots of trips to radiology to monitor the contrast's progress and such. This should finally put some of the mystery to rest on where exactly the hold up was/(is?). I have a new phone but the same cell phone number I've had for almost 6 years. There does however seem to be a new email address to this phone. Dishes, Laundry, Pay bills, and then off to bed. Thanks for reading. -Kerri

The nasty tube is still up the nose and down into the stomach. But its not attached to suction but is now on a gravity bag. It is a step c

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They ran some cultures on some samples. All day yest. they had this whole yellow gown rule if anyone came into the room. Which they imposed after we had napped in his bed together. So i really thought it was silly for me to wear. Any-who... He tested negative for the nasty one they were most worried about (C-Dif) so they got rid of yellow gown rule! Its so sad that that little bit feels like progress! Last night i mentioned he was having a mini colonoscopy this morning. The doctor called to say everything looked fine. That is sort of good news. It would be easier if he were to say "this heres yer problem...." which he would never say anyways.... Little Asian guys just dont say things like that. The coast guard chaplain came by last night. Dave thought it was funny that he came looking like a chaplain instead of a coastie because its easier for him to get around the hospital in that look. Dave is snoring (drugs from procedure still zonking him out) i am going to see about a new phone.

"Intestinal Track 101"

To be very frank, we know a lot more big words to describe what could possibly be happening in his intestines, and what are the possible ways of treating it, but they still don't seem to know the location or cause of the problem - in him - this week!!! They don't have a game plan. Part of this is because with bowel blockage type problems, some of it is a wait and see game. So even if today were a day in the middle of the week, instead of a weekend, we would probably be in the same place. However, it is a weekend, and all of the faces we met on Friday have someone covering for them over the weekend, we have had a lot of faces that try to grasp the case history (can you imagine telling that story 5 times in 2 days.?...) as well as each of them try to communicate their suspicions, thoughts, theories, (blah, blah blah....)..... Dave is medically improving, emotionally slipping. This kind of blind sided him and when Doctors do this "intestines 101" type stuff it gets frustrating and depressing. He just wants to come home. His stomach no longer hurts. But the tube (NG) is still attached and is causing a lot of irritation in the sinuses. We did get him walking a bit today (no, I was NOT going to tell him - that I told the nurse - to get him to do it). They have added a new team member - a gastroenterologist - because he has some white blood cells in one of his lab workups that may indicate "Pouch-itis" - an infection in the reconstructed J-pouch. All of this may or may not be caused by an obstruction at all; it might instead be a "closed loop bowel obstruction" (take the garden hose and twist it until no water gets through) (which is apparently not the same thing as an "obstruction" which means "something blocking it"[shove something into the hose until it stops the flow]). It could also be some inflamation, maybe from an infection..????. but they are not sure. They don't know where the source of the problem is, what exactly is the source, ... nor do they know if they are going to just "let it work itself out" or if they are going to operate. Oh, and the gastro guy is going to do a "flexiblesignoidoscopy" (a mini colon-oscopy - smaller proceedure but with a longer name) on Sunday at 9 am. At least they are knocking him out for it!!! In the mean time, my phone has been acting like crud. It is causing problems being so un=reliable. I am going to try to pop out and get a new one at some point. Thanks for reading, I will sign off now before I really get rambling - like a weekend doctor......

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They dont seem so into making patients walk the halls here. Poor Dave.... He is being made to walk anyway. He wont listen to me so i made it clear to his nurse that i know walking is vital (thanks to our care at "the mecca"/MGH) and she needs to tell him. I will make him walk again - for a longer spell - before i leave in two hours. Still no sign of the surgeon. Hope she arrives before i have to go.

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My phone is acting up. This morning it was clear. Then mid morning it said i had 5 voice mails. They were all calls from yesterday. So if your trying to reach me thats yer problem. Im with Dave in his room. He is feeling good enough to be watching a john wayne movie... Which is a huge improvement! He is still in a stage of - not much news. Nothing more can be done at this time - still need to wait n see. After the movie is over he is going to walk the halls for a bit. Liam is at the neighbors until noon. Then from 12 to 6 he is going with another friend . They have a son that is playing in a basketball game so that will be fun. He knows he is being pawned off but i am making sure he gets his evenings with me.

What a day... was that just one day?!

Okay, so a bowel obstruction is like a clogged pipe. It hurts and its gross what happens as a result as your body tries to manage. They have him on a stomach suction and it is a wait and see situation. (He told the Doctor that the tube "really sucks" but the guy didn't laugh! ) He is on meds for pain, nausea, and also IV fluids. We talked to Dr. Shellito out in Boston, he said that if surgery should become necessary that any general surgeon is fine - whew - talk about taking the pressure off. We met the surgeon, we liked him, he works in a team that are colon-rectal specialists and he does do that type of work, but he is not certified as specialized. They don't want to do surgery. An obstruction is caused by scar tissue that forms (like from his major surgery in Sept 2007) - think of it like super-glue that accidentally glues your fingers together! The scar tissue gets things sticking and stuck in a way that can... obstruct flow of waste. One reason to not want to do the surgery to try to correct it - is that it also can cause more scar tissue. Vicious cycle! They were also going to do a scan this afternoon that would involve some contrast (Bar. Eni.) so they can maybe get a better look at what is going on. The other advantage is the contrast will help clean out the clog's other end... once the pressure is off from both ends it has a chance to just set itself right. I spent the day getting referrals, getting a new power of attourney in place, cancelling my participation in the life guarding class I was in (side note: this is the second time that Dave's health has caused me NOT to be come a life guard! One of these days.... ), contacting family and co-ordinating care for Liam. We have plenty of help. Lots of people can take Liam for lots of hours. I am getting him home at 6:30 and we are going to do some normal bed time routine stuff and talk. Not sure if I am going to take him to see Dave in the morning or not. Maybe wait until the afternoon. I finally have a bit of sleep and will see about eating again then go to bed at the same time as Liam. Thank you to everyone for your support and understanding. I will keep the blog posted. If you are on Facebook it also directly uplinks to the "notes" section every few hours. Feel free to pass on the word to all you know that know us, and care about us, as much as you.

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Someone out there has a voo doo doll with a whole lot of pins in it. If anyone comes across this person please firmly let them know they have the wrong guy.

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Yup. Its a bowel obstruction. They are getting him a room. A suction will take pressure off the stomach. They are also sending a surgeon in to talk about ...? Maybe removing scar tissue that is causing the problem.

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Okay... For those that check the blog still... Here is a saga for you! On friday Dave had vomiting. There has been a bug going around the office so we just let it pass. Tonight it came back in force. We decided to wait until morning and call the local general doc. . Well that plan changed! At about midnight i started to call around to see who i could wake up to care for Liam. Eventually woke up the house next door. Her husband is a fireman and is away on duty tonight. So i wrapped Liam up and took him to her house. We got lucky at the ER. Nobody was here, we got taken right in. Im glad we are here. They gave him morphine for pain, has an IV, Meds for nausea, and have drawn blood. All within 20 minutes of walking in the door! They have ordered CAT scans. Maybe this is a bowel obstruction? The scar tissue from the surgery can grow and cause that. More info later.

all clear

For the first time, the scan results had no new mystery spots. Nothing growing. Blood work is great. Scans clear. All is good! Whew!

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Monday dec 8 scans in boston. Nervous. Prior two sets of scans came with complementary scares that turned out to be nothing.

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Monday dec 8 scans in boston. Nervous. Prior two sets of scans came with complementary scares that turned out to be nothing.

December scans for Dave

Dave has scans on Monday December 8th in Boston. Then he and Kerri will meet with the Dr. on Wednesday Dec 10th for the results. The last two sets of scans showed spots that eventually turned out to be nothing. I guess I am braced for that this time around. Its not to say I won't be frightened, but braced for it. Its like that really fast huge roller coaster at 6 flags or whatever, you just know there are some parts you will want to scream from fear, but at least you are braced for it. The big difference is we HAVE TO go on the scary roller coaster .... its not a choice. Someone asked if Dave was considered to be in remission. I had his assistant on the phone one day and remembered to ask about that. Evidently, Dave's Dr. does not use that term. At 5 years out, you are just cured. Until then, I guess you are still a patient.

Good News

The blood work indicates that there is nothing to worry about. Scans will be done again, in Boston, in December. Happy Halloween!

A typical day - the new version

One day last week this is how Dave's day went: 5:30 am biked 1.5 miles to work Lifted weights for half hour at the office gym Worked a full work day Biked home Had dinner then was out the door for Fencing Club. How else can I say this?.... He's back! He is ... just.. MORE! More happy, more energy, .... It is so nice to have him back!

ALL IS WELL

I don't have too much to say - which is such a relief! Dave bikes to work (1.5 miles) every day, is sleeping a bit better, and we are having a great time. So, here are some recent photos for you to enjoy, thanks for checking in. The next scans are going to be done late December.