Saturday, August 23rd

John is staying a little longer in the hospital because his blood pressure and heart rate need to be monitored. They gave him a CAT scan of the heart this afternoon to rule out a blood clot. Results of CAT scan - everything looks good in the heart and lungs.
Hopefully John will come home Monday.
Keri

New Room

This afternoon John was moved to a new room.
Telemetry first floor, room #137, bed 2, pod D
602-239-4992 direct line to his room.
He was given some juice, clear soup, jello & italian ice for the first time since he had surgery.
He was also able to have a shower!
Hopefully Saturday he will come home.
Master Block sent a beautiful fruit bouquet to John, yummy, yummy!!!! Thank you! Thank you for everyone sending cards & well wishes!
Keri

2nd Update

John is still in the intensive care unit. The doctors are concerned about his severe sleep apnea. As far as the surgery, the doctors say John is doing great. Everything is progressing nicely. Because of the anesthesia, his intestines are still asleep. When they wake up they will let him have liquids. He hasn’t had anything to eat or drink since last Thursday night. He is feeling lousy and can’t wait to come home. Hopefully Wednesday they will move him to another room, which means one more step to coming home.
John will have another CAT Scan in October to check on the liver. In November (or sooner) he will have another Octreoscan. The doctors will continue to monitor him closely.
I would like to thank everyone for love shown & prayers offered in John's behalf.
Keri

Surgery Update

Hi Everyone, This is Lindsey Tieman. I just got off the phone with Keri and she asked me to post an update for John.
Before surgery Dr. Perry checked in on John. After he explained everything he was going to do he asked, "John, why are you wearing a blue bonnet?" John said, "I don't know." Dr. Perry said, "Because every things better with Blue Bonnet on it!"
Johns surgery went really well thank goodness! It was about 2 hours long. He was in recovery for about 2 hours and then moved to ICU. The Dr's had to remove about 2 feet of intestine, which really isn't bad. He still has enough to be just fine. They removed a small ball size tumor and some lymph nodes. He will be in the hospital between 5-7 days. Saturday and Sunday will be very important rest time & getting John up and moving around, so the family is asking that John have no visitors until Monday. If you would like to visit, please make sure to contact Keri first to see how he is doing. He is at Good Sam and as soon as he is in a regular room, one of us will make another post with that info.
I would like to thank everyone for all of your love, support and prayers for John. He is such an amazing person (and Cody's favorite person ever) that I know he will be able to overcome this. Thank you again.
.

Pre Surgery

Well it's been a while since I've written, I've been on vacation, not the kind of vacation where you go somewhere but the kind of vacation where you don't worry about surgeries or cancer. The kind of vacation where you don't want to face reality and write a blog. It's been nice for a month to almost feel normal. Now back to reality. Yesterday I did all the necessary pre-op procedures for surgery on Friday. I got an EKG, got blood work done, saw my regular doctor and went and visited with the surgeon. From the surgeon we found out that I can expect to be in the hospital for about a week. I will expect to be doing good if I get out of the hospital earlier than seven days.

The surgeon expects the tumor to be in my small intestines. It may be real simple where it's right there visible like a golf ball and all he has to do is yank it out, or worst-case scenario it might be like sandpaper and scattered all through my fatty tissue. We won't know until he opens me up and looks. After talking to him, Keri and I feel pretty good about the surgery. The surgery is Friday, August 15 at 10:30 a.m. We have to be at the hospital at 8:30. There's not much else to tell until after the surgery. It might take a little while to update the blog after the surgery especially if I'm in the hospital for seven days. I'm looking forward to the hospital food, man oh man! That and the needles.

Chemoembolization #2

Yesterday I went in for my second my Chemoembolization. I could just say ditto from last time. With the following differences. I didn't do real well with the IVs this time. After the first smaller one in my hand it felt like it had gone in so far that it was poking through the backside of the vein. The nurse said that it was hurting because it wasn't in far enough, that the needle was short and she had shoved it all the way in to the valve and it wouldn't go in any further. Of course I am real wimpy about needles and blood anyway so this kind of talk and thoughts and pain made me start to feel a little light-headed and faint. The fact that I knew all this was coming and was worrying about it ahead of time didn't help. The nurse gave me cool cloths for my forehead and the back of my neck. Then we did the big IV. The difference between a small IV and the big IV is that when she shoves them in she says "little poke" and "big poke". That and the difference between "little pain" and "big pain". After the big IV was all taped down and she had flushed saline through it so that I could taste it or smell it in the back of my mouth. She asked if I still had pain in the little one. I told her that I chose to believe that it was just the tape pulling my hair and not really the needle. She chose to believe that she was going to re-do it. So ripping the hair and the tape off, pulling the needle out and putting a bandage on she told me that she wasn't going to mess around and was going to go "mainline". So she went to the big fat juicy vein at the crook of my elbow. This was better because it did stop hurting after a little while.
The next difference is that it is not called a catheter it's called a Foley, change the name all you want it's still the same painful humiliating experience.
The operating room was the same, cold enough to get me shivering. I noticed the same ceiling tiles as before, I didn't mention them last time. There are two squares just above the operating table that have imprints of leaves on them. All the rest in the room were normal tiles. This seems a deliberate attempt to distract the patient. On a scale of distraction from 1 to 10, I would say that these tiles have an effective rate of .001. There was still the shaving and lots of activity. Dr. Palestrant introduced Dr. Burke who was going to observe and stand in with him today. He asked if that was all right, after telling me that he was going to still do all the work, I said okay. I did not get as many meds this time and was much more conscious through the whole operation but not conscious enough to object. Really the only objectionable part is the "big poke" of entering the femoral artery. That happened before I knew it and was over before I could say "more meds please". I still got to take breaths, hold them, and then breathe.
The recovery was just about the same, laying very still for four hours. I got lunch this time instead of dinner. Which Keri fed to me. Turkey sandwich and fruit. Keri asked for a bowl of soup also to feed me. We were disappointed that there wasn't a menu that we got to choose from like last time. But the food was okay. Right before they let you go home you have to go for a little walk. Which I did last time. But this time the nurse wanted me to go to the bathroom. So on our little walk I did that. What is interesting is that after coming out of the bathroom. The nurse is standing right outside the door and she goes in and flushes the toilet a second time. This is standard procedure for chemo patients. I know the stuff is supposed to be very toxic. I didn't question them but I doubt there was any chemo coming out already because it hasn't started hurting yet. I am expecting that on Friday, if things go like last time.
The only other real difference was a surprise after we got home. Last time before we left the hospital they took off the big bandage that stretched clear across my waist. And then told me to take the pressure bandage off the next day in the shower. This was the one that was very sticky and stretched all the way across my waist also. This time they told us to take the big bandage off after we got home. Keri did that and to our surprise there was no second bandage underneath. Keri put a couple of Band-Aids on. My anxiety level went up and I sat very still the rest of the night and was afraid to go to bed because I didn't have the security of that pressure bandage. What a wimp. Everything is okay and I feel fine as of this writing. I am expecting the symptoms like last time to start 48 hours later. Pain, fever, overall flu type feeling and my favorite, confusion.

Aftereffects

Well I might have spoke too soon when I last said that there was no pain or anything. Sunday night I started to have pain. It increased to the point where I knew I wasn't just imagining it. We called the "On-Call" Doctor. He said that more than half the patients having this procedure will have pain, fever, sickness. He was surprised that Dr. Palestrant hadn't sent me home with a prescription. He called one in for me. I only used 1 and 1/2 of the pills so far. He said the pain was the tumors dying, so it was a good pain.
We went to my Dr appointment on Tuesday. Dr Roberts said I looked about like he thought I would after this procedure, I looked like I felt lousy. He said if we killed the right amount of liver/tumors I would start to feel better in a few days, if we killed too much then I would feel like this for months. He recommended a surgeon for the removal of the mass in my abdomen. We have a consultation visit set up for July 15. They took blood to test to give some indication of how well the first procedure went. I also got my second sandostanin shot.
I worked 1/2 a day on wed. we will see how I do today but I think I am feeling better. The pain that started high on the right side seemed to move down over the days. I imagined it starting at the top of the tumor and eating, dissolving shrivelling the tumor slowly from the top and moving down, sort of like consuming a carrot still in the ground following it right to the tip. I have no idea if that is accurate but that is what I have imagined as the pain has moved downward.
Now I just need to start working on my courage to go back and start over again next wed.