Recovery Day 3

I apologize for not getting this update posted earlier, but things are going pretty well again today.

This morning we got to see Dr. Sutherland who thought things were progressing well. Jennie began her Physical Therapy officially this morning, although we did get her to get out of bed and stand for a few minutes last night. Today she has moved to a recliner chair , and is supposed to do that 2 times a day for at least 30 minutes. Although she is still very sore when moving, she is handling it very well and is eager to do what is needed.

Today they also reduced her pain medicine some, as it was making her very sleepy and had lowered her breathing to where they had to put a full oxygen mask on last night to ensure she was getting enough oxygen. This should be helped both by the lower pain meds and also as she begins to move more and regains strength.

They started her on a antibiotic because her white blood cell levels are elevated, meaning she probably has an infection, although we don't yet know exactly what kind.

Another problem we have been having is that Jennie has been retaining a lot of fluid, which makes her swell, increasing her pain and restricting her mobility. Today Dr. Sutherland issued another round of lasix to help get rid of the excess fluid, and said he would like to get another round issued sooner if we start to notice it again.

The last issue we had to discuss we Dr. Sutherland was that Jennie's blood count dropped from a steady 9.2 most of the day yesterday to 8.7 this morning. He feels that this is most likely also due to the swelling and feels as her fluid retention goes down we should see this level out as well.

I am not sure that I have mentioned it yet, but we likely won't know much about how well the islet cells took for several days. Right now she is on insulin to give the islet cells time to rest and to get at home in her liver. When they feel her body has recovered enough to try clear liquids and eventually a limited diet, they will take her off the insulin IV and try to switch to oral medicine. This is when we will first be able to tell how the transplant of the cells took, and it will likely take some time to get the levels adjusted properly.

Jennie is very sleepy today, but I think her pain is somewhat lower except when we move her. Her spirits have also been very high, in fact we had her singing along with Finding Nemo this morning. I know that this positive attitude has helped her recovery immensely, and hopefully with prayer she can keep it up.

Recovery Day 2, mid-day

So we got the results from Jennie's noon blood work back, and her Hemoglobin levels have finally stopped dropping, meaning that the internal bleeding appears to have stopped! Her platelet count went up some too, meaning that her liver is functioning properly, which is also great news.

They did have to come in and assess her Central line IV because it appeared that it might not be delivering the medicine and fluids she needed, but they don't think that there is a problem right now and will be monitoring it closely the rest of the day.

We managed to get the sheets changed and to get Jennie moving a little, although she was hurting a lot the entire time. She did say afterwards that she was glad to be on some fresh linens and then proceeded to fall straight to sleep exahusted. Other than having to come and check her blood sugar every hour, she has been sleeping most of the morning and afternoon and appears to be in a little less pain than she was yesterday.

Today has been a great day so far with many of our concerns and prayers having been answered. Jennie is certainly going to have many rough days over the next few weeks, but it is nice to see some progress being made.

Recovery Day 2 update

So the Doctors just came in and said that they are pleased with the bloodwork and that they don't anticipate needing to go to surgery, although they are still going to monitor it closely. They said that they would rather have a small amount of blood loss than to risk taking her off of the heparin and having her liver not get the blood it needs to recover properly. From what I understand it is somewhat of a catch-22.

Other than that they removed the bandages, and we got to see Jennie's incision for the first time. It is still very sore and bruised, and her abdomen is swollen, but it actually looks much better than we were expecting having talked to other people who had been through this surgery.

There was also talk about trying to get Jennie to move some today and hopefully get her out of the bed at least long enough to change the sheets. They want to get her moving some to keep her from clotting or getting bed sores. They also said that they don't want to increase her pain medicine any because she is having so much difficulty staying awake.

Hopefully we will get her somewhat mobile today and by tonight things will be looking much better. Please keep the prayers coming, they help immensely.

Recovery Day 2

So Jennie had a bit of a rough night last night. They began giving her nutrients and lipids through the IV to try and help her body with the recovery, but it has thrown her sugar levels all over the place and they have started checking it every hour again.

She is also continuing to loose blood at a slow rate, so we think the Doctors may decide to send her back to surgery today, although we haven't seen them yet. Her color is still fairly good, and they are continuing to increase the pain medicine which is finally starting to cut into her pain enough she can rest, although it also keeps her from being alert enough to really talk.

We really don't know a whole lot at this point other than what the nurse can tell us about her bloodwork, but the next time they draw at 8 am should be a good indicator as to what the Doctors might decide to do today.

Please continue to keep Jennie in your prayers, hopefully last night was the last bad night she will have for a while.

Evening Update, Day 1 of Recovery

What a long day it has been! Jennie is still hurting quite a bit, although they did increase the medication enough that she is able to rest some, and they also gave her lasix to reduce the swelling. Her hands in particular have been very swollen all day, which typically happens when she gets fluids through an IV.

The doctors kept going back and forth, but they finally decided after testing some of Jennie's fluid discharge and discovering that there was a relatively small amount of blood in it, that they won't go back to surgery, at least for now. They do believe that she has some internal bleeding, but they think it is a fairly small amount. They decided instead to give her blood as needed and continue to monitor it in case the blood loss were to pick up, and hope that reducing the blood thinner will allow her body to stop the internal bleeding itself without surgery.

We are still hoping that Jennie will be able to make it through the next few days without any major complications or scares like we had today. They typically say the first three days are usually the hardest, and we hope that today was the worst of it.

On a side note I wanted to explain a little more about exactly what kind of condition Jennie is in right now. She has an NG tube coming out of her nose that pulls blood and other fluid from her digestive tract. It is uncomfortable, but it helps keep the swelling of her abdomen down which is supposed to be the most painful part. There is a drain coming straight from her abdomen that also helps pull the fluids out, and is suctioned be a bulb. She has a central line IV in through her neck that is the source of all her medication, fluids, and blood. And of course she has a catheter which takes care of the rest of her fluid retention issues.

I just took a short break from writing to move Jennie on her "air mattress" they use to make movement easier on her. We also sat her up a bit in the bed and she had to cough several times that were very productive but also painful.

We ask again that you keep Jennie in your prayers, we can certainly feel God's presence through all this.

Day 1 of Recovery

So today is the first day of recovery after yesterday's surgery, and things are still generally looking up.

Jennie's pain is still far from controlled, but they are trying to adjust it to find a happy balance. Duladid is a tricky medicine in that too much can lower your blood pressure dangerously low, while too little keeps her from getting the relief she needs in order to rest and recover like she needs to. Unfortunately she is allergic to morphine which is the other pain medicine they like to use for major surgeries like this.

The other problem with Duladid is that she appears to be building a tolerance to it since it has been the pain medicine of choice when she has been going into the hospital the last 9 months. The nurse just came in and she is going to check with the doctor to see about adding toradol to see if it can help a little.

The only other concern is that Jennie has lost some more blood since 3 am when they last checked. Her hemoglobin counts have dropped from 8.4 to 7.9. Again this is only a minor concern since she is still on Heparin that will keep her blood from clotting as quickly. Unlike many surgeries they are continuing her on this to keep the liver from rejecting the islet cells, so there isn't too much reason to be alarmed they just have to continue monitoring and possibly give her some more blood later.

Now on to the positive news. She looks better and has started regaining her color compared to last night when we saw her. She seems to be more responsive, which is kind of a mixed bag since she is in so much pain.

The nurse just came in again and they are going to give her 3 more units of blood to try and increase her levels and they are also going to lower the Heparin some. They won't be adding toradol right now. This is to prepare for the possibility of going back into surgery if the blood levels can't start to maintain a more normal level. They are worried that there could be some internal bleeding, particularly with the increased pain.

THIS IS ALL TENTATIVE AND THE DOCTORS WILL BE RETURNING SHORTLY TO DISCUSS IT WITH US MORE. DR. SUTHERLAND HAS NOT COME IN YET AND THE DOCTORS SO FAR HAVE BEEN RESIDENTS UNDER HIM. NO DECISION WILL BE MADE UNTIL HE ARRIVES.

Updates will be made when we know more.

Surgery is Done

So Jennie came out of surgery at 5:38 cst, but she is still not awake from the anesthesia. Dr. Sutherland seemed very pleased with the entire operation and in fact finished earlier than expected. He was able to harvest a large number of islet cells and thought they probably took well.

The only minor problem could be that they gave her Heparin, which could lead to bleeding and possibly having to go back to surgery to correct the problem. From what I understand though, this is fairly common and the chances or her bleeding again aren't very large.

Again it appears that Jennie may come out of this as well as we could expect, and much better than we had worried about. Only time will truly tell. Thanks again for all the Prayers and support!

Update

Just talked to Dr. Sutherland and they have completed the removal of the pancreas, appendix, and spleen. Fortunately he saw no indication that the colon had been damaged, which we were worried about, so he won't be removing any of the colon.

He also said that he was able to see a large obstruction in the main pancreatic duct (probably the whole root of the problem), and that the preliminary tests on her insulin production were promising.

Now we are waiting, and he anticipates beginning the second half of the procedure 2-3hours from now. The pancreas has been sent to the lab for a disection where they will remove the islet cells that produce insulin. They most likely won't be back and ready to be implanted until 4 or 5 pm.

When he begins the second portion of the procedure Dr. Sutherland will begin repairing the ducts and rerouting her digestive tract. Hopefully by the time he completes that the islet cells will be here and he can insert whatever cells they were able to harvest into the liver.

We won't know what level of insulin production she will be able to have afterwords until the end of the procedure, but particularly with the promising initial test results it will be high. If the islet cells do take and they were able to harvest enough cells, she would be a very mild diabetic or possibly still be on the low side of the normal range (the doctor wouldn't say what the odds of this actually are, but we are hoping and Praying).

In summary, the surgery has gone as well as we could ask for so far, and the fact that he isn't removing any of the colon is a major relief and should make recovery and possible complications somewhat better. We still ask for your Prayers and Support, hopefully God will continue to bless us and Heal Jennie quickly.

Surgery

So for those of you looking for an update, Jennie went into surgery at 8:10 cst. It took the anesthesiologist about 20 minutes and three Sticks to get her IV in, and she was very swollen from all the pain medicine she has been taking recently.

The doctor also talked briefly about the increased difficulty of keeping her under due to her allergies to so many medicines. The surgery is expected to take about 12 hours, but we are hoping for an update early this afternoon.

Needless to say no one in the family got much sleep last night. Jennie, Rita, Bonnie and Jim, and I all went to see a midnight showing of Wall-e, which was incredible. It also served as a good distraction to keep Jennie's mind off today. I think all told Jennie, Rita, and Myself got about 30 minutes of sleep last night.

It is really nerveracking as I sit here writing this and not having any idea where we will stand tonight. We are all of course hoping and praying for God to work a miracle and for Jennie to do incredibly well, but there is also the possiblity things might not go that smoothly.

This entire time I have managed to be so confident that this surgery would be the Miracle we have been praying for, but now as I sit here and wait anxiously the unknown is killing me.

I still have Great Faith that God will provide, but what that exactly means is so unclear.

I will try to post again whenever we get an update, and thank you to everyone for your Prayers and Thoughts. Jennie and I have both felt incredible relief these past few weeks as the Surgery approached. I just ask that you continue to Pray that God's Healing Hand work on Jennie today.

Fresh Beginnings

So I know that it has been over a year since my last post, and oh how a year can change things. On the upside we will be celebrating our one year anniversary next week, and both loving every minute of it. On the downside, Jennie's condition has gotten much worse and we will be going to Minneapolis on June 27th for a major surgery to try and get things better.

With that being said, for the time being I will be devoting this blog mostly to the surgery and our preparations for it. In the next week or two I will be going into detail about the surgery, and how we are getting ready for it. After the surgery I will be putting updates on here regularly, hopefully to keep everyone informed and to minimize the time I will be spending away from Jennie as she recovers.

For the time being we just ask for your Prayers during this very trying time for us.
Thank you and May God Bless!