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!