Coincidence? We Think Not

We were sitting around this evening thinking of the circumstances which brought us here to D.C. and we couldn't help but marvel.  In the midst of an acute situation, Jennifer became aware (through a great deal of research and networking on her part) of Dr. Sugarbaker's work out here; a phone call to his office a week and a half ago, as well as speaking to other patients of his this week, revealed that wait times to see him, much less have him operate, run months in advance.  As it so happened however, he had a patient drop out and he wound up with a spot on his schedule for last Tuesday.  O.K., fine, now we need to get out here, it's the middle of the Holiday travel season and we have no plane tickets.  Not to worry, Juliette had flight miles to use on United; no matter that she's had no success in the past at being able to use them during busy travel times.  In fact that was why she had so many miles built up, she could never use them.  A couple of phone calls was all it took for Juliette to secure the last seat available on her flight from Northern California, and to get Jennifer one of the last seats on her flight from LAX.  Oh, and a non-stop without any connections to make while feeling crummy would be nice too.  No problem!  Truly, the Lord's providence has been great, and He has heard our prayers.

Jen is getting stronger by the minute, it seems.  She's taking longer walks and at quicker paces, so she's really coming along nicely.  Have a great evening everybody.

Well, we took an informal straw poll amongst the three of us and we're all in agreement that we've had enough and we're ready to come home.  Alas, the doctors have a thing or two to say about this and they seem to think that some more time spent here enjoying their hospitality would do Jennifer some good.  With that, conspiratorial plans were set afoot to bust her outta here, get on a jet, and make a break for it; cooler heads prevailed however, and we all decided that caution was the better part of valor.

Jen continues to make slow but steady, incremental progress.  She's been up sitting and walking but I won't kid ya, it's tough sledding and it's going to take some time.  We've all hit the point where the walls are starting to close in but at the same time we understand that it's all part of the process and that every day that passes brings us one step closer to where we want to be:  home and back with friends, family and our own beds!  Along the way, we've met some really terrific people here, especially among the nursing staff and they've been a great help and provided a high level of care.  As always, thanks for your notes of encouragement and fellowship; they really mean a lot to us.

Christmas post #2

Just a quick add-on to say that the Christmas post was time stamped yesterday 'cause I started it yesterday and finished it today...make sense?  Since then, Jennifer has been up walking, with two, couple hundred-step trips down the hallway.  Sounds like most everyone's figuring out how to post comments; our thanks to you all, your sentiments and best wishes are so appreciated.  Makes us seem not quite so far away.  Merry Christmas and good night from Washington, D.C.

Merry Christmas!

Well, we're out of the ICU and we're glad of it.  They were very nice to let me stay most of the night in there but it's a tough place for Jennifer to get any sleep and as doc said when he saw her yesterday, "Nobody gets any sleep in the ICU".  Too much activity, tubes, noise, and beeping equipment.  That said, Jen received some great care there and we're thankful.

Jen has been up in a regular room since yesterday afternoon and it's much more quiet and peaceful here.  She's doing great, and has been standing up and sitting in a chair for a while.  We just video-chatted with Emily, Matt, Laura and their Grandparents and opened stockings together...what fun, and it made some of the 2500 miles melt away.

Merry Christmas and Season's Greetings to All and accept our best wishes to you on this special day!  

Surgery Update #2

Jennifer finished with surgery this afternoon after 8 and half hours, exactly what was predicted.  She went up to the surgical ICU at about 3:30 p.m. and Juliette and I had a sit down with Dr. Sugarbaker and he gave us a rundown of the procedure.  He said that it went very well.  The mass was entirely removed, along with a portion of her colon, and he performed the intraoperative heated chemotherapy as scheduled.  He is quite confident that all macroscopic disease was removed.  While there's no guarantees of course, he felt that the procedure met its goals and that her outcome has been significantly improved as a result.  In speaking with us, both of us were impressed by Dr. Sugarbaker's competence, thoroughness, compassion, and humility.  We're coming to find that all the superlative things said about him are true.  The findings, details and complexities of the surgery left both of us with the belief that Jennifer received the very best surgery possible.  He emphasized that this is a heavy procedure, that her recovery will be lengthy and that we should continue to plan on about 2 weeks before discharge.

After speaking with the doc, I was able to spend about 3 hours in the ICU with Jen until they kicked me out for a half hour ago to do a shift change.  What can I say, but that she is so impressive!  She looked great, with great color, and just a half hour or so after being brought up from the OR she was already starting to regain consciousness.  The ICU staff is great, very attentive and competent and she is being tended to by a nurse and doctor around the clock.  I've never seen so many tubes in my life (and we've done a couple of these big surgeries before); drains, hoses, & IV lines galore.  She has a breathing tube for a short while (it may be out even as I write this) and they were keeping her a little more sedated until it comes out in order for her to be more comfortable.  All her vitals are excellent.  Yay Jen!  The next big milestone is for her to leave the ICU which we hope will happen by this time tomorrow.  

That's about it for now.  We're going to head back to the ICU, press our noses against the glass and see if they'll let us back in.  Stay tuned until tomorrow, when we continue with another installment in "Jen's Most Excellent Road to Recovery"!

Surgery Update #1

They let Juliette and I back in to see her off for surgery and we spent a half hour or so with her as they finished up final details.  We met some of the nursing staff and the anesthesiologist, who were great.  It would be difficult to overstate how highly the staff on Sugarbaker's team regard him.  They have all worked together for a long time and speak of him in fairly reverential tones.  All of us are left with an abiding sense that God has put us in the right place and that Jennifer is in very capable hands.

Overview

For those wondering what's up, here's a brief review of events to date.  Jen started experiencing discomfort after a routine colonoscopy a couple of weeks ago and followup last week indicated a recurrence of cancer in her abdomen.  Consultations with her docs at USC Norris suggested a procedure that would remove the mass in her abdomen and treat her during the same procedure with heated chemotherapy, a process known as HIPEC.  The idea is to not only remove the macroscopic disease but to kill off the micro bad guys as well.  There's a few doctors/cancer centers in the country that perform it, but the best one and the one recommended to us by her doctors at USC is Dr. Paul Sugarbaker at the Washington Cancer Institute in Washington, D.C.

We arrived here late Sunday night, met with the doctor on Monday afternoon, and as I write this at 6:15 a.m., Jen is being prepped for surgery.  The surgery will take approximately 8 hours we have been told.  Jen and I are joined out here by Juilette, one of her sisters from NorCal.  Jennifer is in great spirits, was cracking jokes and actually skipping (!) on her way to surgery this morning.  BTW, did I mention that it's freezing here?  No, fellow Southern Californians, I didn't throw that out as we usually mean it, like, "Wow, it's down to 55 degrees!".  Jen and I ran for the hotel shuttle Sunday night in 25 degree temps and a wind gusting to 40 mph.  Last night's overnight low was 11.  Brrr!