…You Are a Tree

Hi all,

Time for an update, since it’s been several days. First off, the wound vac is an amazing piece of technology. The wound is already healing from the inside out as a result, and from Friday to Monday, we saw a decrease in depth of .4 centimeters (just 3.8 cm to go). That’s not insubstantial. The tissue is healthy and pink, which is excellent, but she has to carry the device everywhere with her, and charge it not-unlike a cell phone overnight.

And while she’s seeing remarkable improvements, she still is unable to do just about anything for herself, including getting in and out of bed. She also can’t concentrate — probably due to the percocet — and as a result, has been unable to knit at all. Reading is slow-going, too, although she has spent a bit of time reading some books about her new camera that I got her for Christmas. She’s bummed she can’t do anything photography-related, as well.

It’s frustrating for her, because, really, there’s only so much television you can watch. She can only sit at her computer for very short bursts, and is unable to concentrate enough to write emails, status updates, or blog posts. She does use twitter, because she posts there via her cell phone. So if you tweet, look for her under the name Kendiala (I’m Kyrion there).

I’d forgotten one aspect of recovery and convalescence, even though I’ve been through something similar to this with her twice before: I feel like I’ve slipped into Faerie, where one can stay for what they think is a night, but when they leave, a hundred years have passed.

It’s December 30th, and tomorrow marks two weeks since Kim’s surgery. On one hand, it feels like an eternity ago, but on the other, I feel as though I was just in the hospital this morning to bring her home. And on the gripping hand, it’s as though there’s never been a time where we’ve not been doing this. Weird, I know, but you enter a fugue-like state — the Faerie comparison, if you will — where all that exists is the little bubble around the house.

Pain is still prevalent. It’s strange in that this surgery was technically the least serious of the three she’s had, but the infection turned it into the most difficult recovery for her.

As a result, I’m taking next week off now as well. She really needs me here and I’m fortunate to have a very understanding Firm for an employer. Special thanks to my friend and supervisor, Chris, for being so understanding during all of this.

And that’s the news for December 30th.

Pax.

Lexus has a new ad that starts with a little girl bragging how she got a pony one Christmas, and her friend or cousin or whatever walks in and is crushed to see the other girl gloating over her gift.

Fast forward to the present day and the girl who got the pony opening her eyes to a new Lexus parked in the driveway of her very nice house.

What a spoiled bitch. Now, I realize that Lexus isn’t targeting me with their ads, but really, this is just a bunch of bullshit. I also find it irresponsible in this age of economic collapse. Many people can’t afford even a used car, let alone a Lexus. So what are they really trying to say here?

Not the smartest move, but then, as I said above, I’m not exactly their target audience. Feh.

I haven’t written one of these for a few days and figured it was time. Kim’s recovery is very slow, due to the fact that she has this enormous wound in her belly. It’s 10 cm long, about 5 cm wide, and over 4 cm deep. The good news is that the tissue is pink and healthy, which is what we want.

The visiting nurse is a lovely woman named Lois who has been here every day since Tuesday. She’s sweet and careful and has done a wonderful job on Kim’s wet dressings. Today was the big day, though — the WoundVac that’s been sitting in our kitchen since Wednesday was put into operation with the assistance of a nurse from the company that makes it.

In essence, what’s happening is a vacuum has been created over the wound, enclosing a special sponge which draws out the bad and stimulates rapid cell growth — up to four times the normal speed. It then drains through a tube to a device that traps it and makes it solidify. This then gets changed every three days. Everyone we speak to about these says they’re incredible devices and really are the bee’s knees. She carries around the battery pack like a purse when walking, which is done very carefully, as she’s still quite weak and in pain from the operation. It’s truly astounding to me how much we use our abdominal muscles without realizing it.

It’s going to be quite a while before she’s active with anything resembling normalcy and this frustrates her. She can’t even sit at her computer for more than a moment here and there.

Christmas was spent quietly, just the two of us, and it was lovely. I am joyous she was home for it, instead of having to spend it at the hospital. I’m worried, though, that she’s not going to be too mobile by January 5th, when I’m due back at work. If, by the middle-end of next week, she’s not made big gains, I’m going to take another week off to take care of her. She’s due at the doctor’s for a follow-up visit on January 8th, at which I hope the news is good.

So, that’s the news from this end. Please keep Kim in your healing thoughts — the WoundVac is going to do a lot, but knowing that folks are sending vibes her way is also a plus.

Pax.

The first full day home was a smashing success, I have to say. Both of us got a pretty decent night’s sleep when the alarm went off for her morning pills around 6:30 AM. After that, we both went back to sleep for a bit longer, finally getting up around 8-8:30.

The visiting nurse showed up shortly after noon and spent a large amount of time wrangling with beauracracy before finally being able to change Kim’s dressing. The good news is that the woundvac will arrive tomorrow, which means the nurse only needs to come every three or so days to change dressings. This woundvac gadget is supposed to be a wonder-device, aiding with keeping wounds like Kim’s super-clean. We’ll see them with the device tomorrow around 9 AM.

The rest of the day was spent lounging about, eating macaroons (thanks, Steph!!) and sleeping — both of us. I finally heard from the doctor’s office around 5:30 in regards to guaranteeing Kim has enough pain medication to carry her through Christmas — I’m driving into Manhattan after the visiting nurse leaves tomorrow to pick up the script, which is going to be large enough to carry through New Year’s.

All in all, I’d say Kim’s doing very well. She still has pain — the wound, as we’re calling it now, is over 10 centimeters long, 6 cm wide, and 4+ cm deep. Yeah, it’s not small. It’s funny, but what turned out to be the simplest surgery she’s had is resulting in the longest recovery. Go figure.

She did jokingly say earlier this evening, “So we’re going to Penn’s Peak, right?”

Gotta love a woman who says she wants to see a show two and a half weeks after major surgery, even in jest…

So that’s today’s update. Some cleanup left to do around here, and then I’ll see she gets her pain meds at 2 AM. Then it’s time for some sleep.

I didn’t post the Sunday update here, but it’s over on facebook - bottom line is that the infection got a lot worse, so she had to spend last night there. Here’s today:

After a somewhat uneventful night, Kim was told early today that she was probably coming home. Infection was down and all systems were go. All we needed to do was wait for her doctor to come by and start the process.

Unfortunately, during the wait, a new roommate appeared for Kim, and she was, simply put, a complainer. This was her third room since she’d arrived, and nothing was good — I can just imagine how the staff was reacting to her. Her attitude actually drove Kim out of the room.

Finally, around 3 PM, Dr. Holcomb appeared with several followers, and just like that, she was in discharge mode. Two hours later, we were in a car coming home.

I then made a quick trip out to fill her prescriptions and picked up some groceries. I cooked her a dinner of franks and beans (her request) and then she napped for about an hour and a half on the couch with the Christmas tree turned on (incomplete decorations, but it’s home and comforting). We then got her ready for bed, and here I am typing away. First pain pill is at 1:30 eastern.

My baby is home!

As folks following my status feed today were reading, this was the day that wouldn’t end. Let me start with the beginning on Kim’s side so you can truly understand how angry I am right now.

Two nights ago, Kim had a fever overnight which tylenol took care of, apparently. Late yesterday, we noticed her incision was looking all red so we called the nurse who called her doctor. He came in and got her on an IV drip of antibiotics, scheduled for every four hours. This was at 6 PM. The pharmacy finally got the bag’o'antibiotics upstairs around 10 PM or so.

The second bag showed up on time, but the male nurse fucked up — he forgot to put the fucking drip in her shunt, so it started pooling on the floor. Strike one.

When Kim got his attention again, the bag was probably half gone. He tried to cover it up, as did someone else on staff. Strike two.

Dr. Holcomb showed up in the morning and wasn’t happy about it when Kim told him about it. But that’s when the troubles of the day began. As you probably noticed, my status was changing repeatedly to, “she’s coming home, she’s not, she is…” and this is why:

Her infection got bad. He had to take out some of the staples and use swabs to clean out the infection, then pour saline on it to flush it out. In the process, gunk got all over her robe, so I had to take another one in for her. She thought it was all over the bed, too, so didn’t go back into it for a couple hours until I showed up and the nurse got it changed.

But then began the wait to change rooms. Why? The ward she was in closes every weekend if the hospital isn’t busy. As it turns out, I wish the hospital had been packed because she was in the luxury area. This floor is used by visiting princes when they have to stay, and the whole ward is shut down for them. The staff tend to be the best — night nurse notwithstanding — and it’s truly a remarkable place to stay for a hospital. But they were closing it down and Kim was being moved to the Greenburg Pavilion, 8th floor.

Well. They finally moved her at 6:30 PM. We get down to the new floor and it’s night and day. Baker 15 was clean, quiet and a place of healing. Greenburg 8? Not so much. First, there was no dinner for Kim. They actually took us to the leftovers cart so we could scavenge something edible — this ended up being bread and peanut butter. I kid you not. Strike three.

So we go in search of a kitchen to make Kim some tea. Well, the kitchen was unbelievably filthy, with mold next to the counter on the floor. The fridge had a foul stench coming from it, and the patient lounge was a disgrace. The family members in there were rude, giving us looks that basically said, “Who the fuck are you?” and one woman made Kim feel threatened by her attitude when I stepped out to make tea. Strikes four, five and six.

We finally retreated to Kim’s room, which she was sharing with a woman who just had a double mastectomy — she’d also been moved from the floor Kim had been on, and had paid for a private room where her SO could stay. Well, he couldn’t stay easily in the new room — no cot can be added there, so she was fuming as well. We all sort of bonded over that and I gave her my business card for when she files complaints.

Then the on-call doctor came in to change her dressing and this is where I wanted to fucking kill someone. After she had re-packing the incision and covered it with pads, she was leaning over Kim’s belly as she cut the tape to keep it on. When the tape cut, her hand went down, punching Kim in the belly. Kim’s body arched as she yelled in pain. It passed quickly, and Kim had to tell her that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to cut the tape over her. The doctor felt bad, but still — isn’t this in Patient Care 101??? Strike seven.

Fortunately, the night nurse was better, and taking care of Kim with the antibiotics.

In the morning, Kim gets seen again. She’s going to cut loose with her doctor about the horrid state of this floor. It’s a nightmare. There’s filth on the floors of kitchens and lounges, and she has an infection. Tell me, how is this supposed to promote good health?

The plan as of earlier today was to release her tomorrow and have a visiting nurse come on Monday to dress the wound again. If they aren’t going to release her tomorrow, she’s probably going to go AMA (against medical advice) and come home. There’s no good in her remaining there after tonight. If she was still in Baker, that would be a different story, but she’s not.

I’m drained. This is simply unacceptable and once out of there, we’re going to be filing complaints with the city over the state of the floor she’s on. Really, as I said, how is this conducive to good health?

Simple — it’s not.

It was an up and down sorta day. I got down to the hospital around 1:15 PM and found Kim without her drip. That was nice news, for certain. She had a shunt in each hand for drips yesterday, and today was down to one.

We had a really good afternoon, including a number of walks up and down the hall, a nice spell in the patient lounge watching the snow fall across Roosevelt Island and the 59th Street Bridge. She was definitely doing better. Later in the afternoon, though, she noticed redness and warmth around her incision (I should note that the incision was almost as long as prior ones — probably six inches, total, as the surgeon needed to work around adhesions again and I guess this might have been part of it). She called the nurse in who then called her doctor. He came up around 6 PM and said that it did look like a minor infection — these things happen — and that he would get her on IV antibiotics to bring it back down.

It was probably 10 PM when the antibiotics finally showed up from the pharmacy. The nurse got Kim set-up, but as he was leaving, she noticed that there appeared to be a problem with the drip — the liquid was pooling on her hand. The IV appeared blocked or something. They had to call an IV nurse in to run a new line, but they hadn’t shown by the time I left.

I asked the intern/resident/attending who popped in tonight if she can come home tomorrow, and she said it’s possible, if the infection goes down. Wish we knew for certain, as I need to know whether or not to drive in and park at the hospital. I may end up doing that, anyway, as it’s simply faster in and out than taking the subway, even if it can cost a bit for an entire day.

I just want her home.

Kim was a lot better yesterday, and as the day progressed, seemed more and more herself. That’s definitely a good sign. Her twitter feed this morning shows the drip is out finally and she’s eating breakfast and drinking Swee Touch Nee tea, which makes her very happy.

I’m headed into the city in a couple hours.  I’m definitely glad she’s not coming home today with the looming bad weather lurking somewhere nearby. Probably tomorrow, though! More when I know.

Well, as many folks know who were following facebook all day, or who were texting back and forth with me, the news is good.

No, it’s not good.

It’s fucking fantastic!

Kim was taken in around 11 AM. Her mom, Glenda, and I went into the waiting room for a bit, then around noon grabbed a bite downstairs (she’s at NY Presbyterian). We bumped into her doctor, who was stocking up on sugar for the surgery (had a danish) and I asked him about her MRI on the day before Thanksgiving. He said, “She’s clean. I see no problems here whatsover — there’s nothing but cysts in there.”

Glenda and I were extremely happy to hear that.

Around 1:20 or so, I heard Kim’s name being called out in the waiting room (I was dozing) and went to the phone, where the OR was calling with news.

Things were looking promising. That’s when my first BIG burst of texting truly occurred.

Her doctor came down about an hour later to meet with us and told us this:

We knew she had four ovarian cysts. Three were exactly that: cysts The fourth looked normal, too, but this was the one with “solid matter” in it. Well, when the lab got it to work on, they shook their heads and said, “It’s just a cyst.” Yes, they did do all their work on it and we won’t have the final results for a while, but at the moment, it most certainly looks like no cancer.

The doctor did say the cysts were not the kind associated with her cancer back in 2003/2004.

He then said we’ll have no problems moving forward with IVF should we wish to do so.

Back on October 13th, another doctor told Kim that the cancer was back, and that he would have to take everything in surgery. Today, Dr. Kevin Holcomb did the exact opposite, and not only proved her cancer wasn’t back (well, not definitively yet, but it certainly looks it), but retained her fertility as well.

No idea yet how long she’s going to be in the hospital — my guess is she’ll probably be home on Saturday. She did score a private room, I might add, and has a lovely view of northern Manhattan. I haven’t seen the incision yet, but it’s definitely smaller than before — probably four inches long or so, as opposed to the 7-8″ from prior surgeries.

I want to thank everyone for their thoughts, prayers and vibes. This has been a stressful period, as I’m sure you can imagine, and the absolute best result does appear to be unfolding before us.

Oh, mama, ain’t it good to be alive?

Fingers crossed that everything turns out fine.