Yo, Yo, Yo!!!!!

I would like to give a shout out to all my Peeps and Peepettes who had my back with well wishes and prayers over the last few days. Thank you very much. I'm feeling better after each shower and day at home. I just wish I could sleep more. Oh well. Alanna and Stephen thank you again for taking care of all the phone calls. Mary thank you for everything. I owe you. Also, Sue, thanks for the blessed St. Jude holy card and lighting a couple of candles. I love you all.

Feeding Tube Flushing!

Steve's feeding tube needs to be flushed twice a day if it isn't used. I remembered during the middle of the night (don't you always remember things during the middle of the night?). Of course I forgot and just remembered oops. Steve was a trooper as I was pushing the syringe down as fast as I could to get the water in there. He then nicely reminded me to slow down. It wasn't as hard as I thought and I can check this off my list of things I was worried to do.
Have a wonderful day.

Monday, July 26

The ICU doctor came in and decided Steve was well enough to go home she gave Steve a prescription for pain and off we went.

I gave Steve a pill at 2:30 and we both slept until 5. That was the best sleep I've had since Friday!

He has an appt Friday with the radiation oncologist for a dry run and both treatments will start on Monday the 2nd.

A huge thanks to our children and families. Your love and support helped me make it through this weekend.

Sunday July 25th

The pulmonary dr. came in at 10am and did a laryngectomy. There was no swelling and removed the tube and woke him up.

Steve was groggy, but glad to get the tube out. He was able to have a liquid dinner. They wanted to make sure the feeding tube was working so they hooked up the feeding solution and that did work, though Steve told everyone that would listen that that was going to be used as a last resort.

Here's a bit of our conversation after the tube was out. Since Steve's voice was raspy, I had to get close to hear.
S - "you look tired," M - "I am, I've only been sleeping 3-4 hrs a night" S- "Sit down", I sit down. S - starts talking. I get up; S- "Could I have some ice chips", give him ice chips, I sit down. S- looks at the tv and frowns. M- "do you want a different station"? S- nods. The control wasn't hooked up to his bed, so I get up and go through the channels put on WGN. I go to sit down. Steve starts talking. I get up. S- "could I have more ice chips?" I get him more ice chips....and so on and so on.

Feeding Tube day Saturday

Day two. While Steve was heavily sedated and on the ventilator Dr. Ismail wanted to get the feeding tube in. Surgery number 2 was scheduled for 8:15 then moved to 10am and was performed in his room. SUCCESS! This surgery actually only took about 1/2 hour since Steve had been marked on Friday before things went to hell in a hand basket.
We impatiently were waiting for the pulmonary dr to come in and remove the tube. Steve's nurse paged him and he called back after an hour and said he wanted to leave it in another day to make sure there wasn't any swelling.

Feeding Tube Day - Friday

On Friday July 23rd, Steve was to have his feeding tube inserted. His surgery was scheduled for 1:15 (which was to last 2-3 hours). He was called back at 1:30 and at 2:35, my coaster beeped which meant they were paging me. I was brought back into this little room and they partialy closed the drapes. Hmmm, since my mamma didn't raise no fool, I didn't think this was a good sign, but all I thought it was they weren't able to perform the surgery because of some reason. Dr. Ismail came in and told me that Steve's breathing and bp went down and a tube was inserted. I must have had this blank look on my face and he said did you hear the code - that was for your husband. He is being moved to ICU and is on a ventilator. Then it clicked. He said he would take me back to see him. The anesthesiologist met me at ICU and explained what happened and assured me Steve was fine, but he was being kept in the hospital until they could do the surgery. I met the ICU Dr. who was absolutely wonderful. She again explained Steve was fine and was very calm.

Stephen, Alanna and families were called and those that were able came down to spend time with us.