ICU, Good bye Mr. Pancreatic Cancer!

Sean, Sonnet and I got to the ICU to see danny sitting up in a chair! Wahoo! He looks great even though there are a million tubes connecting his body to a million machines. His favorite machine is the Morphine pump. Every 6 minutes he can push his button to get more morphine. And boy, does he need it! He is in a lot of a pain, even though when the nurses ask him what number, he says a modest 6. He tends to under rate his pain.I tell them what ever he says add 2. They won’t. He won’t. Oh well.

He has all ready gone for a stroll down the hallway. He has to go walk at least 3 times today. Walking is super important for this type of surgery. But you know our boy- he’s a champ. No matter how much pain he is in, he gets up and walks.

Watch a video of Danny Walking!

The nurse tells me he is doing really good and later in the day a resident doctor comes in and pulls out the tube that is going through his nose down to his stomach sucking out all the bloody gunk down there.Danny is a little grumpy when she says, “This won’t hurt at all.” After she leaves he says to me he’d like to see what she would say if she ever had a tube in her nose down to her stomach. It did hurt.

Tubes were coming off left and right. His very pregnant nurse came in and took of his oxygen tubing, because she believed he was breathing well enough on his own. She told me to watch the monitor. If it fell below 90 , I was to call her. It didn’t so he got to breathe on his own! Hurray! So much recovery in one day. Our man is just amazing. Its going to be a long rode to recover but this sure is a good start and best of all Mr. Pancreatic Cancer is no longer residing in his body but instead living in some test tube somewhere waiting to be tortured, cut up, probed and experimented on. Danny donated Mr Pancreatic Cancer to the research team at Jefferson so they can give him what he deserves! That’ll show ’em!

“I’ve got nothing but good news”, said Doctor Lavu.

My day began at midnight when Danny woke up because he couldn’t sleep. Which is not surprising, considering he was about to get major surgery in a few hours. He had nothing but clear liquids the past 24 hours. Lots of broth, juice and jello. He had to be wiped down with some special sticky solution pads before getting into the bed with clean sheets and a clean wife( a first for everything).

We laid awake in bed and talked about the upcoming surgery. I reassured him that it was all going to be fine. I knew it in my gut ,that as usually we would have the “luck of the Irish” and pull through this trial by fire. It has brought our already close family into a tight little ball of love.

3:30 am Sean and Lara ,his girlfriend, showed up right on time and we tumbled into the truck . Lara took her own car because she had a evening class and would have to leave the hospital before us. We got to Jefferson Hospital in no time at all, for once traffic was light on Highway 76. We were directed to the 9th floor of the Gibbon building and they snatched Danny away to prep him for surgery.  I was allowed to go with him but Sonnet, Lerin, Sean and Lara had to stay behind in the waiting room till he was ready to say goodbye.

Again I wiped him down with the sticky solution on prepackage wipes but this time it wasn’t allowed in any skin folds or his genital because it might pool there and not dry and catch on fire! (That’s what Lerin told us- she just attended a seminar on OR fires!) And I sure didn’t want that to happen. He was robed in a heavy paper gown, thigh high white stockings (kinda sexy) and yellow socks that were too small for his size 11 feet. The nurse who wore her glasses over the middle of her ear injected his stomach with Heparin to help prevent blood clots. A baby doctor came in and introduced himself as a student doctor who would be observing the surgery, we could tell by his coat length that he was at Ashley’s level (our medical student niece).Then the nurse summoned the kids back to the room for our last teary goodbyes. Dwayne the pusher came and whisked him away to surgery.

We were directed to the 8th floor, where there was a very nice, huge waiting room with FREE hot drinks from a vending machine. Did I mention there was FREE gourmet coffee and hot chocolate and it was FREE! We staked out a L shaped area as our own and settled in for a long wait. Lerin snagged 2 pillows form the quiet room. They had a huge flat screen computer screen that showed each person’s location during surgery so you could know when they were done and transferred to their room. And then we waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited. They had promised that every 2 hours a nurse would call from the OR to give us an update on Danny’s situation. We got our first notification.

“Will the O’Connell family report to Phone #1 for your update.”

There was a row of phones with dividers and desks to receive your call. We gathered around the phone and held our breath, would the damn spot be cancerous or not? This gigantic question determined Danny’s fate . Life or death all determined by a spot no bigger than the mole on my cheek! Because if it was ,Dr. Lavu would just sew him back up and send him home to die. “Was the biopsy done and are they continuing with the Whipple?” I asked fearful to hear the answer.

“YES! The spot is benign and they are proceeding with the Whipple! I will call you again in 2 hours.”

YES! She said Yes, she said yes to life for Danny! We hugged in a big group hug, tears of joy and goosebumps and wicked crazy happiness! Everything is going to be alright! It was the happiest moment in my life. The entire room was staring at us with smiles on their faces.We were too excited to sit still so we went for a long walk and ended up at Ross. I pretty much HATE shopping but it was good to walk. Street people and beggars asked for money the whole way. Noone bought anything even though I encouraged Sean to buy Lara a diamond ring as we walked by rows and rows of sparkly stuff along Jewelers Row.

And then we waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited .

Another call.

“Will the O’Connell family report to Phone #2 for your update.”

No much to say other than Danny was doing great. Okay. So we left for lunch, but Lerin’s belly was upset from all the crazy drama or something and she stayed back. “I’m sure I won’t want any of the strange food you guys will eat anyway.” she said. We walked down to Chinatown and had a giant bowl of $5.00 hand shaved noodles with seaweed at Nan Zhou Noodle house on 1022 Race street. It was so delicious and belly warming!. Sonnet said if she hadn’t recently become vegetarian she would have tried the intestines. Uh…..no thank yo. There are some things I don’t ever want to try. Sonnet said its good to try foods you’ve never had. I said, ” I never tried dog poop and I never will. Although who knows what I ate in Japan since I never knew what I was eating.

We went back to the waiting room and did what you are suppose to do in waiting rooms- we waited and waited and waited. After 8 hours Dr. Lavu came out of surgery, washed Danny’s blood and guts off of himself and came to see us in THE QUIET ROOM. This amazing man din’t even look tired but he assured us he was.

“I’ve got nothing but good news”, said Doctor Lavu. The liver spot was difficult to get to. I could feel it, but it was way under and behind the liver. We shaved off and biopsied three spots and it was benign. So we took out 1/3 of his pancreas (with all of the tumor), gallbladder, some of his intestine but left all of his stomach! It took so long because the chemo had enflamed everything. He didn’t need any blood and he’s doing really well. His margins are great ,meaning they were able to get all of the cancer and not leave any tiny bits around the edges. He said we would be able to see Danny once he was all settled in the ICU where he would be for the next 2 days.

So we moved to a new waiting room outside the ICU and guess what? We waited and waited and waited. We have now have waited about 10 hours. But it was all worth it when we got in to see Danny and he was awake! Well, kind of awake. Mostly lucid but occasional lapses into morphine induced fantasy. He mentioned that the happy ending was good. Maybe because his nurse was asian? Trust me , he’s never been to one of those “Happy Ending” places- I think? Then he started singing the theme of “Mr. Ed” But other then that he was thrilled to see us. He smiled a lot even though he was in a lot of pain. He worried that he only had a limited amount of morphine and what would happen if he ran out or what if he lost the button that he would push to get more morphine. We reassured him there was plenty and they wouldn’t let him suffer. He got his blood sugar tested while we were there and it was 160, which is a little high but Lerin (who is an RN said that’s normal for surgery patients) We all kissed him and I stroked his forehead which he always loved but this time he was worried I would mess up his hair! He hardly has any hair left to mess up, but I put the few strands left in place. He looked good, really good. I had been warned by Dr. Lavu and Sandy that he would look awful with all the tubes coming out of him- but he looked great. Good color and not swollen at all. We only stayed about 10 minutes because he really wanted to just sleep and he struggled to stay awake because we were there. We promised to be back the next day and went home. It was a hell of a happy day.

Finishing up first chemo treatment

 

We took a 35 min walk around Birdsboro with our dear friend, Jesse today. Jocie and Ry, our grandchildren came along too. I’ve been trying to encourage Danny to exercise everyday, some days he’s just too tired to do anything. But this morning he’s feeling pretty good. So I set the timer on my iPhone and we toured the quaint hillbilly town of Birdsboro.
The visiting nurse came over around 2:00. She wasn’t suppose to show till 4:00. That should have been a clue that this was one ditzy nurse. Actually we were tipped off the night before when she called and kept repeating, “Are you AWARE that you will have to learn how to flush his IV line AND give him his heparin?” She was very harsh sounding. Hmmmm….
Soon as she pulled up , I put our standard poodle, Bowie in the garage, so he wouldn’t bother her. I then went out to meet her at her car. She popped out dressed head to toe in a light pink scubs outfit with NFL emblazoned on it everywhere. She carried a huge well worn drink sippy cup. I mean really huge, like it probably held a gallon of soda or beer or whatever she was drinking. She’s about 50 and Danny said later she probably was really hot when she was young because she still had a pretty good body for an old lady. You have excuse him- he has cancer so he can say anything. He doesn’t have to be politically correct anymore.
She insisted that we let Bowie out because she “adores dogs”. So we did, and they became instant friends. As she stood in the middle of the room baby talking to Bowie, Danny and I exchanged glances. He rolled his eyes. A big beetle was crawling up her leg. I didn’t tell her and neither did Danny. We just smiled to each other as it hiked up onto her back. We didn’t like her.
She plopped in my new leather chair and informed us she was going to do paper work while she waited for the last of the chemo to drip out of Danny’s blue man purse. She made numerous phone calls and walked around inspecting my art and photos on the wall.
Then she turned to me and said,” If it was MY HUSBAND, I would insist on getting the whipple now. I would tell them to do it NOW and just chemo the liver cancer.”
“If I got the whipple now, I wouldn’t be able to get chemo until I healed and if the liver spot is cancer it could keep growing and spread and if the pancreas cancer has already spread to the liver then that means it is in my blood and could be in my whole body. I’m sticking with the chemo.” said Danny
She sighed and went back to her paperwork. The beetle was now walking up her long frazzled bleach blonde hair. “Hey, I’d like to get my kids done with fairy wings too.” she exclaimed.
“That would be nice, ” I reply half-heartedly. There is no way in hell I want to photograph this lady’s kids.
She taught me how to disconnect Danny’s IV tube and clean it for 30 seconds with an alcohol pad . I then must twist on a syringe and very gentle push in the saline to flush the line. I have to stop before the bubble of air get pushed into his blood. OH my god! What if I get distracted by a bird or something and push to far and this giant bubble of air goes into his vein!!!!!!!!!
The pink clad nurse packed up her gear in a rolly backpack and exited after smothering Bowie with kisses. Bowie loved it but we were glad to see her annoying self go. The beetle waved good bye from the top of her head. I hope she’s not our permanent nurse.
Danny had to sit 2 more hours as the IV containing fluids dripped in. He needed this because he was slightly dehydrated. He has been drinking pretty much non stop, but they took the test early in the morning on monday so he hadn’t had a chance to drink enough yet.
I didn’t push the bubble into his blood stream and I deftly did the same with the heparin too! Those 2 years of nursing school has finally paid off.
He was finally disconnect from any IV’s . The next week and half will be great. No blue man bag to carry around filled with chemo. Till August 26 when it starts all over again.He did really well. The only symptom from the first chemo was a little more tired and feeling cold. Easy Peasy.