knitting is a hereditary disease

Too much information ...

Posted on 10/16/2008 by Barb | Comments (0)
Filed under : Random Thoughts

Andrea wrote in her blog that it’s been a long three weeks. Now it’s four. And during all this time surprisingly little knitting has been accomplished.

Four weeks ago today my husband had his initial surgery for colorectal cancer. The bowel did not resume normal function as expected post op, leading to a condition called ileus. His colon became severely distended, eventually leading to a rupture at the anastomosis site. They put drains into him to drain out and clean up after some very nasty leaking and infection.

After a week or so with drains and tubes we don't even care to talk about, the docs decided the rupture would not heal without diverting the bowel. So they constructed a colostomy (planned to be temporary), and outfitted him with a bag. (Don't you just love wikipedia and wiktionary?)

Things do seem to be looking up. (Can you believe that getting a colostomy bag is “looking up”?) But, yesterday a CT scan show multiple additional abscesses! So later today we have placement of additional drains in the two largest of these new abscesses.

What was to have been maybe 5 days in the hospital has been four weeks and a day, and is looking like it will be 35 days … if everything goes well from here on. He does look better than he did there for a while ... but it sure ain't pretty!

Sigh …. as promised, no photos.