The doctors continue to stress that this is a complex surgery and no recovery goes exactly as planned. Greg’s situation is complicated in several ways, and apparently it is not unusual to have days 3-5 feel as if things are moving backwards. Worrisome is a low grade fever he has been running. They have done a lot more tests to see if they can find the source, as the external suture site looks OK. They have done some contrast dye tests to see if there is excess fluid around the internal sutures connecting the internal organs, and while there is a small leak between the stomach and pancreas, it cannot account for the amount of fluid that is accumulating and draining through various tubes. Apparently the tumor was not located on the pancreas, so that tissue is healthy and does not hold stitches well. They are monitoring output of these various organs, hoping that they slow down production of various liquids so that healing can continue.
The tube that enters his nose and goes to drain the stomach is the most uncomfortable. Today an Ear/Nose/Throat team looked at the vocal chords, which are very swollen from the intubation during the lengthy surgery, but are moving correctly and therefore (hopefully) have not been permanently damaged. I believe they gave a shot of local anesthetic to that area to help relieve the painful swelling. He can now speak very softly, for a very short amount of time. Telephone conversations are still just not worth it.
They think there might be a bit of pneumonia in the lower right lung, close to where the surgery occurred, which may account both for the fever and for the pain he experiences there when he tries to breath deeply and cough productively. No read yet on a recent chest X-ray, but they have broadened the array of antibiotics to include something that can address that.
We are really hopeful that removing the nasal tube, hopefully tomorrow, will help both his comfort level and outlook, representing a turn for the better. He continues to get tired easily and sleeps a lot.
The good news of the past two days is that Andrew and Jess came from Vermont to visit, take him for a walk down the corridor, play some hearts…Brian and Bridget were playing tag team, one keeping their kids busy, while the other one visited. I kept Andrew’s crew out in Stow….first time home since Tuesday….so we’ve all been making it possible for each person to get in to see him. Now both boys, families and dogs are at Cow Island for the next couple of days — how I wish we were able to join them, as originally planned!
So that’s the latest — the doctors say that he will get through this. They want to do what they can to speed the healing process so he can get back to the Multiple Myeloma drugs — but he has to be able to process them orally before they can be resumed. Complicated.
Thank you all for you interest and good thoughts.
Barbara
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