Mother Tiger's Never Quit

We are home again. For the 5th time in not quite eleven months, we have come home from the hospital. But this time there's no celebratory "VICTORY!" feeling, there is an overwhelming sense of apprehension. Worry. Fear.

How do we really know if everything is okay this time? When will we feel it is truly behind us? I guess the answer is we will never know. Maybe it is meant to be that the events of the last eleven months really are what define us, and we cannot discard that identity like we do Parker's bandages. Maybe this is who we are, and who we will be forever.

It all feels pretty gloomy tonight, but there remains that still, small voice inside my head and my heart that says, "I am here with you and I will not leave you alone." Thank you God.

I am sure tomorrow we will feel better. Tomorrow will be sunny and the edema on Parker's abdomen will have gone down (due in large part to all the green tea and lemon I am forcing him to drink). There was some concern from the doctors about the fluid, whether it might get infected and what signs we need to look for "just in case."

So I sit and stare at Parker. I flinch at every movement he makes, jump each time he breathes deeply because he is bound up so tight with his stiff binders he can only stretch out in an awkward way without discomfort. I wait like a mother tiger for illness to reappear so I can pounce quickly. I will never give up.

I Hate Deja Vu

I suppose the reason I haven’t been able to write about the events of this past week is that it felt to familiar to what we experienced last year. Writing on this blog somehow made things feel worse, like a really bad deja vu. But I have had so many emails from people wanting updates, I am resorting to my old friend, my ability to communicate through the written word rather than my inability to communicate well through talking (although my guess is the nurses here at the hospital would say my ability to talk is well established.... it's just nerves).

Parker's recovery from the surgery on the 26th seemed way too easy, but we really felt he deserved an easy time of it and it was all the positive juju flowing his way that made it seem so simple. We were even talking about my leaving to go back to MD earlier than originally planned. Then ZAPPO BAMMO! Slapped down in the midst of all that fun.

Friday night was the first time Parker stood up without the binder on and we knew instantly something was wrong. The right side of his body stuck out like a pregnant woman, the left side was concave. it was 11:30 at night and so we resisted the urge to call the doctor right away and waited until Saturday morning.

Dr. Turner met us at the Emergency Room, and Saturday evening Parker had another emergency operation. A 7" tear had occurred inside him sometime about a week before ~ although we still aren't sure how he didn't feel it, we suspect it happened when he was heavily medicated and likely still in the hospital.

This time it was Dr. Turner and Dr. Bomack who did the surgery (Dr. Garcia was away). Dr. Bomback said they beat his intestines up pretty badly during the four hour surgery, but that although things were a mess inside, everything looked really clean (as in no obvious infections). Since then one thing after another has occurred that reminded me too much of what we went through last year.

When I met Parker in his room about 11:30pm Saturday night, the first thing he said was, "They put the NG tube back in." Sure enough, there it was, the one thing he had told me he never wanted again. Dr. Bomback explained they didn't want all the stuff that would be coming from his intestines backing up into his body, and there would be a lot of stuff because of how much work they had to do inside.

NG tube and catheter to start. Then they had to give him extra fluids because he was dehydrated. Those fluids didn't come out the normal way so they gave him boluses chased by lasix, just like last time. Then his potassium dropped because of the fluid problem and they had to give him potassium. They had him on vancomycin because of the MRSA cultured last year, but when someone assigned Dr. Bissett (infectious disease) to follow up, he discontinued that. One thing after another started to feel way too familiar.

But! The good news is, and has been, Parker is NOT in ICU, he is not in IMC, he is on a "regular' post-surgical floor. His white cell count went up the first couple of days post surgery, which we knew was normal, and he had a couple of minor spikes in temperature. For the most part his heart rate and blood pressure have remained stable. Yesterday they took and ex ray of the placement for the NG tube and realized it was too high up. Not sure how that accounts for the masses of thick, rusty colored buckets of stuff coming out of it, I can only hope it was a back up of the stuff coming from his intestines as Dr. Bomback explained might happen, but the fact that it was too high was the opposite of what we had hoped for. Regardless, the nurse, Morgan, lowered the tube and the color changed to the more normal green. (sorry....)

This morning Dr. Gambarin, who is covering for Dr. Bomback who was covering for Dr. Garcia, capped off the NG tube. We sit and wait and hope and pray Parker doesn't feel nauseous, because if things start going down into his intestines instead of backing up and making him throw up, they can remove the tube altogether. His throat is really sore from the tube and really, who wants a tube being shoved up your nose, down the back of your throat and into your stomach? My father made me promise if they ever tried to do that to him again I was not to let them.

Up until yesterday Parker's spirits were really down. Monday we both felt dark and hopeless and anxious about every single thing, but we had a fabulous nurse named Stella who really made things happen, and made us know she was in our corner, fighting for us. I can't tell you how much we appreciate her compassion and her hard work. When she told me she was staying all the way until 11:pm I burst into tears in gratitude.

Yesterday Lindsey came and helped Parker sit up the first time (he had sat up once before but we are now so worried about ripping something inside we really didn't want to do anything until she was here to show us how to do it the right way). Parker sat on the edge of the bed 3 times yesterday, and today he wants to try and stand, maybe even walk a step or two. We are waiting now for Dr. Turner to come look at his abdomen before he stands again. They are also working on getting us a special binder that won't crinkle and scrunch his body all up. We need one that covers more area between his navel (or where is navel used to be) and his rib cage (long body, short legs).

Quinn has been quite frantic over this whole thing, but I got a girl to come in each day starting yesterday and spend an hour with her, walking her, brushing her coat, giving her much need attention and reassurance. Last night when I got back to the apartment, Quinn was so much happier than she had been the days before. When it was apparent I was staying overnight, she burrowed herself into her bed and slept with one eye open, watching me to be sure I didn't leave without telling her. :-)

I spent the night there for the first time since this started on Saturday ~ Parker has been having his own anxiety over everything and in the beginning, every time he would fall asleep he would have flashbacks to the ICU and wake up in a panic and a cold sweat. But sleeping in a bed last night, for me, was incredible. You just never know how much a good bed matters until you spend some time sleeping upright in a chair.

Please continue to keep Parker in your prayers. We have a ways to go, but things do seem ~ for the moment ~ to be heading in the right direction.

The photo above is one I took New Year's Day 2005 and is titled Fresh Start. I am hoping to encourage the positive juju to keep flowing our way.