October 23rd, 2008
Hello,
We wanted to start a blog for our mom as a way to keep everyone updated and keep our family and friends connected. Also we hope this site will help anyone researching colon cancer for a loved one.
As many of you already know our mom Kim was diagnosed with metastic colon cancer June 23, 2008. She is only 54 years old and has always been in good health. So as you can imagine it came as quite a shock. Especially since her mom is 85 and cancer does not run in the family. Immediately after her diagnosis she was hospitalized 12 days to run tests and scans in order to determine how far the cancer had spread. We were devastated to learn that she had several masses in her liver and two in her lungs. Thankfully there were no tumors in her brain or bones.
Due to mom’s illness she has been unable to continue working and dad is only able to work very part time since he has become her full time care giver. We realize this is a tough economy but every little bit helps. Anyone who is able and would like to contribute can donate through the website.
We would like to thank all our family and friends who have showed their love and concern. We are truly blessed to have such a loving support system. For anyone out there going through a cancer diagnosis our thoughts and prayers are with you. It is such an emotional rollercoaster and can be very overwhelming. Stay strong and keep positive! Please remember to have a colonoscopy when you turn 50!
July 1st, 2009
Mom was discharged from the Mayo Clinic yesterday afternoon. She is still recovering and in a lot of pain but is glad she is no longer in the hospital. Her long stay increased the possibilities of infection so it was best for her to go home to recover the rest of the way. Mom and dad will be staying with Sarah and Matt for awhile to have the extra help. As if the surgery has not been hard enough on mom now her stoma has herniated and needs to be addressed. Mom is in no condition to have another surgery so we will have to find out what to do about that next week. Mom has an apt with Dr. Hepell on Monday so will post again then.
June 28th, 2009
Mom’s doing a little better eachday. Last night she was able to have her first real meal in a week. They took out the catheter and heart monitor and the nurses have been getting her up and moving around a lot more. The doctor thinks that she should be able to go home in a few days. She is really looking forward to getting out of the hospital.
June 27th, 2009
Mom was moved this afternoon out of ICU into a bigger room after 7 days in the hospital. The doctor removed her drainage tubes from her incision which of course caused her a lot of pain. Now she should be healing and improving more eachday. The nurses brought mom a walker and insisted on her getting out of bed and walking 3 times a day. After some pushing she got up and was able to walk around with the assistance of the walker. It was her first time out of bed in a week. It was very encouraging to hear that she is making progress. Baby steps…
June 24th, 2009
Nothing new to really post today. Mom is still in ICU since her blood levels are critically low. The doctors started her on EPO last night and said it can take a couple days to see results. Hopefully tomorrow we will see her blood going up and she will begin her recovery. She slept a lot today and seems to be more comfortable with the new pain meds.
June 23rd, 2009
Mom is still in the ICU tonight. Her blood count had started to go back down again this afternoon so they ordered EPO (a blood builder) to help bring her blood volume up. They are suppose to start her on it tonight and hopefully in the next few days we will see some good results. The doctors changed her pain meds and that seems to be working better at relieving some of the pain.
June 22nd, 2009
Mom is out of surgery and in recovery the next 2 hours then they will bring her to ICU for the night. The surgeon said they didn’t have an “Ah ha” moment when they opened her back up but they did find an area that was bleeding that they stitched up. So hopefully that’s it. Dr. Heppell will be there tomorrow and they are going to figure out what the plan is going be to get her blood volume up. They can’t give her anything right now because it would be too much for her kidneys to handle. So hopefully she will just sleep through the night and tomorrow will be a better day. We don’t need anymore setbacks. We will update again tomorrow or as we hear anything new.
June 21st, 2009
Today has been another bad day for mom. She is still in excruciating pain and is still losing a lot of blood. Because of mom’s religious beliefs as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses she refuses to have a blood transfusion. Unfortunately the doctors were unable to stop the bleeding with the belt they placed around her incision area and procrit (a blood fraction that helps produce more blood). Her levels have become dangerously low and the doctors are afraid of her having a stroke or a heart attack. After a x-ray and ct scan they realized she had multiple areas where blood was not coagulating. She is now undergoing another operation to try and stop the bleeding. We will update again when she gets out of surgery and we learn more. Please continue to keep our mom in your thoughts and prayers.
June 20th, 2009
Mom went into the hospital today at 7:30am for surgery and around 11:20am they brought her back to begin the operation. The surgery took about 4 hours to remove the tumor in her colon. It took a little longer than Dr. Heppell anticipated due to some of the repairs he had to make to her colon and rectum. Thankfully he was able to remove the entire tumor and if all heals well in 6-8 weeks he will be able to reverse the colostomy. He felt at this time to reverse it would lead to too many serious complications. If she were to get an infection it would be impossible for her liver to fight it off. He only had to make a small bikini incision to operate so hopefully mom will be happy with the minimal scaring since we all know she will be upset when she comes to and realizes she still has a colostomy bag. Mom woke up around 4pm in a lot of pain so they increased her meds and is sleeping now. We will continue to update the site when there is more news.
June 17th, 2009
Just wanted to let everyone know that mom’s surgery has been moved up to this Friday June 19th. She will be having it at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, AZ. We will make sure to keep the site updated so everyone can continue to check her status after the surgery. Thank you for your prayers and support.