Thanksgiving to ICU, Day 11

Okay, I figured that since it's looking like Mom will be out of commission for a little while, it would be easiest to create a blog to keep everyone updated as to what's going on with her.

I'll start by summarizing what's happened so far. Mom went in to the hospital with a blockage in her small bowel on Thanksgiving. She was in and out for almost a month, but mostly in.

She had surgery on December 27th to get something happening. The doctors removed 10 feet of her small bowel and she now has an ileostomy. The parts that were killed by the radiation, as well as the blockages were all in that section, so that's the good part. The bad part was that there is still cancer on the rest of her small bowel, and it has moved up to her lung. Doing surgery to remove those areas of would be overkill. Think grains of sand on sandpaper, that's about the size and population of the cancer on the rest of her bowel and lung. The doctor said the surgery went well, and he was pleased with everything they were able to get. He also said it was a major surgery, and that her body would be in shock. They took her into ICU after recovery, and got her settled in.

In the middle of the night, Mom had some problems. Her heart was struggling, she had a lot of fluid in her lung, and she developed a bleed in her abdomen. They took her back into the OR, removed the fluid from her lung, and fixed the bleed. They also attached a pump to her stomach. They put her on a ventilator, sedated her, and kept her blood pressure and clotting in check with medications. They also had to give her more blood, because she lost a fair amount from the internal bleeding.

She's been getting better slowly but surely. She has good days and bad days, but things are looking up right now. They've drained her right lung three times, and her left lung once. I asked the doctor why the lungs keep filling up with fluid, and he says it's most likely due to the cancer.