Life, the Universe and Everything ...

This spring and summer has not been the greatest for our family.

As you know from this blog and my Facebook page, I cared for my terminally ill kitty Cinnamon from the time of her diagnosis with lung cancer in February until it was time to say good-bye to her on Mother's Day due to the fact that I didn't want her to suffer. This still makes me very sad, and I still miss her.

My sister Brenda and her family had to say good-bye to their dog Samson. He was an older, big dog, and had gotten to the point where he could no longer stand on his own ... so it was time.

As most everyone who would be reading this blog knows, this spring my sister's husband Jim was diagnosed with mesothelioma. He was sent to doctors at Brigham and Women's hospital for evaluation and treatment. During evaluation, it was determined that the cancer had not gotten into the lymph nodes, so they scheduled him for surgery. The plan was to remove the affected lung or the pleural sac around it. The expectation was that he would have the lung removed. The other part of the plan was "hot chemo bath" treatment before they closed him up after surgery.

June 21, 2012: He came through the surgery with flying colors. They didn't have to remove the lung, but warned that removal of the pleural sac would actually require a longer recovery period, likening it to "peeling" the lung. He was up and walking in no time, and about 2 weeks after the surgery (July 4, 2012), was released from the hospital to stay at the "Meso" house - and apartment building set up for mesothelioma patients and their adult family during their post-hospital stay recovery. The expectation was that he would be ready to go home within 2-3 weeks or so of his hospital release.

But things did not go as planned. He started feeling more and more tired, and within days of his release had gained 6 pounds of fluid and was feeling completely wiped out. The Friday following his release, my sister took him to the doctor and they were advised he should go back to the hospital. They admitted him. He had an elevated white blood cell count and a fever of 102 plus. This SCREAMED "infection" to me, but they seemed to hesitate to call it that. By Saturday, he had had to have 2 units of blood, his white count was still high, and his temperature was still elevated. His health deteriorated fairly quickly and eventually he was diagnosed with pneumonia. Just what kind of pneumonia had yet to be determined.

His condition became extremely critical by the following Monday, when my sister Brenda and I went out to Boston to spend time with Joie for emotiona support. They put him on a ventilator and chemically paralyzed him and lightly sedated him so he couldn't fight the tube. We were told he was critical, but not how "critical" he really was. They were treating him with several antibiotics and weren't seeing any improvement, so they changed them. They had not gotten the culture results back from the lab as yet, so weren't positive what bacteria and what strain they were dealing with. When they did get the word back, they would focus more tightly on drugs which would be effective on the specific infection he had.

MSSA. Same bacteria as MRSA - Staphylococcus aureus - only supposedly, MSSA isn't methicillin resistant (penicillin family), although it apparently is a virulent, aggressive bacteria. They changed the antibiotics, and were seeing some improvement through the rest of the week - but nothing improved enough to change his condition from critical.

This past Monday they planned to do a tracheostomy and also insert a feeding tube. They need to get him off the sedation, but the ventilator stresses him out so much that they need to find a way to get him off of that, too. The only solution is a tracheostomy, so they can give him air/oxygen if he needs it after they bring him out of sedation. He wouldn't be able to eat food yet, but they need to get nutrients into him that offer more than IV feeding. Apparently, however, he was still too sick for the procedures, as when they moved him to the operating table his oxygen saturation level went down and they couldn't get it back up. They scratched the idea of surgery that day and told my sister that he was sicker than they had thought he was. His heart was beating irregularly later on, and medication didn't help, so they shocked it and the normal rhythm came back. They've now changed his antibiotics again, and have indicated that he's made very tiny bits of progress again, that his kidneys and liver are fine and that he has started to lose some of the fluid that has collected in his body. The fluid thing is tricky, as losing too much of it too quickly can damage the kidneys, so they are being very careful with that.

They still hope to do the tracheostomy and feeding tube procedures as soon as he is capable of having the surgery. Once he has those done, he should start to improve more quickly, but getting him to the point of being able to tolerate the surgery is the hard part right now.

During all of this, our family has been kind of taking turns going out to be with Joie. Jim's mom, aunt and a couple of his cousins were there the other day, my parents and my sister Brenda before that... my other sister Donna has been there several time and is there now.

And life goes on. A month or more ago, one of Brenda's cats ate day lily leaves and had to have emergency vet care for about 3 days. He's fine now, but that was scary. And one of Brenda's dogs contracted Lyme disease this past weekend - she could barely walk. She's now on antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and is doing much better.

Also during all of this, my oldest nephew wound up in the hospital with what was diagnosed as a gallbladder problem - at least one stone. They eventually did gallbladder removal and he was released and is doing well - but that was a little scary, too.

Me, I'm still dealing with grief and stress - and I do that by shutting down... but now I realize I need to get my life back on track. I need to organize my home and my life better. And I'll tell you more about how I'm attempting to do that later ...