Update on Bill

Wow I haven't been here in weeks and the first post I see is from Steved. I am so happy to hear that your surgery went well and you are back on the boards. Good luck with your recovery. I posted here about my boyfriend Bill who has stage 2 rectal cancer and had successful surgery on Feb 16, 2012. He then had a reversal of his colostomy on June 9th and ended up back in the hospital with an obstruction. For those of you who don't remember during his surgery to unblock the obstruction his colon ruptured in 3 places. He was septic and in the ICU for about a month , on a ventilator. He has since that time which was June 29th, had three more surgeries. He is doing well, although after 3 months he is still in the hospital. He has had one complication after another. They moved him to his own room after they weaned him off the ventilator. He is in isolation because he has Mersa virus. His has another colostomy and an intestinal fistula. He had 2 other fistulas but they were able to stable those. He also has a hernia for which they put a mesh screen in during one of his surgeries. However, it disintigrated due to the intestinal leak. So bottom line is......He has now been in the hospital for 3 months. He can only have liquids because every thing he eats leaks out thru the fistual. His wound is closing very very slowly. The intestinal fluids leak on him and causes a horrible red rash on his skin. He has a jp pump. He gets an injection for pain every 4 hours and TPN and fat emulsion every night thru his pic line. They are trying to get him home but they need the wound to be small enough so they can put a colostomy bag over it. Apparently he is looking at 2 more surgeries. One to close the fistula (don't know when)And then a colostomy reversal which probably won't be done for at least a year. So, it has been and still is a pretty rough road. ALthough much less stressful than when we didn't know if he would survive the sepsis. Also, we have not even had time to think about the fact that he has cancer. I can't go there and worry about that, I just take it one day at a time. The first 2 months I was going to the hospital every day and twice a day on the weekends. Since he has stabilized I have cut back on my visits. I have to take care of myself as well!!!I will read the boards to catch up and see how everyone else is getting along. Thanks for listening!!
Deb