UPDATE ON Linda's Jim

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  • linda1120
    linda1120 Member Posts: 389
    #22
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    linda1120 said:

    Jim coming "home" today! YIPPEE!
    Today is a very exciting day to be sure. Jim is coming home with me to the hotel. The doctors believe he is ready to be with family over a nursing care facility. I am so thrilled to be able to take care of him and give him the quiet he is so looking forward to!
    One thing I know for sure is he won't miss the incessant beeping and continual interruptions that are the necessary evils of staying in a hospital. The doctors are so pleased with Jim's progress. The MIE definitely makes the recovery easier.

    I will get my lessons on his feeding tube and we will be ready to get on with our lives. We are so grateful to a wonderful team of surgeons and the caring staff at OHSU. They are definitely a cutting edge teaching hospital. We will be staying in the hotel near Portland
    for a week in order to be close to the doctors. Our plans are to fly home on the 21st.

    Jim is still using a walker, but knowing him he will be on his own in no time. We are so grateful to God for his cancer free diagnosis. We talked about the lessons we have learned through this experience. The biggest one is to not take one another for granted, to know every moment of life is precious, because your life can change in a heartbeat. Our love for one another has become stronger, and when those "testy" moments arrive, like they always do when two people live together, we just have to let them go and love one another. Sherri and Jim's experience has been such a eye opener for Jim and I. God has given them the Grace to grow even closer and live with such openness and honesty while dealing with death. What a lesson for us all.

    Well, I am off to get ready for my ride to the hospital. I can't wait to give that man of mine a kiss.

    Linda

    Hotel Living
    Yesterday was a wonderful day having Jim come home to me. I have become quite proficient with the feeding tube. We are keeping a pretty low profile, but Jim and I take our walks to keep him active. I have learned to crush pills, dissolve them, and am using all kinds of syringes, flushing tubes,tube feeding, etc. We've had a couple of leaks so I did laundry while taking a shower today!:-) Boy do I appreciate my washer and dryer at home. We were both exhausted yesterday and went to bed at 8pm! I am usually a night owl so that was really unusual. I have had to be in my "Sarg" mode and Wow, I don't know how William and Loretta do all they do, I am wiped out taking care of Jim and my needs!

    Jim continues to do well. He is still coughing up a lot of gunk and I wondered if that is normal? He ate jello today for the first time. I sense a fear of him wanting to try anything. I truly do understand that, but hope he will before we go home to North Idaho. He is on a thick liquid diet. The feeding tube food is calculated to give him enough calories, fiber, and vitamins and minerals for his height and weight. He will weigh on Thursday when he sees the surgeon. As you can see I posted a new picture of the two of us before he was released from the hospital.

    Thank you all for the continual prayers, comments, and concern. We both appreciate it so much.
    I will be forever grateful to this group. Jim could not have survived a Ivor-Lewis with his heart and that is where we were headed until I was advised to get that second opinion at a high volume cancer center. We too needed a very skilled team of surgeons with Jim's ec in the celiac node. Between that and his heart, we were both prepared for the worst, and prayed and hoped for the best. I do believe that "The Great Physician" was guiding those surgeons. God isn't finished with either one of us yet. We have more to do and God willing we will. I continually speak to women about ovarian cancer and post to the Ovarian lists to let them know that there are longterm survivors. I share my story and they tell me it gives them hope. I want to do the same for EC. This ec is truly a beast and people need to be aware of it. Our circle of friends and family have been thoroughly educated, and we share with others all of the time.

    It can be such a preventable cancer.

    Linda

    Linda

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