An Update on Michael Daniels / Hopper 52

paul61

I wanted to bring this to the top so everyone would be sure to see it.

An update from Michael's daughters:

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Hi all...another update on Mike


So as always, we are pulling through day by day. I am actually unsure where we left off, as the saga has not taken a break since it began 7 weeks ago. Most of you know that our dad had a surgery at Moffit on September 21st where they found the cancer had spread to his abdomen, claiming the cancer to be 'terminal.' Due to complications from the surgery (ascites, infection, low blood pressure), dad had another emergency surgery on September 30th at the Brandon Regional Hospital and had miraculously made it through against what the doctors had predicted. On October 14th, dad was allowed to go home with the wound vac for his huge open wound on his abdomen, and would have a home health nurse come to our home 3 days a week. That following Wednesday, the nurse said something was fishy and dad was readmitted into the hospital and diagnosed with a fistula. Lucky for us, the fistula was right where we could see it (which isn't common from what we hear) and the nurses at Brandon Regional were awesome and customized a dressing that drained the fistula through a baby nipple (seriously, a baby nipple!) and the rest of the wound with the wound vac. They took great care of him then, but on September 25th, dad had a little scare when he got out of bed, released a blood clot that had reached his lungs, and was sent to ICU due to heart failure. Yet AGAIN, dad has recovered from this and is now at Kindred Hospital in south Tampa, a LTAC facility. They finally hooked him up to the wound vac today. We have had some great news from his new doctor that maybe they will be able to perform a skin graft to help the healing and then they will be able to turn the fistula into a colostomy. This might mean that dad can come home in 2-3 weeks, which is all he wants!
We are taking it one day at a time (in fact, today marks the 6th week after his surgery at Moffit) and we look forward to the day he gets to come home (again). The wound is looking better each time we see it and while he is depressed or sleeping most of the time, we have good times reminiscing or gossiping about the nurses (who are all super nice here). His strength continues to impress everyone, and as long as we can keep positive spirits we hope the time will fly. His body is so amazing, and I know much of his strength comes from you all.
Meanwhile, we have yet to deal with the debate as to whether dad has metastasized ec or pancreatic. Obviously, both are not the best of news but we would like to know the beast we are trying (and WILL) tackle. BRH insists it is pancreatic and Moffit insists it is EC, so we are really unsure what to do. Regardless, we don't want dad to even think about it while he is recovering from all these other problems. But he is putting in the good fight we all expect from him, plus some.
I hope he will be in alert and able shape to read some of the board, or allow us to read to him your situations. We apologize for being TOO busy and not keeping up. We wish you all the best and hope you will get to hear from our dad directly soon. We will continue to keep you all in our thoughts and prayers and will update soon.

Jen, Lisha, and Linda