A good day :)

Posted by Sammy on Dec 31st, 2009 | 2 comments

Last night I left Gary with his oxygen level around 95. I was happy with that. I went home and didn’t even bother to turn on my laptop because I was BEAT. I was so tired that as soon as my head hit the pillow I passed out. No need for an anti-anxiety pill for sure. I went in this morning and like I do every morning as I get out of the elevator I do a good number chant. As I get out the nurse manager is actually walking towards the elevator and he tells me that he’s holding on at 98! I walk super fast to get to him and low and behold he was holding on at 98 and I finally got to witness with my own eyes his oxygen reaching 100! That is HUGE!!!! I knew it was going to be a good day. And it sorta was.

I learned that early this morning, around 2am, they were able to take him off of one of his blood pressure meds. He was holding in the 90s without it. Once I got there they started talking about reducing the oxygen saturation on the ventilator. I was anxious to see how he’d do. Within an hour he went from an oxygen sat of 100 down to 75, while maintaining his oxygen level at 95. He started having some trouble so they bumped it up to 80, then 85, and finally 90. But this is expected. Most patients end up requiring this after the first drop. I’ll be happy if I get in tomorrow morning and he’s still holding in the 90s with his oxygen sat at 90%. And if it is at 100% then so be it, we’ll get him back down again.

Today Gary got some fancy footwear to wear in bed. He apparently is so swollen and is retaining so much fluid that he has blisters forming on his feet. So he has these socks and then boots that pad his feet so that the blisters don’t burst and he hopefully doesn’t get new blisters to turn up.

His nephrologist was happy about the dialysis. His kidneys are still not working and he doesn’t expect them to until his blood pressure increases. His pulmonologist was happy with today’s progress to. He also said that his chest x-ray was starting to look better, so we can only hope that he has made that turn for the better. He may need to be on the vent for another week or so, but I’ll take that if it means that Gary will overcome this really bad hiccup in his health.

Probably one of the highlights of my day was getting an email with this pic:

This is a pic of the “blood bank” created at the company that Gary works for (Ultimate Software). As soon as they heard that his platelets were low and that you could donate in his name they jumped at getting the blood mobile to come out and they created stations in a conference room for people to donate their platelets for Gary. There were apparently a number of individuals that were not eligible to donate platelets so they ended up getting the actual van out so that they could at least donate whole blood. Even though Gary doesn’t need whole blood they could always strip platelets from that or just give it to someone that does need whole blood. Regardless it was the most amazing email to see come in. As soon as I got it I told Gary about it. I can’t wait to show him the pic. He is NOT going to believe it one bit, but we’ve got proof

I wanted to thank all of the visitors we’ve had, those that have come to either bring me food or take me out of the hospital to get food, those that have sent me emails and those that just follow my blog for the Gary updates. It is amazing to know that we have soooooooooo many people pulling for him. I know he doesn’t expect in a million years the number of people that are rooting for him to pull through this, but it is the most touching thing ever. I cannot wait to tell him about all of this, he is going to be floored!

Brain Surgery who would’ve thought!!

Posted by Sammy on Jul 7th, 2009 | no comments

This morning I made sure to get here bright and early. Just tied my hair up, changed, and rushed over to his room. Glad that I’m staying at the Safra Family Lodge across the street!!!! The doc was in at 6:40am (so 5 minutes early), he examined Gary again and told him they’d come for him between 7-7:15am. That turned into 8:30am. We got to pre-op and things started happening FAST. Nurses, anesthesiologists, and doctors all coming in one after the other. Around 9:30 they were ready to wheel him to the OR. I took the opportunity to find the waiting room and then head back to the lodge to bathe and then grab breakfast before I came back to wait for him. Around 11am the OR nurse called the waiting room to tell me that they started the surgery at 10:30 and that he was doing GREAT. Fantastic news!!!

Around 11:30 the two neurosurgeons came in to talk to me. Both told me that he did great. Yay! I waited a few minutes and found the recovery room. Just so happen someone was coming out, so I asked her if this was recovery. It was, I found him. But the nurse did not like that I was there. I quickly checked on him and then left back to his room. I found out that they do not want him leaving tomorrow as previously planned. They want to do his first dose of chemo using the new port to make sure its working properly (makes sense but UGH!!!). They are thinking we can go home on Friday, I sure hope so. I REALLY hope so!

Gary had a CT Scan this afternoon to check on the placement of the catheter and to make sure there was no bleeding. He has a few air bubbles in his brain but this is normal. They have him on oxygen which supposedly will help with this. They’ll have to redo the CT scan before we leave because he can’t fly with air bubbles in his brain. As for bleeding he has just some where the site is but nothing in his brain which is great news. He is in GREAT spirits. His appetite is back. He’s on the last 2 drugs of round #2 right now. So he should be disconnected some time tonight!!!!

We are hoping that this is our turning point. From here on out everything will just be getting better and better.

Oh and I have to just say WOOOOOHOOOO because this morning the doc came in and told him that his platelets were 202 as of yesterday. Ummmm this may not mean jack to any of you readers but to us this is FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC news. Low platelets are usually around the 140s, his have been at that or lower for the last 2 years. So for it to be in the 200′s. Holy SHIT! That’s just beyond awesome. So if that ain’t a sign that this crap is working, then I don’t know what is!!!!