"Life moves pretty fast...." Guest posting

On Thursday September 22nd we said goodbye to Ronald J Van Iwaarden (1967). Ron will be truly missed; the bad puns, the pointless trivia, and his pure love of anything quirky or geeky.  

Ron was married to Stephanie Van Iwaarden for almost 28 years and his greatest achievement and what he was most proud of were his children Riley (19), River (18), and Forrest (15). He enjoyed absolutely everything about them. After receiving his cancer diagnosis, Ron, Stephanie, and their family tried to embrace and enjoy life and each other as much as they possibly could with sport activities, camping, and skiing.  

Ron’s final days were surrounded by those who loved him the most, Steph and the kids, Ron’s parents, Gary and Joann Van Iwaarden, his younger brother, Doug,  and his wife, Sandy, his older brother, Glen, as well numerous friends.  

Stephanie and the kids, along with Gary and Joann, invite you to join them in remembrance of Ron.  The Memorial Service will be held at Woodman Valley Stone Chapel at 290 E Woodmen Rd, Colorado Springs, CO 80919 on Wednesday September 28th at 2 PM. The memorial service will be followed by a Celebration of Ron’s Life and reception at Hillside Gardens and Events Center 1006 S. Institute St. Colorado Springs, CO 80903 from 3:30 – 6:00. Everyone is welcome to join the family at either one or both gatherings. Ron had wished the celebration to be where people could gather to laugh, love, and share stories and memories.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to be to Neuroendocrine Tumor Program located at Ochsner Medical Center in Louisana -https://giving.ochsner.org/Views/dp/donate/controller.cfm? (use the drop down menu  under Gift Designation and select “Zebra Fund”)

Please bring stories and memories to share at the Celebration.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Ferris Bueller 1986

So long and thanks for all the fish

Time for one last post.  I stopped receiving TPN and hydration last Friday, 9/9/2016 and the edema has kept my body rolling for a while as it supplied the water I need but that is coming to a close.  I can definitely feel the reduction in lung capacity and it has made it harder and harder to breath.  I need oxygen to maintain a reasonable pulse-ox but the colostomy has been very quiet.

This has been a pleasant passing in that it has been gentle.  I have gotten to see many friends come by and share their thoughts and memories of times at work or play and that has been great.  It is hard to go through some of those memories and harder for them to come here, walking into the pain but that has made it all the more special to me.  Their being willing to overcome the natural inclination of fleeing pain, and hurt is awesome.

For some that has come out as tears rarely expended.  Others are pushed right to that edge and shiver uncontrollably.  Some are stoic in expression but their words tell the story of their feeling.  I have valued every one of these displays of their feelings as a gift to me.

Speaking of gifts, my family has really stepped things up here!  My brother and his wife have been here since last Friday, helping out with everything from yardwork to groceries and it has been incredibly useful to have their assistance.  My parents have been here as well, helping out with the most mundane of tasks, just making things go easier.  My kids have also returned home in spite of classes to be close to me and I have loved being able to touch and hold them.

So, as I sit here in my hospital bed, I am again reminded of the love of people and the importance of forming memories with them.  Get out there today to play with your kids or call them if they are no longer at home. Kids, call your parents RIGHT NOW.  Let them know you love them and are thinking of them.  You may not have the advance notice that I have gotten with my cancer and organ failure.

Enjoy your family and enjoy your life!!

Perforations are tricksy they are...

After a week of decreasing output, things reversed themselves on the weekend and it is obvious that the perforation has not healed.  I spoke (texted) with Dr. Boudreaux this morning and he wants to delay surgery for a while to ensure that he does not create any more holes while trying to fix this one.  I don't know how long it will be but will be waiting another month to get a status.

While we wait, the perforation is doing less than 200ml/day which is not too bad and we are starting a second round of antibiotics to address the infection.  I start 250mg of Keflex 3x/day on Tuesday and hope that it takes care of the abscess.

We have increased the protein in my TPN to try and increase the healing and reduce the edema that I still have.  We have had to start doing an additional 500ml of saline/day to address dehydration and the protein in the TPN may help push the fluid out of the tissue and back into the veins.  If we can achieve that, fluid can then be addressed through diuretics and my unhappy kidneys.

Obviously, this delays recovery more and more.  I don't know what we would do if we didn't have such good health and disability insurance, not to mention a company that is just phenomenal.  Keep me up to date as to what is going on in your worlds and I will continue to update you as to what is going on in my little fishbowl.

Perforation healing?

On July 16th, it was definitively determined that I had a perforated bowel that formed a fistula through the surgical scar.  At that time, it was leaking quite rapidly, putting out several hundred milliliters a day and we captured the output in an ostomy bag which has been difficult to get right.

On August 5th, we addressed an abscess that formed on the left side of the incision and was incredibly painful to the touch.  It ruptured through a different place in my surgical scar and we spent the morning at the doctor's office, draining the abscess and then extending the current ostomy bag to cover both the old fistula as well as the abscess drainage location.  I started on antibiotics to address the infection and am hoping that it heals.

We had scheduled surgery for August 24th in NOLA to repair the perforated bowel but it may be healing on its own.  The amount of drainage has dropped significantly and we are just going to start monitoring and watching it for now.

This puts us in a funny place.  Surgery was not something we wanted but it was a time and place on which we could focus.  Wait and watch is not a fun place to be but it looks like that is what we have to do at this point.  I imagine we will be doing another CT with oral contrast at some point if only to see if it has healed or if the contrast goes into my abdomen or not.

I am still getting about 1900 calories/day from TPN and we just increased the amount of protein that is provided, hopefully to encourage some of that healing.  I am getting a bit dehydrated and that is frustrating because I am also retaining fluid.  Hopefully the increased protein will help strengthen my blood vessels and reduce the amount of fluid that weighs down my body.

I have the G tube connected to a drainage bag 24/7 and look forward to being able to eat something at some point without watching it go directly into the bag.  I have sampled watermelon and grapes using the chew and spit method but was surprised at the amount of seeds and pulp that I still swallow.  We have a new Vitamix, just sitting there, waiting for me to be able to use it and we will be freezing some fruit that I can use in it when I am allowed to really eat.

I have no idea what this means about my recovery as my legs get totally exhausted after a short 3/4 or 1 mile walk.  I can do them but it really beats me down.  I am just going to try and continue to extend my walks and improve as best as I can over the next weeks/months.

Two steps forward, three to the left, one back, two to the left and one back.  At least that is what it feels like.  Hopefully the total output is forward but it is really causing some struggles right now.

Recovery is progressing

I have been home for a little while now and solidly on the path of recovery.  I have been going for walks daily, am up to just over half a mile which is pretty close to my limit and the drainage from the fistula seems to be slowing.  We are struggling with leakage around the ostomy bag that collects drainage from the fistula but we are slowly learning how to manage it.

If this were a normal recovery, I would be quite pleased with how everything is going and would be exploring my limited food options.  We even purchased a new Vitamix before leaving NOLA with the plan of using it to create smoothies, soups and other things I could eat.  As it sits, I am drinking clear liquids of all varieties just for pleasure as they simply drain out my G-tube which is now unclamped 24/7.  It does give some satisfaction but I wish I could do more than just the clear liquids and wish I were getting some calories from them.

The TPN seems to be doing OK at this point with around 1900 calories in each bag and my lab numbers seem to be relatively stable.  My kidney numbers are returning to normal (for me) and my liver numbers are all within normal ranges except for alkaline phosphatase which is high but not the crazy high we had been seeing.

Of course, we need to eventually fix this perforated bowel.  The hope was to do this locally but we have been advised by too many sources to head back to NOLA for the repair.  We don't want to go but at least it will be after Riley and River start off to college, leaving just Forrest home.  We are now looking into how to manage this last little bit.  Forrest may stay with some friends or my parents might come down to help but we don't quite know at this point what we will do.

Stephanie also cannot stay down there for the full time because she needs to be at work as well.  Perhaps she will fly back after I have been stabilized post surgery and come back to NOLA on weekends until I am ready to come home.  I don't know and we haven't really decided on the best path at this point but we will need to make some tough decisions.

Hopefully, the surgery will be relatively quick and easy this time.  We will not be planning a 12+hr marathon to free up the bowels, just get in, reattach, and get back out.  No attempts to remove obstruction, no work on the liver, nothing except repairing the perforation.  That said, a 'quick and easy' surgery for me will still likely be a 6hr affair which is still quite extensive.

Long term, I don't think this is a good sign for the double balloon enteroscopy.  This seems to indicate my bowels are too fragile to handle significant manipulation.  I hope there still is a chance but honestly believe it is not likely an option at this point.  I know it likely means I won't ever eat again but I am slowly coming to the point of acceptance.  I still crave food and I desire eating again but I will find a way around it.  If I am at least able to do clear liquids, that will help a bit with the social aspects but it will still be hard.

Home again, again

I know I have been delinquent in posting but I have had a lot to process and it is difficult to know what to say.  Obviously, there is major disappointment at the failure of surgery in NOLA and trying to understand what that means for the future has been consuming.

We are home now with some odd plans let me bring you up to date.  Surgery failed and there is not a chance of trying again.  Dr. Boudreaux said that this is the first case in fifteen years that has stopped him.  My bowels are simply too encased in adhesions and too fragile to try again and he took it as a personal affront that he was unable to repair me.  My problems are no longer directly cancer related and there is no cancer cure that could be developed to resolve the bowels.

We did leave NOLA with a remote possibility: a double ballon enteroscopy.  This is a procedure similar to a normal eteroscopy but the use of an inflatable balloon allows the scope to inchworm its way deeper into the bowel.  This could allow the placement of stents if the obstruction is found or dilation with the balloon to free up the bowel.

It is a fairly new procedure, introduced just in 2001 and there are doctors in NOLA and in Denver that perform this procedure.  The downside is that adhesions and a fragile bowel can prevent performing the procedure which means no one may be willing to perform it on me.  It can also be done from both ends of the digestive tract so we would probably do that to reduce risk if we can find someone to do it.

So, Thursday, home with a plan to begin investigating this in a couple of months while I recover from this surgery.  Friday, I was feeling weak and had some serious stomach cramps building but I chalked that up to the travel the day before and a poor nights sleep.  Saturday morning started with more cramping but I am used to that with the obstruction but then I felt nauseous and went to the bathroom with dry heaves.  When I stood up, I noticed that the the front of my shirt was wet.  Looking inside, I saw that fluid was coming out of my belly.  Not good.

We quickly gathered things and rushed to the ER and were excited to see that the parking lot had lots of spaces meaning we were guaranteed of being seen quickly.  We got back into a room as I continued to ooze and spurt from my incision which had dehisced.  After two CTs, one with oral contrast, we verified that my bowel had perforated and that it was then coming out the small opening in the incision.

Fortunately the perforation was 'contained'  What this means is that the output of my small bowel is contained to a small area of my abdomen and then it found the weakest point and broke out the incision.  I have continued to drain a large amount of fluid which is very green in color, looking very much like the stuff that had been coming out of my PEG tube and out of the NG tubes I have had.

Dr. Mathis consulted with Dr. Boudreaux and they believe the best course of action is to allow the bowel to head before going in for surgery to repair the perforation.  So, the plan is to take the next 5 weeks at home, allowing the wound to drain and the bowels to become a bit stronger than their current wet tissue paper condition.  At that point, we will have to do another surgery to repair the perforation which will not likely heal on its own.

What does mean?  Obviously, it delays things significantly again.  Surgery is going to be difficult but I am tending to having it here rather than NOLA.  This may give even more indication that the double balloon enteroscopy should not be performed.  I have no idea what it means for the future.  I don't know what surgery will bring and I don't know what it means for our plans.

unsuccessful

Sorry for the lateness of this post but I have been having a time gathering my thoughts.  I had surgery on 6/23 and it did not go as planned.  The scar tissues (adhesions) were extensive, making my intestines look like a brick of flesh.  Any cut that was made was a significant risk and I would even start bleeding from areas that they weren't even touching.  I am inoperable when it comes to freeing up my bowels from their obstruction.

We are considering some alternative solutions.  First, a Baker's Tube was inserted through the old G-tube hold and the hope was that this would work its way down my bowels, indicating where the obstruction is at and, perhaps freeing it somewhat.  Well, that tube pulled back out Monday after surgery, having done nothing.  We reinserted Tuesday but it is just sitting in a coil in my stomach right now.

I still have an NG tube and Dr Boudraux was that in7-10 days past surgery to make sure the walls of the bowel have repaired themselves.  We are considering putting some radioactive dye down the baker's tube and trying to follow where it goes.  If we can identify strictures, we could theoretically put a stent in place to make things better.  We have also discussed haveing a surgery where they try pushing the backer's tube into place for similar reasons but that idea has not been very well developed.

Basically, I expect that I will be coming home no worse than when I arrived other than the additional surgery recovery.  The good part is that I am obviously not dead but the bad part means that there is little hope for the future of my intestines.  I don't know of many more tricks that could be employed to address the lack of eating.  I also don't know how much longer my body will really tolerate the TPN which is necessary to just keep me alive.

Basically, the countdown has started. I have been able to live a live for the past 15 years that has mostly ignored my disease but that is an will no longer be the case.  There are no magic treatments nor any new FDA treatments on the horizon that can address a bowel as scarred as I have.

Sorry for the ending note but I have always pledged to be honest in my assessment of my outlook and my future.