Man this has been a long path on my cancer journey. 17 days in NOLA and it is wonderful to be back in Colorado again, sleeping in my own bed, hugging my own kids and relaxing on my deck.
Wednesday, we caught our flight from NOLA to Denver and it went off without a hitch. The flight was smooth and we arrived about 20 minutes early into DIA. My cousin and aunt were kind enough to bring us our car at the airport and, 1 hour later, I was holding my kids for all I was worth. I have never been so happy to return home on from a trip, business or pleasure, and hope that I never have to do something so risky, so far from home but know that is probably not in the cards.
Where do we go from here? Well, I hoped that Dr. Boudreaux would remove the JP drain on Tuesday but I am still producing too much from that drain. Dr. Boudreaux wants the daily total to be less than 25ml and I am currently at about 70ml, down from 120 a week ago. Hopefully this will finish up in the next week and I will be able to have that drain removed shortly thereafter.
The other drain goes into the bile duct and will be in until I return for my 6 week followup in July. On that trip, they will inject some dye into the tube and the image the liver to find out how the healing has gone. I am assuming things come out positive and will get the final drain removed on July 24th.
At that point, I hope to return to mostly normal activity. I currently weigh just under 170 pounds when my normal weight about 5 months ago was just over 200. I have a lot of weight to regain, a HUGE amount of muscle mass to grow, and a lot of stamina to recover. After the previous two surgeries, I was ready to resume all normal activities at 6 weeks but neither of those surgeries required me to regrow the amount muscle and endurance that I lost over the last 4 months.
For now, it is a diet high in protein, Ensure shakes, rest, and walking. I was able to do a complete lap around the block today with my wife which is very good. I also need to regrow my bowels and am using Juven to try and get the cilia of the bowels to grow as they have become stunted and flat. I need to get the diarrhea under control without causing constipation or severe gas.
I have a ways to go but I have a fantastic support staff around me. My whole family is very helpful and is going to help me through these weeks and months.
Around September 25th, we will start to firm up our longer term roadmap to find what it really includes. Perhaps a transplant, perhaps a trip to Switzerland, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Right now, I am just enjoying being on the right side of the ground and enjoying those that love me all around.
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