Hospital Stay

The first day/night in the hospital was pretty rough. Dan wasn’t able to get his pain down to tolerable level until early Tuesday morning. By Monday night Dan was coherent, and only sleeping due to the morphine. He was able to pull himself up in bed and even dangle his feet over the side of the bed. He did have to have a cath in and all of Monday his pee was green due to the dye they injected into the tumor to ensure they cut around it and not through it during the surgery. By Monday night he was asking for it to be out, which was a great sign.

Monday night the nursing staff was still coming in every 3-4 hrs to check Dan’s vitals and urine output.  So, we were sleeping 1.5-2 hrs at a time.  Thankfully Dan’s mom and Clint stayed overnight and they helped Dan out a lot. I was clueless as how I could help Dan and was very glad to have other people help him out and show me what I can do.

Tuesday morning Dan was able to get his cath out and he was sitting up to dangle his feet for longer periods of time. By mid-morning Dan had decided to call the pathologist to get his results. The good thing about Dan staying at HCMH is that he worked there and knows all of the doctors, nurses, and lab techs. So, he called the pathologist directly to get his results.

The pathologist said that the tumor was about the size of a computer mouse (yikes!), and it had invaded the muscle wall of the colon, but not through. Also, he checked all 19 lymph nodes and none of them had any cancerous cells.  Dan is cancer free!!

The surgeon came into the room a couple hours later to tell us the news officially. It was definitely a huge relief to hear the great news from the pathologist, but it really didn’t sink in for me until the Dr. told us.  His tumor was staged T3, N0, M0, meaning his tumor went into the muscle wall, but not into the lymph nodes or any other organ.  So, he was stage IIA.

With the good news in, Dan’s room flooded with visitors Tuesday. There were so many doctors, nurses, nurses aids, lab techs, friends, and family that came to visit. Dan really started to recover quickly once we had the all clear. By Tuesday evening he was walking laps around the floor. Very slow laps, but still walking.

Tuesday evening they moved us into a different room because the A/C wasn’t working which was making us think Dan was spiking a fever. The new room had two beds with no one else in the room, so I was able to sleep in a bed!  Sooo much better than the chair.  We pushed the two beds together and were able to snuggle up a bit to watch a movie that night. The nurse came in around midnight and Dan was passing stool, so he said we may be able to go home Wednesday.

Wednesday morning we paced the room waiting for the Dr. to come in. We had even more family and friends come visit, and my work sent a ton of food. Dan was even able to go downstairs to see Miss Daisy.

The doctor came in around noon, and Dan was up joking and eating soft foods, and said (after some coaxing) that Dan could go home that evening, and eat anything he wanted!  Doctors and nurses said Dan's recovery from surgery to being checked out was the fastest they had seen.

So, with three days of excellent news, we decided to leave as quickly as possible. We packed up and drove home to Indy. My parents had cleaned the house, cooked us dinner, and my dad finished the game room. They stayed to be sure Dan could make it up and down the stairs, in and out of bed, and into the shower. But, Wednesday night, we were sleeping in our own bed, in our own house, cancer free!