Archive for August, 2024

Gene’s Medical Crisis-Part 20: C-Diff

{ August 29, 2024 @ 9:31 pm } · { Medical Adventures }
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Sometimes it is hard to keep people up on the latest updates. I am trying to keep our store running, the farm going and running to the hospital or rehab (whichever place he happens to be!!!) everyday. Sometimes I just don’t feel like writing and other times I could write a book!

Gene is doing as well as can be expected at Sheltering Arms Rehabilation Center. It is a new state-of-the-art facility and a good place to rehab. Gene deals with fatigue and lack of energy due to multiple factors; all his surgeries, lack of nutrition for almost four months, and who knows how his post long-haul covid factors in. Therapy pushes him to his limit but he keeps struggling through.

This week C-Deff caught up with him. This is an infection that happens in the gut from taking lots of antibotics and the good bugs are destroyed. I had worried that it might happen as he has basically been on antibotics for fourteen weeks because of surgeries and one infection after another. Fortunately, they caught it early and by tomorrow his gut should be settled down. I am so thankful this happened before he left rehab or we would have been back in the hospital again. That would have been very discouraging.

When you go to rehab you set goals of where you want to be to go home. They are anticipating that by the end of next week he will be able to come home. I am so ready to be done with hospitals/rehab and he is so, so, so, so ready to be home.

This has really changed his life and coming home does not mean he is ready to tackle the farm. It does not mean that he is totally healed. It does mean he still needs care, therapy, more therapy, and time to heal and get stronger. He has lost a lot of weight and muscle mass and that will take time and good eating. He just does not have an appetite for food yet. The surgeon says by Christmas he should feel like himself. Time will tell how this plays out in the long-term.

Again we are so grateful for your prayers and care that has been expressed in so many ways. I haven’t been able to write thank you notes, don’t even know how to start or if I can even accompolish that huge task. Just know we are so very grateful and may God bless you.

Link to more information on C-Diff: What it is, symptoms.

Gene’s Medical Crisis-Part 19: One Step Closer to Home

{ August 21, 2024 @ 9:02 pm } · { Medical Adventures }
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This week has been a steady upward climb of healing for Gene. He started wearing his own comfy t-shirt and shorts and is walking around the bed with a walker to sit in a chair. It is exhausting but he can do it! He went from a no food, no water diet to liquids and then soft. His gut handled it well. Tonight they are weaning him off the TPN (intravenous feeding) and tomorrow are removing the staples in the 10 inch incision on his belly and removing one of the drain tubes. They will probably leave the second one in for just a bit longer, just in case. The only pain meds he has used for the last week is tylenol.

On Monday they did another CT Scan and it showed significant improvement from a week ago. It appears the leakage from his intestines has stopped. He also started reproducing red blood cells which he hasn’t done since this ordeal started. That was so encouraging and renewed our hope.

Tomorrow the plan is to move him to Sheltering Arms Rehabitation Center if a bed is available. This will be the third time! Threes a charm, right? He is so ready to come home and this is one step closer. It will depend on how well he progresses as to how long he will be there. We are hoping for only two weeks and I really think he can do it.

Gene has basically missed the whole summer. This ordeal started May 20, the week before Memorial Day. Maybe, just maybe, he can be home the week after Labor Day. They are predicting that he will be back to normal by Christmas. This has been a long, long journey and we so appreciate everyone praying and praying and praying for us.

Gene’s Medical Crisis-Part 18: We Feel the Love

{ August 17, 2024 @ 8:41 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Let me tell you about today….it was a wonderful day with eleven people showing up to work on a corral on the farm. Earlier in the season we tried to load some beef cattle for butchering and the cattle went berserk and destroyed the catch corral. The corral was already in rough shape but after that fiasco it was rendered useless.

Rich, Micah, Kevin, Ivan, Rob, Karl, Joe, Wray, Mike, Jill, and Obe all pitched in. Micah brought his skid steer with a bucket, post digger auger, post driver and a bundle of posts. Obe did a lot of weedeating, and the rest worked on the electic fencing, pounded in posts, replaced a water hydrant, secured the catch chute, cut boards and built a very secure fence. Bill and Bertha brought a picnic lunch. By the end of the exhausting day, the corral is ready to catch and load cattle. There is still some more work to be done but the corral is now safe to use.

All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you. We felt the love and it was a job we could not have accompolished without help.

This evening Obe, Jill and I went to the hospital and showed Gene pictures of the work. He was so pleased. I did several facetimes with him throughout the day but he wanted to be here so bad. We can’t wait to be able to bring him home and show him in person.

Gene is improving but it seems like a long, never-ending process. They are still trying to heal the leakage in the small intestine. They have him on TPN (a nurtritional diet through a pik line) with no food or water by mouth so that his gut can heal. Physical therapy is getting him up and he sits in a chair but he still has no strength to take more than the step or two to the chair.

So many have asked what can they do. The answer is go see him. He is in room 435 at St. Francis hospital. He will be in the hospital at least another week and the days get so long and lonely. He really appreciates visits and he needs lots of encouragement. (Just do not take him any food as he can not eat it).

Gene’s Medical Crisis-Part 17: The Continuing Story

{ August 8, 2024 @ 9:01 pm } · { Medical Adventures }
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My last blog post was dated July 28 (Sunday) and things were looking up. Instead much has happened. He got moved to Sheltering Arms Rehabitation Center on Thursday afternoon, August 1, and was there three days. Sunday morning I got a call from the doctor on staff and they were in the process of transferring him back to the emergency room at St. Francis. The 10 inch incision on his chest from the first emergency surgery was leaking nasty looking gunk and they were concerned.

Sunday evening they did emergency surgery to find and fix the problem. On Tuesday they had to go back in again. It is a long story and I won’t go into all the details. They could not find the leak as he has developed “Frozen Bowel Syndrome”. (You can read more about this on the web). The short version is his bowels have become a frozen, glued together block, that is incased in a hard cocoon shell. It was impossible to move the intestines around or even distinguish the individual strands so they were unable to get to where they thought the leakage was. Instead, they are trying to heal the intestines by creating a fistula with a drainage tube to enable the body to naturally seal off the leakage. There has been so much injury in the abdomen area with the different organs that is causing complication after complication. The surgeon said when they went into his abdomen the first time after the gall bladder ruptured, it looked like a bomb had gone off. Gene has had 4 major surgeries and 4 stent surgeries in 3 months. The hard reality is we may not be done yet.

He is finding it difficult to do the necessary therapy to strengthen his body. Continue to pray for him as he battles this difficult journey and that he can keep his mind focused on hope and not give up. I have been claiming Psalms 41:3 which proclaims God’s care for us on our sickbed. “The LORD will strengthen him on his bed of illness and sustain him on his sickbed.”