Post surgery: Day 4

Sid has been recovering so well! His doctor is so pleased with his progress. For the most part the pain has been very controlled with only a few rough goes.

At this point we are all just waiting for his intestines to finish waking up so that they can remove the NG tube that's removing his stomach acid and one of the chest tubes that's draining excess fluids from the surgery site internally.

Each day he is getting more mobile and stronger. Hopefully tomorrow those tubes will be removed!

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Again

Again. At a checkup/routine endoscopy they found a tumor again. Just before Christmas Sid went for his annual endoscopy. What was supposed to be a routine checkup ended up being the second time that we heard the doctors tell us that they found a mass growing in his esophagus. And with "again" comes remembering. Remembering the agony of hearing "cancer". Remembering the worry and the fear. The panic. Remembering treatments; the heaviness in your gut and on your heart in just getting through each of those days. Over and over again. And for quite a few days I was stuck there in the devastation. But slowly I have remembered other things. As more of our neighbors and friends have started hearing the news, I've been reminded of better things. There are people willing and waiting to help. So many people love our family. I can't even comprehend how so many people could care so much. We still have each other and there are plenty of moments to see sparks of hap...

Miraculous

After a miraculous stay at the hospital, Sid was discharged on Thursday - exactly one week from his surgery. I use "miraculous" very intentionally. There isn't a logical reason for Sid to be healing so well. We were told his stay would most likely be 10-14 days. I should make mention that the obvious blessings apparent in this journey do not (and have not) always help us avoid difficulties. The first night home was incredibly hard. The instant shift from having a professional nurse monitoring all of Sid's meds, food, wound care, etc to us taking on all of that responsibility, was... overwhelming. Every department sends you home with a literal packet of info to read and there are some discrepancies on how to handle certain care. I consider myself a very capable person and I also have a decent background in medical care between my days as an EMT and my college job at the plasma center. It was still a lot to have thrust on us all at once. But with some good planning and...

Consultations

In the last couple of weeks there have been many consultations with new doctors that are being added to Sid's medical team. They have all been so kind and professional. They have taken great effort to care for Sid; emotionally, physically, intellectually - they have gone to great lengths to make sure we are ready for the fight ahead. Because of Sid's initial Stage 4 diagnosis, surgery wasn't ever supposed to be on the table. But due to a combination of a few factors (I'm not sure I could do it justice here) they proposed trying it with this current tumor. However, the medical team is a little hesitant to just jump right into surgery. The hesitation is that if there are any lingering cancer cells floating around in the body that are not currently detected on scans, they would be doing Sid a HUGE disservice by doing surgery. If the surgery was done and the cancer were to pop up elsewhere, we wouldn't be able to jump back into chemo until Sid was fully recovered fro...

The business and blessings of our Beckstead family.

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