Once again, apologies for the late update. Sara came home from the hospital Monday night of last week, and since then the caretaking role became much more intense.

After almost 1 week in the hospital, Sara had gone through a sometimes painful and challenging process of being “weaned” off of a multitude of IV’s, tubes, and strong pain medications. While she was more than ready – mentally – to leave the hospital, it can also be scary to leave the secure environment of round-the-clock medical care. Luckily her health insurance company covers several visits from a home health nurse to check on her surgery sites, which is very comforting.

All in all, she has 4 separate surgery sites (reversal of the original colostomy, fixing a hernia in the original colostomy, creating a new type and location of an ostomy – an “ileostomy” – and maybe most important:  removal of the original colon tumor). This is a lot for the body to adjust to! Luckily she doesn’t have any staples this time (just stitches), as she did for the liver surgery earlier this year. She is encouraged to get up and walk around her bedroom a bit several times a day, but once you realize that you can’t access your abdominal muscles, just sitting up, getting out of bed, taking a shower, etc become painful and daunting tasks. She also has to keep track of her medicine schedule and other records for each 24 hour period (or for now, whomever is functioning as her caregiver takes care of this information).

Now that I have returned back to Maryland, Sara would be happy to have visitors, especially during the day when her kids are at school. So feel free to visit – just send Sara a text in advance to make sure that the visit is during a good time (don’t worry, if she is sleeping she will turn the volume off of her phone). Meal donations are also gratefully accepted, either through Meal Train or on an informal basis. Currently Sara is on a kind of clear, soft-foods diet (sounds exciting – not!). So soups are popular, such as chicken soup, or dishes such as macaroni & cheese, etc. The only caveat is that her diet is also gluten-free, so please keep that in mind. Alternatively, a meal for her husband and 2 boys is great too, as she currently is limited to one trip down the stairs per day, and is only able to be out of bed for short periods of time. She is getting stronger every day, though it is an uphill climb. I saw a big improvement just in the one week she was home from the hospital! But sometimes it is easy for Sara to get frustrated over the perceived slow progress. Baby steps, baby steps…

Sara has a surgery follow-up visit this Friday, where the drainage tube from the colon tumor surgery will be removed (ouch) and her chemo port will be flushed (double ouch). The results of the colon tumor tissue biopsy will also be discussed. So Friday will be a big day – please keep your fingers crossed for Sara!!

• Uncategorized