Made it home

I got home from the hospital on Tuesday around 7pm. Very glad to be there. My time in the hospital was quite short, the nurses called me an "average breaker". I will be spending the next few weeks resting and recovering. I have a 10 lb. limit on lifting, but the doctor suggests going for lots of walks to aid in my recovery. I have been doing that better than he guessed I would so far at this point and that's why he released me 5 days ahead of schedule. He also put me on a no driving restriction for 4-6 weeks. That was crushing. It just has to do with my reaction time and my injury. The faster my muscles recover and the quicker my reactions get then I could drive sooner. I laughed and asked how that compared to a 60-70-80-90 year old drivers who already have slower reaction times, but he just smiled and didn't add a comment in for that.

I thought I should add some detail for the surgery for everyone. This was not a curative surgery as there is still cancer in my body, but what it did was removed 20% of my liver that had one large tumor in it that was not reacting to chemo and was growing rapidly. However, this was only half of what they were going to take as they thought the surrounding tissue would need to be cleaned up as well. The surrounding tissue did not have tumors, but only cells and those cannot be seen in surgery and there is also lots of good tissue mixed in. I had no complications in surgery, very little loss in blood and good recovery in post op from the anesthesia. The doctor said I did not have a liver that looked like it had be through 49 chemo treatments and it looked surprisingly healthy.This allowed me to skip the ICU all together and move right to Huntsman for surgery. I was up that night taking my very first walk and then I was taking walks in the morning, afternoon and evening. Sleeping and taking pain meds in the middle. I wasn't in a lot of pain though and they got me of morphine rather quickly. I had all my IV's out of me on Sunday except for the one they pulled the day I left which was intentional. I still have to take a shot a day for the next 25 days to handle coagulation around the stomach area. I only take pain meds when I need them which has been rare, usually around bedtime to get a solid nights sleep. My Frankenstein staple stitches look rather ugly on the body, but I had planned on retiring from my chest and abs modeling job anyways. I will need 6-8 weeks at least to heal before any chemo treatments are possible. This will give the liver the best chance of regenerating itself as possible. I can grow as much as half the amount they removed.

I want to thank everyone who called or left me pre-op good luck messages, I went in with a really good attitude and spirit.

I really have to thank everyone who came to visit me at the hospital. You being there made my days go by so fast and quite frankly were the reason I got home so soon. You always kept my spirits lifted, walked with me, helped me get around the room. The people that do not have this kind of support just are always thinking about how sick they are or how much pain they are in and just don't recover as fast. I also want to thank everyone who is providing us with meals. Despite me being home, Cheryl is working hard to make up hours at her new work and catching up with her rehabilitation for her shoulder and some chores at home that I can't do. Cheryl not having to worry about shopping for and taking time to plan so many dinners and me getting more sleep is helping more than I can say. We are still trying to catch our breath here at the Woodard household.

Thanks again for caring and your thoughts,
Jeff

Celebration!!!!

Jeff is out of surgery and as the MD put it our medical miracle. Only needed to remove about 20% of the left lobe and did not have to do a node resection.Dr. Kim palpated his bowels and did not feel additional masses nor did he see any suspicious areas elsewhere on the liver. Essentially this means no viable tumors left, only microscopic disease.
He will be going directly to Huntsman  to a medical-surgical room which is skipping about 2 steps that we thought we would make.
Thank you to all of you for your support and love. Your prayers must have worked. We cherish each and every one of you and are so glad you are on this journey with us. I want to thank all of you in advance who will be helping out in the next few weeks. It is soooo appreciated; I am afraid things will get crazy and I will lose track of who I give gratitude to. Thank you to Dr. Kim for his skills and awesome bedside manner. And thank you to our angels in heaven who stood by Jeff's side during the last few hours. We couldn't have done this without any and all of you both here and there.

With love and happiness in my heart,
Cheryl (and Jeff in thought)

Another Monthly update

Well its time for another monthly update. I have been slow to update this month because I am contemplating a serious matter for myself and for all my family. It seems the latest 2 rounds of chemo are helping other tumors in my body, but I have one golf ball size tumor in my liver that won't play along. This one tumor seems to be chemo resistant and keeps growing. According to my doctors I am hitting the cancer with the best one two punch that I could and my next arsenals are not as strong or I may have to do a trial that won't guarantee anything either. 

For these reasons, I will be heading into liver surgery on May 23. They will attempt to remove 20-33% percent of my liver and re-sect it back together. I will need 5-10 days in the hospital and another 8 weeks of recovery time to let my liver heal and grow about 50% of the amount taken back. I am on my last batch of chemo now and won't start again until after 8 weeks of recovery. The cancer may grow and go nuts while off the chemo, but I will have to deal with that then. Now is the best chance of surgical success and surviving the procedure.

Well that's the details, I hope you will keep me in your thoughts for a bit more.

Thanks for reading and caring,
Jeff