And we're home--a proper update

Hi everyone!

We have now been home for a couple of days, and I'm finally feeling enough energy to do a proper update on here and let you all know how Doug has been doing the last few days.

I'll start with telling you guys about his appointment with Dr. Sardi on Wednesday before we left. The four of us went back to Mercy for his appointment at 11:30 am, and first they had to do a quick physical on him just to check on how his incision was doing--and best of all to take out those pesky staples!! Just by looking at them that morning you can tell that they were ready to come out--it almost looked like his body was trying to push them out of him on its own--kind of like when your finger pushes a splinter out. He says that it is a lot more comfortable without them in--they were catching on his pants or belt and would pinch or pull a little bit. so he's fast on his way to having a great scar (and starting to come up with stories along the line of--"well you should see the OTHER guy!"). Then all four of us went into Dr. Sardi's conference room with Darlene, and Dr. Sardi came in to go over the operative report and the pathology report. But first---they had pictures from Doug's operation that he really wanted to see. It is amazing to see the human body and how resiliant it is and how much it can tolerate. The pictures were definitely not for the faint of heart (I had to turn away a few times, even with how much more comfortable I have become in the last few weeks with this stuff--ask my mom-she was amazed that the girl who would pass out at a scraped knee or bee sting was able to handle the "hospital stuff" so well!) but it was amazing to see all of the bad stuff that they got out of him. All you can say when you see that stuff is--thank goodness that is out of his belly now! It was interesting to see the stuff that has turned all of our lives upside down for the last few months and a relief to have it gone! Doug has asked me to email Darlene to see if she can email me the pictures as he even wants to see them again!

The doctor also went over the operative report and the pathology report with us. The operative report is basically a blow-by-blow of what his operation was like. Its 8 pages long (14 hours made them very busy doctors!). We didn't get a chance to read through the whole report until last night, but it was amazing to read about the order of events, and also how meticulous they were about making sure that he was ok and stable at ALL times---its noted each time they checked to make sure his body was tolerating everything and it was very frequent. The pathology report reported that the tumor came back as LOW-GRADE mucinous adenocarcinoma. Low-grade is great news, and a huge weight off of my chest I know when we heard. There is a high-grade form of this disease as well that is significantly more aggressive and harder to treat, so we are glad for the diagnosis (and prepared, as that was the probably diagnosis even before surgery). Unfortunatly, Doug will have to undergo chemotherapy treatment beginning in a couple of months when his poor body has recovered from the surgery and big dose of chemo he has already had! Right now samples of his tumors have been sent out for what is called a chemo assay--basically they test them with different combinations and "cocktails" if you will to see what mix of treatment will hopefully be the most effective. Isn't science an amazing thing? A few years ago they would have had to just guess what treatment would work the best and it would waste valuable time. So now we are working on finding Doug a local oncologist (probably at UCONN as it is only about 15 minutes from our house so would be the easiest facility to get to for treatment) and that oncologist will work with Dr. Sardi's team tomake sure he is getting everything he needs. At the end of October we will head back down to Baltimore for a checkup with Dr. Sardi and at that point he'll be ready to talk to Doug's oncologist about what kind of treatment he will be getting. So the journey isn't over, but the doctor is very optimistic that this treatment will help ensure that nothing new grows or comes back. It will be a tough road for Doug, still, but as always he is approaching it with his characteristically great positive attitude and with great support from his family, friends, and of course me!

So finally tonight I got everything unpacked, the laundery is in the process of being done, and I feel like our house is getting back to being liveable again! The Mets are in a crucial time so much has been devoted to watching those games, and even with his hands bothering him Doug has been able to play the drums on Rock Band 2! We had a visit from a home nurse today and she will be back on Monday for another visit (just to make sure he's doing ok, nothing exciting).

I wanted to post here also a couple of pictures--now that I'm home and have been able to locate the cord to hook up my camera to my computer! The first picture is of Doug and all of his friends when they came to visit the weekend he got out of the hospital. The second is of Doug and his friend Alan in our hotel room, and the third picture is of Doug with the famous Dr. Sardi! Now you can all see what the famous doctor looks like! :-) Its a great picture and he's asked me to email it to him so that he has a copy of it as well. Oh--and Doug asked me to make sure that everyone was checking out his mountain man beard in all the pictures!







So I hope that everyone is getting ready for a great weekend---I want to catch up on some sleep as I'm still pretty tired, and just relax at home and get used to being back in CT again! Thanks so much, again for everything, and I'll do an update next week just to let you all know how he's doing!

Love, Lindsey