Thank goodness for Ambien...

Hi Everyone,

Its pretty late here in Baltimore--about 11:45 on Monday evening. We are here, we made it safe and sound, and Doug and I are in the hospital room right now. It has been a very long and very tough day for him, and thank goodness as you can probably tell from the title, the nurses were able to give him something to help him sleep. Sleep for me on the other hand is a ways off and I finally got the wireless in the room to work so wanted to update everyone.

This morning we were at the hospital at 7:30 am along with his dad and Elizabeth for a CT scan. Anyone who has spent any time with hospitals knows how quick THAT turned out to be! There was confusion concerning the location of paperwork.....but it all got straightened out. Two hours later, we went up to admitting and got all of his paperwork done and then had to sit around for a while until a room was assigned to him. Well, at that point Doug had had just about enough of that and was ready to let people know how unhappy he was about the wait! Luckily we were in his own room by about 12:30 pm this afternoon. At that point we met the head floor nurse and Doug's day nurses as well.

I had to leave the hospital for a little while to check into the Hope Lodge. This is a wonderful organization run by the ACS that provides free housing and parking to cancer patients and caregivers while in town for treatment--kind of like a Ronald McDonald house. We were lucky enough to get on the list early enough that we got in, so I ran over there to dump some stuff off and fill out the mountains of paperwork. The place is great, and I met a man who is in town for treatment with his wife that has met four other people coming through the house as patients of Dr. Sardi's getting this same surgery done. Sounds like Sardi's kind of a rock star here in Baltimore.

I made it back to the hospital in time to meet the famous Doctor himself. By this time Jason had also arrived. Dr. Sardi stopped in to see Doug, discuss his morning CT scan, and answer any questions that he or any of us had. It was a very difficult meeting, I'm not going to lie to any of you. There is a lot of tumor, and a lot of organ involvement. Sardi won't know for sure what will happen until he gets in there tomorrow and there is only so much you can tell from a CT scan, but he was truthful with us and didn't sugarcoat anything and Doug could be in for some rough stuff after recovery. Again, let me stress---he doesn't know anything for sure and won't until tomorrow! The good thing is that he is the kind of man that you WANT treating the person that you love---he instills confidence and you can tell that he really does CARE about what happens on that table tomorrow, and about how Doug's life will be after he's recovered and that makes a huge difference. So in all--Doug has so much going for him that Dr. Sardi is going to be as aggressive as he can possibly be and get this bad stuff out of him for good hopefully!!!!

After the meeting, Doug and I spent a few minutes alone together just digesting everything we had just hear. He decided that he really needed some time alone (I think I would too!). So Doug's family and I took a walk down to the inner harbor. The weather was beautiful, and there are some really interesting historical ships and submarines down there--especially interesting as Dennis was on a submarine in his military days! After that Jason and I went and had dinner with Doug's cousin Stazia so that Doug could spend some time alone with his Dad and Elizabeth. We headed back over to the hospital around 8 and said goodnight, and after everyone left Doug and I spent some quiet time together just being together and trying to wind down. Other people were in and out all day too---the Physical Therapist, the HIPEC coordinator, the head surgical nurse, the social worker, the pastoral workers (this is a Catholic hospital), the endocrinologist to moniter his diabetes, etc. etc. etc. so I think he was happy to get some quiet for a bit.

Now they have his IV hooked up, and they made him drink some very unpleasant tasting solution that prepares his digestive system for surgery tomorrow, which unfortunatly is waking him up periodically. I have my pull out chair which isn't too bad--it actually might be better than some sleeper sofas I've been on! But most importantly I'm able to be here with him on this of all nights. I can't tell you how much this whole thing is just breaking my heart--its very hard to not be able to do anything to make the person you love feel better and the helplessness is tough. Its not fair that bad things happen to the best people.

Thank you everyone for all of the emails, comments, text messages, and voicemails. I'm very sorry I wasn't able to return any of them, it has been quite a day--but each and every one has helped us. Doug's a tough cookie, and I'm doing by best to be pretty strong for him too but its being put to a pretty severe test, and every bit of encouragement helps him to be stronger and helps me to be what I need to be for him.

Tomorrow, of course, I will update periodically as I get updates from the surgical team. You will all know what we know as soon as I am able to get it up. First post will be early---they'll take him away around 7 am.

More updates tomorrow--
Love-Lindsey