Happy New Year's Eve

This has been one tough couple of months. Here's hoping the next year is a great one.

Follow-up

At 2:00 a.m. I drove out to get prescribed medication to settle my wife's stomach and to shut down her dizzyness and prevent her vomiting.

Her vomiting is causing the stitches to break loose. I'm concerned that they may have to stitch her up again. If we can get her stomach settled down enough to eat something she might be able to take the pain medication, she's hurting quite a bit.

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It appears that it's the medication that's causing the problem since she throws up approximately an hour after taking the medication.

We contacted her doctor and I drove down to the hospital to get her the prescription for Percocet.

Once I get the Percocet prescription filled I flush the Vicodin down the toilet so that she doesn't take them accidentally. I thought about keeping them for myself since my insurance already paid for them but better safe than sorry. I don't want her to take them months later after she's all healed up with a headache and then have her throw up like Regan in the Exorcist again.

Next time

Today was a follow-up at the hospital, the staff looked her over and instructed me as to how I should keep her wounds clean.

It's either that or we have a nurse stop by every day. While it hurts me to look at her in pain I know she will be more comfortable with me at home.

My wife was provided with a prescription for Vicodin instead of the Percocet for the pain since the Percocet requires a federal prescription pad and the attending doctor only had a standard pad.

The Vicodin has not been doing well for her. She has been throwing up severely. We placed a call to her surgeon, preparing to take her to the emergency ward.

The day after

She's home and happy but she's in a great deal of pain.

Today I saw her wounds for the first time as I changed her dressing. It's rather frightening to see such a large hole where she had tissue. I'm afraid she may feel disfigured. I tell her not to look at the wound as it is too early. She needs to give it time to heal.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day and I didn't get a gift for my wife since we were busy worrying about her. I picked up a few small things in the morning to bring her.

She actually says that she's happy I didn't bring her anything major since she didn't get me anything either. No biggie here, we manage.

I take a quick ride home to pick up a few things for her. I walk in the door and check the answering machine. It's my wife telling me that they are considering sending her home today if she can urinate on her own so I hurry back.

While we're waiting her half-sister, niece and sister's mom visit. It helps her greatly since she didn't want visitors because she expected to be released within a day of surgery but this is a bigger procedure than she anticipated. They stay for about an hour and a half leaving for dinner.

The nurse removed the installed catheter earlier and allowed my wife to walk around. My wife feels pain with every step she takes. It seems too soon to me to send her home but the doctors and residents agree that her mood would be elevated at home considering there is no additional treatment they can give her that prescriptions for medication won't do.

We go home. I pick up the prescribed pain medication and stool softener, as well as gauze and a topical anesthetic. She sleeps often because of the medication.

Christmas Eve

A day after surgery and my wife is not happy. She's in a great deal of pain, Morphene helps but makes her nauseaus and sleepy.

I brought her flowers to lighten her mood and spent the day with her and leave at 8:00 p.m.

A long day

I woke up early, too early: 2:00 a.m. and my wife was already awake. Actually, she never went to bed. She's too nervous.

We show up at the hospital at 5:30 a.m. like we were told to, went through processing and into the pre-operative room at 7:30. We wait another 45 minutes before everyone shows up. My wife still has a cough but the anesthesiologist thinks it's fine. Initially we were going to go with an epidural but my wife would rather get the general anesthesia as long as it doesn't affect the baby. The anesthesiologist says that there are several medications that can be used that are perfectly safe. My wife walks into the operating room and I go to the waiting room.

At 10:30 the surgeon comes out and tells me the operation went well and I should be able to see her soon. She also said that a small area was left unbandaged for easier healing and she stitched my wife up on the outer perimeter of the removed area.

I was able to see my wife for about 5 minutes every hour starting at 12:00. We were waiting for a room for my wife and that didn't come until 8:00 p.m.

Luckily my wife was taken to a private room. She was in a great deal of pain as the drugs were wearing off. She received another dose of morphene for the pain and that helped but all it did was reduce the pain to a throb. I left since I was beat tired and she was still very sleepy. I was at the hospital for 18 hours and I was tired. I was afraid of what the parking fee was going to be since I didn't have alot of cash on me but it was only $8.00, a bargain in today's times.

Time to move

After my wife's third consecutive day of a 100+ fever I decide to take her to my doctor since she doesn't have a regular doctor at the moment. I don't want her to have the fever and cough to have the next date postponed since then the next date of surgery will be mid-January.

I leave the office early, rush home and get my wife ready all the while on the phone talking to my doctor's nurse telling her I need to have my wife looked at. They grudgingly give in to my cojolling and my doctor sees her. Turns out she has the flu (who doesn't this season!).

Since she's pregnant he can't give her anything for the flu except antibiotics to prevent the flu from becoming pneumonia, He also recommends a steady inflow of liquids. Here we go.

Doctor's contact

My wife calls her doctor and informs her that she's not feeling too good, fever and cough. Her surgery is cancelled and rescheduled for Tuesday, 12/23/2003.

Sister-in-law leaves

My sister-in-law leaves after a big rout with my wife. My wife is sick with a bad cough and a 100.1 degree fever, we're afraid that her surgery might be cancelled.

Sister-in-law arrives

We pick up my wife's sister at 5:00 a.m.. We haven't slept since 2:00 a.m. It's been a long day.

I'm worried about tension between my wife and her sister.

Later that day

We received a call from my wife's Oncologist scheduling her surgery for Tuesday next week, December 16, 2003.

Delivery

I went with my wife to her Obstetrician who informed her that she has been dignanosed with Stage III vulva cancer. She will get a "radical vulvectomy" which will remove a large portion of her vagina and surrounding tissue. According to the doctor if the cancer isn't contained there is a 75% chance she will have cancer longterm killing her within 3 years.

Not good news considering she's 2 months pregnant.

Another thought aside from the doom and gloom we've been experiencing, Circuit City delivered the television only a half hour later than expected.

All in all, the Circuit City experience has been a positive one. Decent service and failure accurate delivery. I would say that the service greatly exceeded expectations.

Unexpected call

Circuit city called today for the delivery of the television. I was a bit surprised since the call was at 8:00 p.m. tonight. They scheduled the delivery for tomorrow between the hours of 12:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.

It's a little bit of a problem since my wife has an appointment with her obstetrician at 11:00 a.m. but I'm expecting the television around 4:00 p.m. so I don't think it's a problem.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

It started snowing today. The weathermen making a big thing of this being the first big snowstorm of the winter season.

My office closed early due to weather, which is a good thing since before the snow started it was raining so there's a nice sheet of ice developing under all that snow. My office is in a hilly area and watching cars and trucks sliding down a hill with their wheels locked is a bit scary to watch, especially when you're at the bottom of the hill at a red light.

My ride home was slow but easy. I passed about 5 accidents, each of which included an SUV, i'm starting to notice a pattern.

The snowfall is expected to reach a foot or more. My sister-in-law cancelled her flight since it's scheduled to take off later tonight and we have not idea whether it will be delayed, rerouted or cancelled, we also don't have a way to get to her yet since I don't trust driving my car in heavy snow and local car service would not reserve a car for early Saturday morning because of the weather.

The Office Visit

This morning we headed out to the hospital to see an oncologist. We waited for a bit but not as long as we did for the sonogram earlier this week.

My wife and I were in an examining room waiting for the specialist to exam my wife. While waiting we heard sirens going off, we looked at each other worriedly both thinking if it's a fire alarm my wife will have to dress very quickly. We decided not to panic figuring that if it's a fire alarm the floor's warden will get us while checking rooms and at best if it's a drill we may be allowed to stay and wait.

After 15 minutes or so with no one coming to our room I decided to walk through the hallway to see if everything is safe. After going through 2 corridors I started to get concerned but I finally came across patients and hospital employees so I figured it was just a coincidence and returned to my wife advising her there was nothing to worry about.

Five minutes later the oncologist came in, that's when we learned it really was a fire alarm and not a drill or false alarm. However, it was just a copier that overheated so it wasn't a problem for us but the floor's fire wardens were reported for not searching thoroughly, they tend to take that very seriously at a hospital.

The doctor examined my wife and verified the tissue as a problem, choosing not to say anything definitively until receiving the pathology slides of the biopsy and studying them. She did say that the patch was about 5 cm x 7 cm and that it should be removed at the very least since if it's not yet cancerous it may be halted before it progresses further. She also wanted to be sure that it did not become an invasive cancer affecting my wife's internal organs.

We expressed our concern for the baby and it's development. The doctor said that my wife would not get drugs that her obstetrician did not approve for her use. Opting not to use drugs for the pain will not be an option since the healing process is a six week process under this type of surgery and that it will be very painful.

We scheduled to call the oncologist on Monday after she's reviewed the slides and reports to arrange for a surgery date. Monday is also the day that my wife is scheduled to see her obstetrician, her sister is coming in from the midwest for the weekend to help her out so I'll be in the office during this visit.

Our drive home was torturous, there's no such thing as rush hour anymore. There's mid to heavy traffic all the time on the highways.

Figuring that my wife will be in bed for the most part of the next month and a half I decided to replace the television in our bedroom. It's a small 17 inch color television that gets darker every time it's used. It's so bad now that any show or film with a night scene is unwatchable. I ordered it online from Circuit City for home delivery, the site said it's a 3 day wait time with an additional 3 day wait time for the tv to reach the local store, i doubled the wait time expecting their estimate to be a best case scenario.

I received an automated e-mail from Circuit City notifying me to call their distribution center to schedule for a delivery date. I thought: "and so it begins";, expecting a long drawn out process. I called the toll free number, gave them the order number and they asked if a Sunday delivery was ok, I was a bit surprised since I expected their announced 3 day delivery time was business days not calendar days. The operator then said he just noticed our local Circuit City did not deliver on Sundays, he apologized and asked if Monday would be fine. After verifying the operator meant this coming Monday, I accepted the Monday date quickly. I feared the next available delivery day would be three Thursdays from next week. The operator told me that the local store would call to advise of a 3 hour delivery window for Monday.

A Cold Chill

2 weeks ago shortly after my wife had her first sonogram we visited her doctor because he noticed somthing on her skin that he didn't like; he performed a biopsy and we were to visit him next week for the results.

That is, until he called us this morning informing my wife that the biopsy results came back saying that the area is pre-cancerous. You'll have to forgive my lack of technical terms but i'm a low-brow kinda guy and this is the best way I remember this.

Needless to say, my wife was devastated. Being diagnosed with vulva cancer, no matter how down-played, is not the best news to give a person who's hormones are on a roller coaster ride for a couple of months. I left my office and raced to my wife, weaving in and out of traffic not really noticing my highway neighbors, my mind intent on reaching my wife.

I made the 45 minute ride in 30 minutes. I opened our apartment door to see my wife calmly speaking to a family friend. Our network of friends have greatly relieved the stress and anxiety she's been experiencing in the last couple of weeks. She finished her conversation and then gave me a big hug, happy for my presence and gave me the rundown.

Her doctor gave us a specialist to speak to, we will consult with her on Thursday. The main goal is to remove the pre-cancerous tissue, depending on how far it has spread they may have to alter my wife's anatomy to allow for biological functions. My wife didn't consider the consequences of that, she only thought of the baby, as did her doctor. He scheduled a sonogram to see the condition and development of the fetus, he scheduled it for today, immediately.

We made it to the scheduled appointment and had to wait for an hour and a half since we were squeezed in. Actually we would have been there longer but her doctor called the office to make sure we were there, demanding he get the results the second the sonogram was completed. They rushed us in after determining it was us her doctor was inquiring after.

To make a long story short..........The baby is fine so far. They have not yet determined a sex but it's heart is beating fine and it's at 1.15 centimeters, about the size of a grape, we also were told that it would double in size in about 4 days. We also heard the heartbeat as well.


Over the years and more so recently, I have spoken with several of my friends that have had children and it appears that the defining moments for a father can be broken up into 4 distinctive stages during the pregnancy. The four are:


1. When he's notified he will be a father. This is the initial stage, it invokes either the fight or flight instinct. It sets the path that the potential father will follow.

2. When he hears the beating of the heart. This stage creates a tangible connection, it forges home the realization that there is an actual being involved. It also makes the point at a level that no man can deny, through the medium of television since that's all he can truly relate to with a sonogram machine. The sensory abilities of sound and sight are satisfied.

3. When he first feels the kicking of baby. Feeling the baby reacting in it's environment gives the father a sense of the child on another sensory level, that of touch.

4. When the baby is born. All the previous stages are the precursors to this point. This is when the fight or flight instinct is strongest. You either distance yourself from this child and leave it to 'mom' to handle things or you make concious decisions to change your life for the better determined to do right by your family.


Today i hit stage 2. We still have to deal with my wife's potential cancer and the concenquences, but it looks like we will have a full term baby, whether it's a vaginal or a cesarian birth that is yet to be determined. We'll have more information on Thursday.