Merry Christmas Eve!

Hey! I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday so far. I have some random pictures to post and then the slideshow of the pictures we took this weekend when we went home to Louisiana.


Jeff on console in case you missed him on Monday night. They really didn't show a lot of NASA, it was mostly Moscow Mission Control. He's on the bottom of the picture:



Maggie doing her trick of getting a stick caught in her collar. She is really good at doing this!




Me with my new haircut:




Pictures from this weekend:

Jeff on tv

Hey! Most of you know already, but Jeff is working "console" this week. He is on the evening shift that starts at 3pm and ends around 11pm. Today the Russians are doing an "EVA", which means that they are going outside the space station to do some work. This causes some issues with how they fly the station. Jeff is the lead ADCO and has an important job and will be pretty busy tonight. There will be live coverage on NASA tv starting at 5 or 5:30 tonight. He is wearing a red shirt and sits on the left front row. Just wanted to let you know that he will be on tv if you are interested and have NASA tv. It's channel 283 on Direct tv.

Well, sorry it's taken me so long to update this, I've been a busy girl since I got home on Monday. Tuesday we stayed home and did a few things around the house (well, not me really, but Jeff and my mom did). Wednesday my mom and I did some shopping since I didn't get all of it done before surgery. Wednesday night Jeff and I met some friends at a favorite pub we like to go to. We had a good time hanging out with everyone before the holidays. Thursday mom and I packed and headed back to Covington, where I'll be for a few days. It was an all day trip with a few stops, but it wasn't too bad. My pain is pretty much under control. I think it's much better than my last surgery. Today we did a little more shopping and I think I'm finally done. This weekend we'll be doing Christmas with my families. Jeff is going to come join us tomorrow afternoon and we'll head back to Texas on Sunday afternoon. Jeff has to work console this week so I'll be relaxing around the house while he's at work.

I just wanted to thank everyone for their well wishes during this time. I appreciate it very much. It helps to know that so many people care.

Thanks again, Lauri

Home Sweet Home

We're home!

More details to follow later.

Turning the Corner

The pain team here at MD Anderson were successful in finding the right combinations of drugs that reduced Lauri's pain level while not overly affecting her motor skills. She only had two pain spikes last night, which were handled by the medication. Overall, she got a much better rest last night, at least compared to the last two nights...

The epidural was stopped and capped last night since it was not working effectively. Lauri was instead put only on IV pain medication and oral pain pills and this was effective last night. The epidural line was removed this morning for good.

Great news also came this morning when the Surgery team decided it was time to remove the chest tube. To give you an idea, the chest tube was inserted just below the right side of the rib cage, and runs up inside of the rib cage to just underneath the collarbone area, where the right upper lobe of the lung is located (recall that the right upper lobe is the area the surgeons worked on Thursday). That's about 1 foot of tube inside your ribcage - Lauri is thrilled to have that removed! To remove the chest tube, they simply trim the stitches that hold it in place, and pull it out. It actually feels more "weird" than painful. So they tell me...

Anyway, Lauri is quickly shedding tubes and IV lines, the less leashes the better. We are currently on track for release from the Hospital on Monday. Lauri is taking only oral pain medications now, and we will work with the pain team the rest of today and tonight to converge on the right combination of pills to handle the pain. They have a solution so far that seems to be working. We'll see how it goes the rest of today, and we are looking forward to going home tomorrow!

Another Long Day

Here is another status on Lauri's condition here at MD Anderson. It hasn't been the greatest time so far, so I won't sugar-coat it...

Lauri had another rough night last night fighting pain due to a relatively ineffective epidural. Around midnight Friday night, her pain level escalated. The pain team worked throughout the night, changing epidural solutions and adding a PCA pump, which basically acts as an "on demand" narcotic pain killer. It was a long night...

The PCA pump's medication caused Lauri to get really groggy, so much that she could not hold a conversation, or focus her vision, or do much of anything. It also looked like the PCA pump wasn't really bringing the pain level down. By mid-morning, the pain team decided to stop using the PCA pump, and switch to pain pills.

By late this afternoon, Lauri's pain level spiked again. The pain increased quickly, due to a still fading epidural, and the oral pain pills weren't enough to keep it under control. The pain team was called again, and they decided to add an additional IV pain medication and change the solution on the epidural again. They also upped the dose of the oral pain medication. Lauri is more comfortable now, and is finally able to rest.

Lauri's epidural is still in place, but is not very deep and leaks medication. The pain team has decided that the leak is not new, they see it from time to time, and the epidural does not need to be replaced. The epidural coverage is spotty at best, leaving areas that are not numb, where the chest tube can cause irritation and extreme pain.

The pain team is working very hard to get things under control. It doesn't mean that we aren't a little frustrated, since this same course of action/reaction happens every time we come here. It seems that in an effort to save storage space here, instead of converting medical records to digital copies, they instead burn the records so that they can complete the exact same steps again the next time you come back! It all goes to my conspiracy theory about hospitals - they are money machines! Ha ha, I hope you sense my sarcasm... Seriously, it is a difficult problem, and they are doing their best.

The source of most of the pain is the chest tube, and it looks like we "might" be able to get it removed tomorrow. Things will get much better once we get to that point.

On a lighter note, Lauri's lung appears to be healing well, no leaks. We expect to be released from the hospital on Monday. I'll try to update the blog again tomorrow, hopefully we will have an easier night tonight!

Recovery at MD Anderson

Lauri's recovery continues to progress well. We had a hard time with recovery yesterday, leading to us not getting into a room until around 1:15 am this morning. After surgery yesterday, several factors caused Lauri to have to remain in recovery a lot longer than we had hoped.

Lauri has drain lines that allow for fluid to drain from the operation area. The drainage yesterday was more than the Surgeon had planned, but it corrected itself before the Surgeon had to do anything. Simply put, we needed some extra time for Lauri's lung to heal up and stop bleeding. If it didn't slow down, the Surgeon was going to have to go back in to fix the problem. Luckily that wasn't necessary!

Lauri's pain management team also had trouble again with the epidural. The Anesthesiologist (drug dealer for short) described the problem as too much block. The epidural block volume ended up going further than the doctor had intended. Lauri’s left arm ended up going completely numb, and she lost nearly all strength in the arm, meaning she could barely lift it, and could not grasp anything with her left hand. While this is certainly overkill, it wouldn’t have been a big deal had it occurred on the right side, instead of left, where the surgery was done! Basically, the epidural was working too well in the wrong place. The doctor pulled the epidural back out a little bit, and reduced the basal rate (steady rate) of the medication pump. Reducing the rate reduced the volume of medication. The solution worked, Lauri is now much more comfortable, and has regained use of her left arm.

The above issues were resolved by around 8:40 pm, with the Surgery team signing the release paperwork for Lauri to move to an inpatient room. However, by the time all the paperwork was in place (about 10:00pm), the room was assigned to someone else! The entire hospital is filled to capacity here, so finding another room was a challenge for the team here. We were instead moved to a temporary room to wait until this afternoon when we are supposed to go to our normal inpatient specialist floor, specializing in lung surgery patients. We just got news that the room is ready and we should be heading that way.

Lauri did a great job with all the issues yesterday. These things take time, and full hospitals don’t make it any easier. Lauri is doing very well, beginning to eat more and get energy back. Thanks for all the well wishes, and we will keep you posted as we go!

Lauri Made It!

We just got to see Lauri about 30 minutes ago, and she is doing great! She is awake and feeling good, all things considered. She is in some pain, but the Anesthesia team is working hard to run that down before it gets too bad. She will remain in Recovery until the pain is under control and a room is ready for us.

Lauri's Surgery Status #2

We just met with Lauri's Surgeon, he says Lauri's surgery went very well. He did not find any other spots other than the one we knew about. He says the resection went well, and working through the scar tissue was not as much work as he originally thought it would be.

Lauri is being moved to the Recovery Room now. We will get to visit her there once she has recovered enough to have visitors. That's all we know so far.

Great news, though! No unexpected tumors or difficulties, and Lauri did great through the surgery!

Lauri's Surgery Status

Lauri and her entourage braved the Blizzard of '08 to get to MD Anderson for a check-in time of 9:15am this morning. Lauri was in good spirits, not concerned about the surgery at all. Her blood pressure was actually normal, as was her pulse...

Lauri was wheeled back from the staging area to the Operating Room at 11:43 am. We expect the surgery to take approximately 3 hours, followed by a 3 hour recovery from anesthesia. We expect to see Lauri around 5:00 pm this evening.

We did just see the OR Nurse and she reports that Lauri is doing well. The nodule has been removed and the Surgeon is working on closing everything up now. Lauri's vital signs were good too. We expect to see our Surgeon for an update once everything is complete - I'll post again after we see him.

SNOW!!!

It is snowing so much here. I'm just going to show you instead of writing about it.

Surgery time

My surgery is tomorrow. I have to check in at 9:15am to start preop. So my surgery will probably start around 11:15 (they told me it usually takes about 2 hours to prep). I will be in surgery for about 3 hours, then in recovery for a couple of hours, then too a room when I'm ready. Jeff will update the blog sometime tomorrow after I get settled. Please be patient! He will do it whenever he gets a free second. That's about it. I'm ready for this and looking forward to a cancer free New Year.

PS. It's snowing here!

Day at the Hospital

Today I had some presurgery things to do at the hospital, like labs, chest xray, ct scan and a visit with my surgeon. My mom came with me and it was a long day. I had a ct scan of my lungs as well as my pelvis/abdomen and the only nodule they saw was the one that we are getting rid of on Thursday. It has grown only slightly in the last month, from 7mm to 8.5mm and it did not make any new "friends" either. Yay for that. The surgery will take about 2.5-3 hours, since he has to go through old scar tissue. But he will use the same incision, which is nice. I can expect to be in the hospital anywhere between 3-7 days, depending on when I get the chest tubes out and how long it takes to get my pain under control. Hopefully it will be better than last time. I'm starting out in a better place physically, so that definitely helps. I won't find out what time I go in until late tomorrow afternoon after they set the surgery schedule. I will try to post it whenever I get the news. I have a bunch of family coming in so I have lots of support. I'm just ready to get this over with and then be cancer free...again. Third time's the charm, right?

Stay tuned for more updates tomorrow night!

Pictures from trip

Here is a link to the photo album we made of our trip to California. It's pretty cool!

Click here!

If you click on slideshow in the upper right corner, you can see the pictures better.

Pictures

So we've made a rough cut of the vacation pictures so if you absolutely can't wait until we narrow them down again, you can go ahead and view the 377 pictures I put on shutterfly. There are no captions but they are pretty self explanatory. Anyway, enjoy!

Click here!

Thanksgiving vacation

Jeff and I got back last night from a week's vacation in California for Thanksgiving. Jeff's brother lives out there and we stayed with him for the week. It was a family affair with Jeff's parents and sister going as well. We had a great time, but it's good to be back in our own house. As usual, we took tons of pictures, but we'll have to edit them, so I'll try to have Jeff post those sooner, rather than later. I'll give you a quick recap of what we did. Monday we went to San Francisco, rode the Trolley, strolled through Chinatown, headed down to Fisherman's Wharf, went to Ghirardelli Square (as in Chocolate!), and ate some yummy dungeness crabs by the water. Tuesday we headed to Yosemite and spent the night there. We enjoyed the beautiful scenery and mountains. Thursday we headed to the beach so Carrie could see the Pacific ocean. It turned out to be a beautiful day and not too cold. We stopped at the Golden Gate bridge on the way back and got some nice pictures from different vantage points. We headed back to the apartment around lunchtime and watched football until Thanksgiving dinner was ready. We chowed down on turkey and dressing and all kinds of yummy things. Then around midnight, the younger girls decided to head to the outlet mall for some Black Friday shopping. We didn't get back till 5am! After a short nap, we headed to Sonoma to the wine country. We visited a few wineries and had a great time. Then back to the apartment to pack and get a little shuteye before our early flight on Saturday. We got back to Austin around 12:30 and headed to Fredericksburg to spend the night. We left around lunchtime and arrived back in Houston around 5pm. So we had a very busy week and now it's back to the real world. I have one week to cram in some work, before I have to go to the hospital next week. Never a dull moment around here.


Anyway, I hope everyone had a great holiday. We sure did! Now, on to Christmas!