Seek advise but use your own common sense - Yiddish saying

As you can see from the picture, Occupational Therapy showed up late yesterday. She was also here this morning - Butch graduated from a 1.5 lb. weight to a 2 lb weight - unfortunately, both PT people called in today, but - we did it ourselves - walked quite a bit as a matter of fact. I don't know what has happened (I usually don't!) but - when I got here, the nurse had the IV 3/4 done - so I wouldn't be mad at her, she said! yesterday it was "hospital policy" not to hang it earlier - HAD to wait until 9:00 and take forever! The Liver Doctors were in and said they think we can be discharged w/o the wound vac - they are coming back tomorrow for the "changing of the dressing" to make sure. I e-mailed Dr. Gamblin - if we are leaving with no wound vac, why can't we leave Sunday, instead of Monday (remember - last IV at 11:00 PM Saturday night. Also asked for an appointment earlier than the 5th, if possible - we would like to go to Family House for a week, go to the appointment, and COME HOME if possible. We will find out soon, I hope. Mom and Dad have offered to come down and have Butch ride with Dad, and Mom with me - their car is much bigger and more comfortable than ours, and he could even lay down in the back seat if necessary. I don't know if that is needed - we will have to see how he does in the next few days.


We talked to Butch's Brother Tom yesterday - he is in Melbourne, Florida in the path of Tropical storm Fay. He said he is stranded in his trailer until the waters recede, but is OK - he has food, etc. He lives in a trailer park alongside Indian River, with the Ocean on the other side of that, so - this has happened to him before! Good luck with that cat scan Tom - we'll be calling soon.

Mom and Dad went to the Adirondacks today with the Conklin seniors - sounds like a fun trip - ride up on the bus, great lunch, train ride through the countryside. Dad has surgery on the 1st knee on October 13 . He is able to have the surgery after all, which is great - micro surgery, as I understand it, and the poor guy will be able to walk again - he has been in a lot of pain for a long time. We're happy you are going to get the surgery, Dad.

I asked the attending physician to run the other tumor marker test - the CEA - for us, and they took the blood this morning. We discussed that cat scan and told him we didn't want the test - he agreed, but said if any of these tests results go against us, he would have to do it anyway - we agreed, but said we would rather wait. The CA 19-9 came back at 3,100. We must have looked unhappy, because he told us not to panic - said to remember that he said there is approximately a 20 % error ratio either way, so we don't really know if it is trending up yet. It does, however, confirm our suspicion that we had better get back and begin chemo as soon as he is able to. I expect that we will be discussing this at length with Dr. Gamblin when we see him after discharge. I wish SO MUCH that we knew what it was before the CC was diagnosed - it would be so helpful.

Wounds 101 - I did change the dressing yesterday - on the j-tube, and the wound - under the watchful eye of the wound care nurse. I am quite proud of myself, but - hope Sharan is right - I will be glad to leave dressing changes and wound cleaning to the Home Health nurses - this is just "in case" - sort of an insurance policy, they said. I have learned many new skills over these last weeks which I sincerely hope I will never use in the future!