Maybe There's a Miracle

Jack had a restless night last night, but he ate some yogurt this morning, some of his food, and of course some sweet potato chips. Susan game him some pain medicine before she left for work at 5 a.m. She's been wonderful staying with me for a month now in case of an emergency. There's no way I could lift him up into my truck. With her medical background, she is a great comfort to be around and she surprised me with dinner last night! It's also good for Jack that she's here as he loves her as much as he loves me; and she loves him right back. We share him.;-)

I'm encouraged by his progress. The doctor was going to keep him for another day because he wouldn't eat for them and he usually likes his patients to eat before they leave. He called, yesterday, and asked me to come over to see if he would eat for me. He would only drink a little water and eat some sweet potato chips. If he got any closer to me he would have been inside me. The doctor felt that he might be better off at home--more comfortable, and I think he is. He was anxious to get to the car as we headed out the door.

I got an email from the surgeon in Texas, today, and she had been checking on Jack since arriving back in Austin. She's encouraged so far, but we still know that we won't know the success of the surgery for 2-4 weeks.

I didn't write much about the surgery-things were just so turned upside down. The Dr. from TAMU, a very pretty woman, came out of surgery looking stressed. It was the look I didn't want to see. It seems that Jack doesn't have the main lymphatic vessel that goes up to the duct so she could not do the dye test to see where the leak was coming from. Instead, he has many small vessels some of which were leaking. She did her best to find them all so she could tie them off. It's very difficult to know if she got them all. She also found a mass in his belly that looked to be lymphatic vessels that had sealed themselves. She didn't touch it as she felt it  might cause more harm than good. I'm not sure if I've described the surgery correctly, but you get the idea. Jack's anatomy is different than what they expected. Dr. F. was disappointed that it wasn't as straight forward as she had hoped. By all his records, there was nothing to indicate that it wouldn't be. So...we hope.

He ate some yogurt and some of his food this morning. I can get him to drink if I offer it in different size little cups. You know, I'm thinking Jack might just pull off a miracle, thanks to the help of his medical team-I couldn't have asked for more.

So, here he is in "one" of his beds-he actually wanted to climb on the sofa with me last night, but of course that wasn't possible, so his other bed is right next to me where I could reach down and touch him during the night. That seems to calm him. Here he is in a T-Shirt to keep his incisions clean and away from his reach.

Who knows, maybe if all goes well, we can hit the road, again, together. I sure hope so, but if that isn't in the cards I'm hoping to give him good quality of life - I'm sure he's not quite convinced at the moment, but I see improvement each day. I'm betting that in a week, I won't be able to keep him still!