The Background....

The Background....  

Mike was diagnosed with bladder cancer on his birthday, May 2nd of last year. We had been planning a camping trip in our wonderful VW Vanagon and had got it all ready to go when this news came. This certainly changed our plans. 

There were 2 surgeries in anticipation of 8.5 weeks of radiation and chemotherapy that initiated in September and completed in mid-October. Overlapping the treatments were trips to ER and most initiated hospitalizations. On one occasion, he was in ICU for 4 days. This was rough. 

There had been more ER and hospitalizations than months since his treatments. The infections and sepsis, bleeding bladder all have made us frequent visitors to ER, familiar with the team there and on the hospital floor. Both Mike and I are grateful to the staff and have been reassured that we are not abusing the system. 

Most recently, Mike was in for a major infection for 5 days, and we got out for only a week and a half. Mike went back to the hospital on March 1st; it was nearly midnight and he could not move. I had to call 911, and he was carried out in a type of sling to the ER, where he was admitted with pneumonia. He was struggling with walking and so was transferred to a skilled nursing facility for rehab at Valle Verde. 

Waving from his room at Valle Verde

There he improved daily and was scheduled to come home on March 19th, but strangely on Monday, he started having trouble walking, and then Tuesday he was dizzy and unable to walk. Checking blood pressure showed that it was low, and the next day, the same thing. So on the 19th, instead of home, we were at the ER where they could not pin anything and were sent back to Valle Verde. 

He had to go through the strengthening and walking again. Then he had swelling in his right leg...Back to the ER, there was one night in the hospital where they determined it was a blood clot, but he could not take thinners as his bladder bleeds so he was sent back to Valle Verde. Next, he tests positive for COVID! What more could happen? This limited his ability to move around the facility and his exercise was confined to his room. There he was until April 5th when I gratefully yet uncertainly brought him home. 

Now it is trying to figure out how to adjust to living with someone with little mobility and no strength nor energy. We have hired a CNA and we are looking forward to getting up and are around!

Here mike is at his computer answering emails: 

Today, Maria got him outside and walking down out uneven front steps!

Things are moving along!!