Highmoon's Ponderings

It’s been almost a week since Mom’s surgery. All this time she has been in Intensive Care Unit where, if nothing else, she has dedicated nurse attention round the clock.

She has been delicate for the most part, though amazingly, she’s fighting to recover. Her pulse and pressure remain stable in general, fluctuating only when she has bouts of pain, which unfortunately are fairly often. At the moment she’s on the Fentanyl patch 50mg plus Demerol every 4 hours, and even that doesn’t take all the pain away. She describes it as her intestines turning and squeezing; the surgery wound, funny enough, is the least source of pain.

A day after surgery, her right-side neck lymph node swelled up slowly during the day, and it was very tender and painful to even the slightest touch. Her right arm and leg also swelled up around the same time. The arm could have been that the barrage of IV liquids infiltrated the arm, but even so it was huge (so swollen that her skin color was white). While the nasogastric tube is working like it’s never worked before, she still has occasional stomach discomfort; she’s getting Pepcid via IV for that. She’s still getting the Clinimix along with Intralipid, both for nutrient. The Dr. also ordered an antibiotic for the lymph node swelling, but I don’t know the name.

The Dr. spoke clearly with my sister: she doesn’t have that much time, a few months, and the cancer is far more aggressive than we thought; it could be moving to other parts of her system, though we don’t know for sure yet.

We have done some investigating and have some good and encouraging info about hospice, if the time comes for that. Right now she’s to remain in ICU and only when she’s stable enough will she be moved to a room. We don’t know when that will happen.

Mom’s a fighter, and I know she’ll continue to put on the good fight, with G-d’s help.

My brother Michael and his wife Diana (pictured above at the Arecibo Radio Observatory, Arecibo, PR) are getting married today in Ocala, Florida!

Yes, I wrote that right. Michael and Diana have actually been married for a few years now by civil law. Both were in the military at the time, and they decided to get married one day, during lunchtime, after which Diana returned to her job, and Michael reported to be shipped to Iraq the next day for the first of a couple of tours of duties. They have been through some tough times, especially for a young couple, and they have pulled through with flying colors. Today is their religious wedding, and while I cannot be there in body, I am there in soul, wishing them, with all my love, all the blessings in the world for a happy, strong and enduring marriage.

Michael and Diana, Yvette and I love you both and send you congratulations!

Over the last week, Mom’s condition has continued to decline. The fentanyl patch was increased to 75mg and this has caused her to be in a constant in-and-out of wakefulness; she’ll have a couple hours each day where she’s very awake, but other than that she’s sleepy or zoned out. It has managed most of her pain, however, so it is a help in that sense.

The X-rays taken revealed that the blockage in her intestine is total: there is just absolutely no movement in the digestive system and nothing, not even liquid, is getting through the blockage. Her only option at this point is surgery. The surgeon spoke to her and made it clear that any surgical procedure on Mom was far from routine and carried many risks. He will operate only because it is the one chance she has at any kind of healing from this condition, and he will only do so once he has taken all the preparatory steps needed and gathered all the materials he’ll need in case of an emergency. We’re looking at mid- to late next week for the operation if she doesn’t get any worse. It is her decision to go into surgery, and she is still, dazed as she might be at times, fully conscious of what’s going on, and what could happen.

My sister is now here from Orlando, and so is my wife and Mom-in-law till Monday (as of now), so I have had help at the hospital. As soon as we know when the surgery will be I’ll update.

Please continue to keep her in your prayers.

I’ll continue to update as I can. I sometimes send little updates during the day to my personal Twitter account at http://www.twitter.com/Highmoon (if you don’t have Twitter, you can just scan that URL for updates) and I’ll keep posting updates here as I can.

I’ve never asked anything like this, but there’s no reason not to right now.

I would like to ask any and everyone who reads this to say Psalm 20 for the healing of Wanda Iris Robles Ortiz, whether you are Jewish or Christian, or simply acknowledge the Psalms as holy writings. I even have a link to the psalm online for you to make it easy! For non-JudeoChristians, then I please ask you say a brief prayer for the healing of my mother, phrased however it is proper in your tradition. For my non-believer friends, a simple heartfelt wish for my mother’s healing will be as welcomed.

I don’t need to know you did it, so don’t tell me. But let me thank you beforehand.

How many of these have I done by now?

By now you know that I returned to Miami last Friday only to learn that Mom went back into the hospital on Saturday. I flew in to Puerto Rico again yesterday early in the morning after she got really bad on Monday night; I just didn’t want to run any chances of being away if/when needed.

I found her yesterday tired, very tired, and weak. Fairly stable, though, especially considering the scare she gave everyone the night before. She’s on an IV nutrient since she cannot digest anything, and on a fentanyl patch to control the pain. Her hemoglobin has been stable, thank G-d, so there doesn’t seem to be any major bleed in the body. Yesterday she had a series of X-rays done with a barium contrast, of her stomach and a series of her small intestine. She has one more X-ray today at the 24 hour mark from the start of the study, and every single doctor is waiting for these results to have a better picture of what exactly is going on in her GI tract.

I’ll continue to update as I can. I sometimes send little updates during the day to my personal Twitter account at http://www.twitter.com/Highmoon (if you don’t have Twitter, you can just scan that URL for updates) and I’ll keep posting updates here as I can.

I fly out to Puerto Rico again Tuesday morning at 6 AM.