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Sammy’s Update 8-14-09
Hobie - 8/18/2009 11:45 PM
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Category: Personal
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Sammy’s Update 8-14-09 Sammy had his liver surgery on Friday. The surgeons had to remove 85% of his liver. Sammy was cut from side to side across his abdomin.The doctors believe they removed all of the tumor. He did well thru the surgery. He completely bled out, and they had to completely refill his blood volume with donor blood. Donor blood is completely stripped of any nutrients, sugars, electrolites, and vitamins. It will take a few days for his body to start filling his blood with these things. If his sugar drops he could go into a sugar coma, if his blood pressure drops he could go into cardiac arrest. He is being monitored around the clock. He has been sedated and on a ventilator, with a breathing tube for four days now. The night and day after his surgery he took spells were he quit breathing, and turned very blue. He was not getting enough lung volume,and when he would get irritated, he would hold his breath. Come to finding out he was over sedated. The staff had to up his medicine three times in one day, because he would get used to the drugs, and try to wake up. This would cause his heart rate, and oxygen intake to drop. They have switched his medicine since all this, and it has worked alot better for him. He will be in the I.C.U. probally for the rest of the week. If all goes well, he will have the breathing tube out and be off the ventilator in the next few days. After coming out of the I.C.U., he will then go to another unit anywhere from two weeks to a month to recover from surgery. When Sammy heals, he will then undergo another two complete rounds of chemo. We were told last week before the surgery that Sammy is going deaf from the chemo, and he would at least have to have hearing aids. His cancer doctor looked in his ears and told us it looks like he just has fluid built up behind his eardrums, and he thought that putting tubes in his ears would fix the problem. So at this point I am very hopeful.