Here are the emails Jen sent while I was in the hospital for those of you who weren't on the forwarding list

3/11/08


Just to update everyone….

Steve is having complications from the surgery. He isn’t able to keep anything down. The doctor believes it is because there is swelling and because of that the pouch in his stomach isn’t letting anything pass through. This is the process that he goes through. Our body naturally produces saliva and naturally we swallow it. So as more and more attempts to go into his stomach, he becomes in increasing pain until he vomits. Once he does that he feels good until after an hour or so and then it starts to build up again and the process just continues on. Dr Jones feels that the swelling will go down and this will just stop on its own. He told him today to get up and walk a lot and to sit up – basically not lay in bed at all and that should help. He did all of that this morning but around noon time he vomited again. If this continues throughout today he will go in for another surgery tomorrow. They will either give him a larger band or take a couple stitches out of the one he has now. This in turn will give him the size opening he needs. The larger band is for people who are over 300 pounds and if he changes to that he will have to have several adjustments made. Dr. Jones feels this is the right size. We will definitely know for sure what is happening tomorrow. Something has to give here because he is just suffering way too much. I would say he will be in the hospital at least until Friday. I know he definitely isn’t up for any visitors but if you want you can call me. I am pretty much there the whole day. I will let everyone what’s going on tomorrow.




3/12/08

Well I didn’t think I would have another update so soon but it sounds like he is going to be rushed into surgery tonight. He is all of a sudden vomiting very frequently so something is definitely wrong. I will let you know more tomorrow....



3/12/08

Well I just got home. The surgery went great and Steve says he feels like a million bucks. I don’t know if that is the anesthesia talking or the pain medication but I do believe he is doing better. Dr. Jones said that his stomach was extremely swollen both under and above the band. He loosened up the band and put in a GI tube. This tube connects from his stomach out through his nose. This will prevent him from vomiting. He is going to keep this in for a couple of days and then he will remove it. His plan is that the tube will give his stomach enough time to reduce its swelling since his stomach will not be aggravated from any more vomiting. Once he removes the tube Steve will have to try liquids again. At this point everything should be fine and he should be able to tolerate them. If he can’t he will have to go back in and remove everything entirely so his body can heal and then go in at a later date to have the larger band installed. I believe that this will do the trick. We really do have high hopes that this worked. Thank you everyone for all of your thoughts and prayers. It is greatly appreciated.



3/13/08

Steve is in great spirits today. He hates the tube but he is dealing with it. He feels great – well the best he can at this point compared to how he has felt. The tube will be removed on Saturday so hopefully everything goes well and it worked. He really isn’t up for any phone calls or visitors so if you want you can give me a call. It really is great to have such a wonderful support system. I’ll let you know how Saturday goes….For those of you that didn’t get all of my previous emails I have pasted them below starting from the bottom…



3/15/08

Steve obviously doesn’t like the gi tube. It is very uncomfortable for him and plainly not the nicest thing in the world. He asked Dr. Jones yesterday if it was possible to take it out, so Dr. Jones told him to disconnect the tube from the suction canister and to try drinking some water. He drank about 3 medicine cupfuls and then started to vomit. After that happened the nausea didn’t really stop and we asked to have the band removed. Dr Jones told us that if he keeps the tube in until Monday morning that everything should work out just fine. He just needs to relax a little bit His stomach just needs some time heal and to reduce the swelling. So we agreed on that and we said that we are going to wait. At 4:00 this morning Steve was dreaming and during his dream he pulled the tube out and he actually did just that. I just talked to him now and he hasn’t thrown up since and frankly I think he sounds pretty good. So hopefully things will stay on this path and maybe some liquids can be introduced on Monday. Maybe pulling out the tube was a good idea. Who knows??? I’m going to be at the hospital all day today so I will send out another email tonight….



3/15/08

Well great news!! He was feeling really great today. Didn’t feel sick to his stomach at all. He kept the saliva down so tomorrow he is going to try drinking some water. In fact, he was actually feeling hungry, which is a great sign. He was so happy today, smiling, cracking jokes, almost back to his old self. He was practically skipping down the halls today like a little kid. That was really nice to see. It looks like everything is going to work out fine. This has definitely been a tough week but as long as it all works out – well worth it. As long as everything progresses this way I believe he will be coming home on Monday.



3/17/08

Well everyone can rest easy now. Steve is now home. Everything is going great and he has already lost over 13 pounds. Now he just needs time to rest and recuperate. Thank you again for all of your nice thoughts.