A life full of the unexpected

The past two years have been fraught with challenges for the two of us. We ended the 24 month run with the promise that 2010 had to be better....its GOT to be better. And with that promise, we brought Roger home from the hospital and have seen slow improvement in his health. We saw the surgeon this past Wednesday. The doctor said Roger looked great! We are scheduled to go into the hospital this coming Thursday at which point the doctor will "un-bionic" Roger by taking out the stent, taking out his chemo port, and taking out his feeding tube. Since Roger has been eating by mouth, Dr. Freeman said that we didn't need to use the feeding tube any more - which of course made Roger VERY happy. So... the week was progressing pretty well, and then the damn broke loose on the continuation of our not-so-great-luck

Wednesday evening Roger had some food get caught that he was trying to eat which caused him to throw up. He believes that he caused the stent to move at that time. The end result is that he now constantly feels like he needs to throw up. Unfortunately, Roger didn't want to call the doctor's office until Friday afternoon so there wasn't much the doctor could do at that point. We'll call again tomorrow. For the time being, Roger is only eating soup and shakes and smoothies...really really soft food. Nothing else will stay down. We're hopeful that the doctor will be able to work Roger into his schedule before Thursday.

The balance of the week brought bad news in the loss of two of Roger's family. Tragically, his uncle Chris ended his life during the week. Chris was more of a peer than traditional "uncle" to Roger. The news knocked the wind out of our lungs. Then the next morning, we learned that Roger's great uncle Jim had passed away. The two of them were very close. We'll be spending a lot of time at funeral services in the near future.

The final stroke of bad luck for the week came with notice that Roger is being personally sued in the lawsuit that resulted from the accident at the karting center almost two years ago. We knew it was inevitable and the statute of limitations would run in February. So it was just a matter of time.

All you can do is shake your head and say "its got to get better"....I won't let anyone say "it can't get any worse" ....as I'm SURE it can and with our luck....it will. Also, a word of warning to all of you - you may not want to ride any elevators with us. :-)

So, its been a challenging week. Nothing we can't handle just emotionally challenging and draining. Roger is actually handling everything well. He's sad and has his pensive moments, but he's ok. He wants to focus on living. So, that's what we'll do. We're hopeful that as soon as the stent is out that Roger will feel much better and will be able to start working on getting stronger.

We are traveling to Florida for a couple weeks this month. It will be good to get away and get some sun while we're at it. Though the temperature may be cool by Floridian standards it will still be a heatwave to us compared to the single digit temps we've had in Indy.

I will try to post some pictures a long the way so that you can see Roger's transformation and progress.

Take care. Angie & Roger