TBU with a MiL update

I haven’t been ignoring the requests for an MiL update. It seems like it changes daily, so I wanted to be able to properly learn a few things before writing. I thought I would include some backstory because, frankly, at this point I can’t remember what I’ve told to whom, and I think it would also help people to be able to put the situation into context.

My mother in law had ovarian cancer 17 years ago (this was long before I ever knew TG or her family). It was so aggressive that other patients diagnosed with the same type at the same time all passed away within 3 to 6 months. At the time, MiL was given a 1 in 1000 chance at survival. Her doctors basically threw everything and kitchen sink at the cancer and by the grace of God and the miracles of medicine, they were able to cure the cancer at that time. She spent the better part of 18 months in the hospital in recovery from both the cancer and all the various treatments and after effects associated with it. And ever since then, she has routinely had health issues related to both the cancer and the aggressive treatment regimen.
 
The most obvious of those health issues the last two and a half years has been kidney failure that required dialysis. The radiation treatment for her cancer essentially dissolved one kidney, leaving the other kidney to perform double duty for the last 15 years and in the fall of 2004 she started on dialysis three times a week for three hours each time. At that time, she also began the process to get on the kidney transplant list at Northwestern in downtown Chicago and up in Madison at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals. It was in August of this year that our prayers for a new kidney were answered and MiL had the transplant operation in early August up in Madison. Surgery one.
 
It was at the one month follow up to the transplant (MiL had been home only 10 days or so) that the doctors discovered the stomach cancer. It was late September when she had the operation to remove the cancer, which required the removal of ~2/3rds of her stomach. The doctors believe they were able to remove all of the cancer. Two days later, they also removed her gall bladder. I honestly don’t know if this was cancer related or was done for other reasons. So surgeries two and three.
 
On October 14, the doctors discovered her bowels were encroaching on the area of the stomach and gall bladder surgeries and made a decision to, for lack of a better term, push things back into place and tie them down. This was done to prevent infection, etc. Surgery four.
 
On Thursday morning, Oct 19, they rushed her back into emergency surgery (surgery five) at 2:00 in the morning. They had discovered a perforation in her bowel that was causing her body to go into septic shock. All of her major organs were going into failure. They told the entire family (FiL, BiL, TG) to come up to Wisconsin because it seemed at the time that MiL was not going to make it through the day. I went up a few days later and she was on a ventilator, a dialysis machine, and I counted about 18 different IV medications to which she was hooked up.
 
In the ensuing two weeks, they have been able to take her off of most of the IV medications although they still need to keep her on some blood pressure drugs to keep her BP at an even level. She is no longer on 24 hour dialysis, but has to have dialysis still on a regular basis (the kidneys might have been damaged by the sepsis). She is still on a ventilator, but whereas she was on 100% oxygen initially, they have been able to dial it down to the lowest level. She cannot yet, however, breath on her own. So there has been progress, but it is very slow and incremental.
 
Today, Friday the 3rd, they are going to perform a tracheotomy for the ventilator tube. This will remove it from her mouth and put it directly into her throat. They are doing this to prevent possible infection in her mouth and also prevent facial damage that can occur from having the tubing running through her mouth for such a long period of time. They are also going to do another surgery (surgery six) to "wash out" the discharge tubes connected to her stomach and other areas. This is being done to prevent another possible round of sepsis.
 
So where do things stand at the moment? The doctors have made it very clear that she will be in the ICU at least through Thanksgiving and likely in the hospital through the rest of the year. If nothing else "major" happen, they are currently saying she has a 50/50 shot at recovery. Recovery is not yet something that is currently definable. They need to run some tests and give her a CT scan to assess whether or not she potentially had a stroke at some point during all of this, but she doesn’t have the strength for them to do that yet. So even if all things were to go 100% favorably from this point forward, none of us know what the final outcome will look like. The doctors have told us that recovery and progress will be measured in terms of months, but declines could come swiftly and fatally.
 
So that brings us right up to today. TG is in Madison with MiL’s sister right now and will likely stay through the weekend depending on how today’s surgeries go. My parents have been a big help in coming over from Iowa to watch Gus while I have been at work.
 
People have asked how they can help. I think the most helpful thing at the moment is continuing prayer. Some specifics – MiL’s health and recovery. Wisdom for the doctors. Grace for the family. Safety on the highways as there are many people travelling to and from Madison as well as to and from Iowa.

That’s about it – We deeply thank everyone who has shown an interest and concern in TG and her MiL thru all of this.