Thursday, October 6, 2011
Hi everyone. I hope all have had a good summer and fall so far. I have not talked to you for quite a while. In the meantime, we had a trip to Washington State to see friends, have a couple of reunions and see my brother Jerry turn 75 with friends and family that I had not seen for a while. My brother is still looking good and acting like he is still in his 50's. I also had a trip to our nation's capital in September, for a business meeting, and Ardyth was supposed to go, but was not up to it at that time.
I am writing now because she is back in the hospital. She had been doing well in recovery from last year and is active in most household chores, and getting out to social events and family visits. But she still has not gained weight back, except for about 5 pounds she gained while we were in Washington. Since then she has lost that plus more, and I weighed her about a week ago and she weighed 80 pounds.
Two weekends ago she became sick to her stomach and after waiting 3 days to see if she would get over it, I took her to our Dr., who ordered x-rays at the hospital immediately and then our surgeon admitted her to the hospital with possible blockage in her lower abdomen area. He ask me if she had surgery for a hysterectomy and I told him, "yes in 1977". He said she has scar tissue from possibly that surgery and it was choking her bowels and not permitting them to function, and the sickness was from the bowels being 100% blocked. So last Wednesday, she had surgery, completely different from her surgery of last year, and the scar tissue had completely grew around the bowels, and like a tighten belt, had closed off the function of the bowels. She was in ICU for 5 days to monitor her closely and moved to her room on Sunday. She is obviously doing much better and is up walking for 5-10 minutes, including one last night with me. The surgeon felt this has also prevented her from absorbing nutrients from the food she was eating. Her appetite has been good and she has been eating good since March/April.
I have to apologize to you for the delayed communication to you, because at the same time, I have had a time restricted issue with one of our large clients and we had some deadlines to sit with 100 employees individually for some of their benefits, so I have had 12 hour days at this firm, plus trying to spend time with Ardyth. Trying to sit down and write at 11:00 pm does not work very good.
We now have good news because the doctor says she can come home as soon as her bowels get regular again, and she had good news on that front today. She probably will come home on the week end, so please pray for her that this will come to pass. We love you and appreciate you for what help you have been in the past year (just a year ago that she had her first surgery). I will keep you posted on her progress, and again your thoughts and prayers do help her and us a lot.
Jack