It all started in March 2023
Sarah was in San Antonio visiting the kids and I began suffering from GERD and painful digestive issues that kept me awake at night. I reached out to Kaiser in April and they began monitoring my liver functions and bilirubin levels.
My hospital stay
An April 14th ultrasound didn’t reveal anything but on April 28 my bilirubin level was way too high so I was admitted at Peace Health Hospital in Springfield, Oregon. Bilirubin and bile are drained from the liver into the digestive tract through the bile ducts. If bilirubin can’t drain and builds up it can cause deadly havoc.
It turns out that a mass is blocking my bile duct right where the two main branches connect with the trunk. The next morning a surgeon installed a single stent in my bile duct to bypass a mass. It didn’t work. During my seventeen day hospital stay I endured 5 failed procedures, 6 failed biopsies, multiple MRI and CT scans, life-threatening dehydration, a blood infection, seizures, and painfully difficult days. I was finally told by some sad-looking doctors that they couldn’t do anything more. Two doctors gave me less than 6 months to live. I was discharged from the hospital on May 14th.
Hospice is about dying comfortably
I received Hospice in my home beginning May 15th. Hospice provided me with a hospital bed, a walker, a wheelchair, a portable toilet, nurse and doctor visits, and all the opiates and other comfort meds a body could possibly want.
By this time I was weak, lethargic, and didn’t have any fight left in me. I was at peace with dying; I just hoped I could do it without a prolonged time of pain and suffering. I stopped drumming (my way of worship and prayer at the time), stopped reading inspirational literature, and stopped meditating. I didn’t have the mental or physical energy to do any of that. But I figured that was okay because I would be on the other side soon enough and experience first hand what I had been reaching for in my devotional life.
The turning point
I believe it was the 15th of June when a doctor visited and told us that I had days, maybe weeks to live, not months. Then on Saturday, the 17th of June something radical happened. I threw up in the afternoon and immediately went into convulsions and tremors. Then I passed out and lay there unresponsive for over two hours, twitching, eyes rolled back. Sarah thought I was dying.
Once I regained my senses, I told Sarah, “I want to live.” Something happened during that blackout that changed my mind. Instead of wanting to die quickly I wanted to live. It was not a conscious decision on my part; I didn’t have that conversation with myself. I just woke up wanting to live. During the days following things radically improved. I think the biliary drains installed by Peace Health finally started working. The persistent stomach pain diminished. I started getting out of bed and sitting on the back patio to soak up sunshine. My physical and mental energy increased. It was a slow process but I was able to wean myself off the painkillers and learn how to pee without a catheter and urine bag. I could walk, I was eating better, and had mental energy.
The ongoing challenge
I left Hospice on July 31st. Eleven days later I had the two biliary drains replaced in Portland and the day after that I took my last small dose of Methadone. Since August I seem to be in a holding pattern where I fluctuate from feeling energy to not; from having fevers and night sweats to not; from getting bladder or blood infections to not. It’s a little bit of a roller coaster ride and we don’t know what the future holds but Sarah and I are taking each day as it comes and helping each other along the way.
Sarah’s first update on this website is from October 2023 so I’ll end this report here.
Leave a Reply