Kevin vs Cancer

Today is 7 weeks!  Post surgery and Kevin feels he may have finally turned a corner!  Feeling more himself and better. Still has some discomfort and tires more than he used to. But sees light at the end of this recuperation tunnel. He has been in the tree stand a couple of times, moving some wood AND went to visit at the farm for a short time for morning meeting.  But we are happy there is progress.  They had said 8-12 weeks before back to work. And now he sees why! He is thinking back to the hospital beginning of December.  Will play the farm by ear.  

 It is 5 weeks post surgery!!! and things are going pretty much as expected...by medical standards...not Kevin's.  He is learning patience. This past week he developed the upper respiratory crud we all had...and had a fever. The "rule" is if he develops a fever 100.4 or greater to take an antibiotic he was given and go to the ED. There is a risk of OPSI....as i have mentioned before. This is a rare infection, but can be fatal with in 24-48 hours. Which sounds scary.  He took fever reducing meds and temp was normal in 30 minutes. Consulted with doctors and if fever went back up or symptoms got worse....we were to go in. We were pretty sure he just caught what the rest of us had and wasn't exposed to any of the "dangerous" bacteria that can lead to OPSI. As well as none of the other symptoms. He didnt get worse and t he is getting better! As a result he is taking the antibiotics that were recommended, by Infectious Disease, post surgery. Since I last updated.....

  Rachel made us shirts with his Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumor ribbon. It is zebra stripes because it is in the "rare disease" category.❤️ I said I would update today! It is still today! We had to be in Burlington at 8am. We were a few minutes late...but we were leaving the hospital by 9! His oncologist said the pathology report was excellent. No findings of cancer in other areas.(they checked 32 lymph nodes!)  The tumor was early stage and well contained.  They originally said 3 months for PET scan, but now it is 6 months. He will then continue to be monitored and have MRCP scans for a while. That is a special MRI dedicated to looking at pancrease, bile ducts, and gall bladder (to put it in the simplest terms, I have more reading to do). He will continue to be followed by a doctor from the pancreatic clinic. The lack of appetite, tired, etc. can be all part of post "big surgery," as the doctor said. "Outside looks little, but inside is BIG!" (Said in yo...