Day 33

SATURDAY EVENING- October 13

Jeff went into surgery at 1:30. The doctor they called in to do the surgery usually works at a different hospital in this town but we were told by the nurses that he was the best. Before they took him back the doctor told us that they were going to clean the area and check the damage and look to see if there was any more damage. He told us that this would not be his last surgery and he would probably need several more surgeries before this was all over.

Here comes the good part. At 2:30 the surgeon came out and said that they cleaned the area. He left the incision open and put a vacuum dressing on the wound with a drainage tube to drain the wound. My pastor's wife asked him about the dead tissue in the stomach and bowels. THEN THE DOCTOR SAID THERE WAS NO DEAD TISSUE. He said that there were areas that looked like they was an infection and the areas that had perforated and been repaired. He also said that the stomach is still very distended and the small intestines are inflamed.Jeff will go back into surgery in 3 or 4 days and they will remove the vacuum dressing and see if the stomach had improved.

He is still very sick but this the first time I have had good news. He is on 11 medications, TPN (total parental nutrition for food through a PIC line), and a saline drip. He also is doing dialysis for 24 hours a day. They are keeping him heavily sedated because of the pain of the open incision.