The Story 5 July to 8 October 2000

• surgeon called at 1710
• he removed the gall bladder
• also removed the main gall duct from the liver to the gall bladder
• and, as expected he removed some of the liver as well
• he said he had three good lines of healthy tissue
• meaning he feels that he got all the cancer out
• he said she was fine during the operation and was recovering as expected
• but, he called it a big operation and said Mette will probably be in Intensive care all night

• I was WRONG, the liver had NOT been involved in the cutting
• meaning that there was no evidence during the surgery that there was any cancer in the liver (this is very good news)
• correctly reported yesterday was that the gall bladder and main bile duct was removed
• I forgot to mention that the main bile duct was replaced by a small piece of Mette's small intestine
• and I didn't know to mention that the tumor in the gall bladder had involved the main blood vessle (vein) from the area--the surgeon removed a section of of the wall of the vein
• it is interesting how luck plays a part in our lives: the surgeon said that if he had known the vein was involved he would not have operated--but, since he was already in there . . .

• Mette looks a LOT better than she did this morning at 0700
• she is much more alert
• her vital signs are back into (or moving toward) expected/normal ranges
• the ultrasound (with Dr. Rokkjær watching closely) revealed no reason to go back in (good news)
• he said he is not at all alarmed with her condition now and also noted how much better she is than when he saw her at 0900
• the blood test was pretty much as expected (oxygen saturation level in the blood was a little low, but not alarmingly so)
• the doctor has ordered hourly deep breathing exercises to stave off lung problems that might otherwise lead to pneumonia

• one of the earliest finds was at www.adam.com says "The disease is progressive and most patients develop biliary cirrhosis, persistent jaundice, and liver failure."
  
• another early find at www.adam.com says "Prognosis is poor, most persons survive just a few years after the symptoms develop."
• I am now finding less scary words like these from www.psc-support.demon.co.uk: "The actual history of the disease is that about half of the patients will go through life without too much trouble from the disease and about half will have progressive problems in the liver and the bile ducts." and "Very often there are no symptoms of PSC and it is found incidentally on a routine blood test in patients with Colitis. Patients like this may have no symptoms for many years. If there is a progressive cause then patients may notice itching and jaundice, sometimes fevers and, in very severe cases, the development of liver failure . . ."
• as far as I can tell, Mette absolutely falls within that last group: 1) she has had no PSC symptoms: and, 2) she had colitis in her teens; and 3) her disease was found incidently (due to the gall bladder polyp)
• I conclude (or hope) that Mette may (if the cancer is indeed licked) have a rather normal, healthy life for some years . . . I will not (like the doctor) define "some years"

• bread, butter and cheese
• sometimes also a soft boiled egg
• occasionally we might also have thinly sliced smoked or dried meat sausage [kinda like Italian salami sold in the USA, but more moist and tender]
• rarely we have fried eggs and bacon--usually only for guests or for breakfast on a birthday or an anniversary)
• as far as I know there is NO place in all of Denmark where you can order a good'ole belt busting, "truck stop" or "Denny's" or "Tamale House" breakfast of
  • eggs fried or scrambled (with onions, ham or sausage)
  • hash browns with a few bits of onions thrown in
  • grits, with a little pool of butter in the middle
  • flaky buttermilk biscuits
  • cream gravy, with or without bits of sausage
  • "Jimmy Dean" sausage, cut thick and fried so that it is still a little juicy
  • country cured ham
  • "red eye" gravy (know what that is?)
  • blueberry-pecan pancakes with whipped butter and maple syrup on top
  • ham, cheese and jalapeno omelets (or any other omelet, for that matter)
  • waffles with fresh strawberries or blue berries and whipped cream
  • breakfast taco (on a soft, steamed, warm whole wheat tortilla) with any of the following: scrambled eggs, potatoes, jalapeno peppers, beans, cheese, or chorizo sausage
• (you MIGHT be able to tell that a REAL breakfast is one of the things I miss over here)

• switch from the high powered pain killer injections to a by-mouth mix
• greatly increase the amount of fluids by mouth
• eat all she wants of whatever she wants

• walk her at least twice as much as yesterday (an engine not being used does not need refueling)
• get her outside and into the sunshine three times (been there once already)
• encourage her to eat like normal and just let it come back if it has to (anything in the stomach at least gives it something to digest, and it dilutes the seemingly endless flow of bile)

• Mette ate two bowls of soup, some bread, a few cookies, two or three dozen fresh cherries and drank lots of water, over a half liter of diet coke, the juice of four oranges and maybe some other stuff
• she kept it ALL down
• she is beginning to want to try more things (a few days ago the mere thought of food brought a frown to her face)

On blood tests:
• If you have an urge to humble or overwhelm yourself, you can go to the links page and
• click to other sites on the Web
• where you can study up on all the parameters
• I printed out about 40 pages and have struggled through four, so far
• (this is NOTHING like learning to interpret a lift vs. drag curve..)
• (maybe if I could remember just a LITTLE of Chemistry 101..)

Mette's recovery from surgery has been rocky with both progress and setbacks--but, overall she looks amazingly healthy

23-29 July, Week in Review:

• Monday: We visit Århus Kommunehospital, the blood test looks pretty good
• Tuesday: Five surgical nurses from Mølholm Clinic visit Mette and bring a luscious lunch (for 12!)
• Wednesday: Friends from Copenhagen area visit
• Thursday: Mette has her 44th Birthday and the surgical site drain stops producing liquid output
• Friday: We drive to Silkeborg (about an hour) to hear Ray Charles. (Andrew Strong (of The Commitments) opens.) So, Mette's day includes a 15 minute walk from/to the car and about 5 hours of outdoor concert sitting on the ground. (Three weeks and two days after major surgery.)
• Saturday: Despite not receiving the requested help from a person in the Danish medical community (you know who you are, right?), I received info from a Swedish doctor/researcher on the subject of Mette's prescription level for urso. My e-mail, her reply and my conclusions are available by clicking here .

31 July - 5 Aug, Week in Review:

• Monday: Mette mows the yard. With a PUSH mower. (We don't have a powered lawn mower).
• Tuesday: The drain hole is almost closed. She complains of it itching (this is good news since healing wounds itch)
• Wednesday: We trip to Copenhagen for the Tina Turner concert--we spend Wednesday evening and most of Thursday with friends near Copenhagen
• Thursday: We arrive at the stadium around 1800. Tina began around 2130 and rocks until 2330. Good show, but we were not up front like we had intended. We paid extra for the tickets that would allow one to claw their way up front--and we wound up sitting all the way back at the back (because Mette just didn't have the strength to stand from 1830 until midnight. However, we were both VERY happy to be there, and be sitting, and breathing, and enjoying a living legend of our time.)
• Friday: We drove back.
• Saturday: We had dinner with friends in Juelsminde.
• Sunday: Mette mowed the lawn again (with the push mower). We have dinner tonight with the "card club".

• Monday: Mette went to a physical therapy clinic in Juelsminde. She still has quite a bit of pain in the muscles of her back and ribs. From, we suppose laying unconscious on a operating table for six-plus hours with "spreaders" and stuff putting unnatural physical strains on muscles and connective tissue. And, she did walk around like a little old woman for the first four weeks after the operation. She moved around in a kind of shoulders-rolled-forward, as if to protect the soft underbelly, posture. I'm sure that did nothing to help her back NOT hurt. Then, mid-day she visited the surgical staff at Horsens Hospital. She got some special bandage material to use to dress the drain hole, which though completely closed has not yet healed thoroughly. They were happy to see her and looking forward to her return in September.
• Tuesday: The highlight of this day was that the "woodshed" project made a great leap forward. The husband of one of the girls at Mølholm Clinic is a carpenter. He came by on the way home from work and offered invaluable assistance in getting the frame square and plumb. He'll be back to help frame the roof structure and then Mette and I will do the rest. When finished we will have around 24 cubic meters of covered area to store our firewood. We heat exclusively with wood (in a modern/efficient stove in the living room). We have burned around seven to eight cubic meters of wood, on average, for the last five years--so, our woodshed will hold enough to keep us warm for approximately three years.
• Wednesday: Hmmmm, an unremarkable day of just living. (Walking the dog, working in the garden, washing and ironing clothes--all that kind of wonderful stuff that we all do to enjoy our time here.)
• Thursday: Mette visited the physical therapy clinic early in the morning. Around 1600 some Thule friends (Sven and Inge Lisa Larsen) from near Viborg visited and stayed for dinner. Wonderful folks.
• Friday: Mette went to Mølholm Clinic for lunch with the staff. She drove away around 1030 and got back at 1500. Okay, so the staff had a thirty minute lunch break at 1130 and Mette had to drive 40 minutes and stop at the bakery shop on the way. But how does one explain the after twelve noon delay? Simple: Of course she wanted to "visit" with the girls "at work". Since they work in surgery Mette dressed in "surgical greens" ('cause that is the "dress code") and, well, she actually did a little (light) work. Including removing the stitches from a patient. Completely lost track of time and had a WONDERFUL day--I thank the Mølholm Clinic surgical staff for their support and understanding throughout this entire nightmare.
• Saturday: Mette mowed the lawn with the push mower, chopped some weeds out of the flower bed with a hoe, and painted a table she stripped a little each day for the last week.
• Sunday: Thule friends ("SAS" Frede and Anne) will arrive today or tomorrow for an as of yet unknown duration visit. (He called and asked if they could come, and said he wasn't sure when Anne had to be back to work. I said sure, they are welcome as long as they wish.)
• Note: If you wonder why I write all this, so do we. I guess it is intended to show you that Mette REALLY is doing great. But, I think next week there will be a LOT less writing--its time to try to return to "normal".

13 - 20 Aug, Week in Review: Another "normal" week of recovering from major surgery. We enjoyed the visit by "SAS" Frede and Anne (and their new toy--a sporty convertable). Saturday brought the highlight of the week: A wonderful day at the world's oldest amusement park--over 400 years old--near Copehnagen. We left the house at 1030 Saturday morning and returned about 0400 Sunday morning. In between we had a charter bus ride to the Bakken (the name of the park), time to wander around, enjoy a delicious meal, see a really marvelous cabaret presentation, catch a midnight snack and then return via the chartered bus. All was gladly provided to the entire staff of Mølholm Clinic by its owners (who enjoyed the trip with us). I just can't say enough good things about the wonderful folks who own and work at that private hospital--I salute you all.

21 - 28 Aug, Week in Review: We took a vacation. Tuesday (22 Aug) we drove to a "summer house" about a half-mile from the northwest coast of Denmark. On the way we stopped at the Århus Kommunehospital to pick up some medicine (UDCA) and drop off some paperwork from Horsens Hospital. Then we drove to Sven A. Larsen's house and had a wonderful lunch and early dinner with he and his wife Inge Lisa. (Great Folks from Thule). We got to the summer house just before total darkness and had a WONDERFUL week of walking Molly along the beach, finding cosy places to eat and shopping in the many arts/crafts and antiques shops in the region. The days were completely filled with something interesting and enjoyable to do or see. Thursday we drove to Mette's dad's house for tea and an early dinner. Friday we drove up to Skagen, a beautiful little village on the most northern tip of Denmark. There we visited Lotte ("Operator 7"--at Thule) and Willie for afternoon tea and spent the rest of our hours there enjoying a beautiful Danish summer day by browsing the street/shops. Saturday we stopped by to look at a thousand year old church about three miles from the beach house and drove on to lunch at a 1920's Hamptoms style hotel named "Svinkløv Badehotel" on the coast. Lunch was so good, the place so charming and the owner/staff so pleasant that we returned to there for lunch on Sunday. (If you ever have chance, GO THERE.) Monday we returned home but stopped to visit friends (Birgitte, Henrik and Sarah--but Henrik was in Sweden working on their summer house) in a cosy little town named Bider about 20 minutes south of Århus.

Sunday, 10 September (Posted 1000)

3 - 10 September, Week in Review: Mette went to work at Horsens Hospital every day this week. She is not quite working a full schedule yet, but close. And, when she got home she worked (every day) around the house giving me much needed assistance/supervision in building the 32 cubic meter wood shed next to the house. Said shed should hold 3+ years of firewood. After three layers of paint (Mette says will be applied during my trip to Paris) it will be ready to for moving and restacking of on-hand wood.