Diane Festian

If you are here, you are a family member or friend of my wife Diane, or perhaps you are a friend and caregiver of our children Amber and Adam.

Thank you for reading and thank you for caring.

Time will pass, but as I type this it was only two and a half weeks ago that Diane came home early from her night shift, feeling ill with a swollen abdomen, and went to bed.  I had encouraged her to see a doctor earlier in the week, but if you know Diane, you know she is headstrong. She insisted whatever was wrong would pass. That Thursday morning, before the sun rose, my encouragement became an insistence and Diane went to the doctor a few hours later while the day was still new.  The doctor drew blood for testing, x-rayed her abdomen for injury, and as Diane recounted, he poked and prodded as only doctors know how… generally until it hurts.  The moment of levity aside, he called her later the same day and directed her to the nearest Emergency Room.  Her abdomen was swollen and the blood tests indicated her liver wasn’t working as well as it should.

Arriving at Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital, she was admitted to their Critical Decision Unit where they tried unsuccessfully for two days to identify what was injuring her liver. During that time, the doctors, nurses, and staff were kind and responsive while they helped keep her comfortable and performed a procedure to reduce the swelling in her abdomen.

With no conclusive test results and the list of possible blood tests for viral and bacterial causes dwindling, the doctors decided on a liver biopsy to look at the cells themselves. As fate would have it, this decision was made late on a Friday and despite the hospital’s efforts to line up the appropriate staff on Saturday; the biopsy would wait until the following week. Diane was sent home to rest and return Monday.

Most friends and family know but some might not, Diane survived an aggressive breast cancer a little over 8 years ago, sacrificing both breasts, the lymph nodes in her left arm, her hair, and several months for chemo and radiation. Afterwards, she chose to undergo reconstruction surgery and had several surgeries and procedures over the following years.

It pains me to share with you that the previous treatments did not provide as many cancer free years as we had hoped…

To read the next journal entries in the order they were written, please click on "Journal", then click on the words "Sort by Newest" which will change the display to "Sort by Oldest" (I know, not very intuitive). This will list them in chronological order.