John Crampton

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.  John's medical journey began a few years ago with a bout of bladder cancer, an easily treatable form of the dreaded big C.  The treatment involved some surgery, and follow-up treatments where his bladder was washed with BCG, which included spent tuberculosis cells. The treatment was successful, and John is currently cancer free.  However, after his last maintenance treatment his health began to fail.  He lost appetite, weight, energy, and nobody could figure it out.  In February, he was diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurism, and quickly received a stent(graft), and the crisis was averted.  The surgeons also recommended a stent from his left kidney to his bladder because the flow from the kidneys was being interrupted by the fluid in his abdomen which had presumably leaked from the aneurism .  With all those stents in place, the fluid should have dissipated, and the flow from the kidney improved, but that didn't happen.  The kidney stent was replaced three time because of discomfort, and finally removed.  The fluid was not going down, and kidney function was beginning to suffer.  So the docs put in a nephrology bag...a tube from his left kidney, out his back, and into a bag.  Needless to say, not an ideal situation.  Still,  John's health continued to fail.  In September they analyzed the fluid causing the problems and discovered an infection.  He is being treated with high doses of antibiotics for the infection.   On January 17th, John will have surgery at St. Mary's in Rochester (Mayo) to remove the aortic stent, which is infected.  The surgeons will rebuild his aorta and several major arteries to important organs,,,liver, kidneys, spleen.  They will do this with donor tissue.  It is a complicated and long (ten hour) surgery.   John will be in intensive care for 3-4 days after the surgery, and then an additional week to ten days in the hospital.   The surgeon doing the work  is Dr. Thomas Bower, and he wrote the book on this procedure, so we are in good hands.  Please feel free to check this site to check on John's progress. Thanks for all your concern and care.