This year has definitely been a journey! As many of you know, this August, Brad was hospitalized and in the ICU with COVID for over a week (August 10-18th).
Then on September 17th, he ended up back in the ER after he suddenly passed out. He had been experiencing an overall itchy feeling for nearly a week, then spiked a high fever and suffered from severe abdomen pain. They did an ERCP which uncovered a cancerous mass in his bile duct. While hospitalized, he contracted a blood infection.
The doctors had then planned to remove the mass with Whipple surgery. This is a major surgery which removes 1/3 of the pancreas, the gallbladder, a portion of bile duct and a portion of the small intestines. Post surgery usually consists of 5-7 days in the hospital with 4-6+ weeks of recovery. Doctors are very confident they can remove the mass and he will hopefully not need chemo, however there is approximately a 60% chance that he may. We will know more after the surgery.
We were on track for surgery, then on October 3rd, he was hospitalized again after another visit to the ER due to a 104.5 fever and high pulse. On this occasion he was diagnosed with sepsis. Clearly something was going on in his GI system. In the meantime, they treated him during this hospital stay with strong antibiotics. He left the hospital on October 6th. Poor guy! It’s been rough! Lots of little setbacks along the way.
We decided to stay with the original plan and Brad is having Whipple surgery on Wednesday, the 14th of October.
It is hard to put into words how grateful we are for the heartwarming love and support that we have received. I will keep you updated via this site. We need lots of prayers!
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