update from thr church....

As some of you know already, Mike's surgery lasted over 9 hours. The doctor told me if situation was bad enough that he cannot operate on him (when he went in), the surgery would only last a little over hour. Even though the doctor told me that surgery could last about 4~5 hours, the actual surgery lasted 9 hours.
I want you to know that this surgery was not to treat or remove the cancer. Mike has been having trouble with his digestive function for few month and doctors did not know for sure what was causing the problem. They just assumed it is caused by intestinal adhesions (fusion--which is caused by repeated surgery and/or spread of cancer) and possilbe paralysis or even could be by some kind of blockage. They knew Mike had bad case of fusion from prior surgery. The last surgery they had before Mike had his Chemo, the doctor who did the surgery told me that he confirmed left side of Mike's abdomen was fused to his intestines. It was bad enough he could not seperate it or see anything under it.

Mike had bad reaction to the chemo after he was discharged and had to be moved back to the hospital. Because of many suspected reasons he was not able to eat and hold them down (he has not been able to eat for months now). Mike was not able to leave the hospital because of this problem (that he could not hold any food at all. He is being sustained only by I.V.). The doctor was hesistant to do another surgery because the surgeries were what partly caused his problem. Mike did not want to go on like this so he made the call to go ahead with another surgery. This surgery was to fix his fistula (the hole on his belly) and clear whatever was causing blockage of his intestinal track so he can be functional enough to leave the hospital.

The doctor told me he did his best to clear the track but does not know if that was enough. Mike has a cololstomy now and it will be a week to 10 days before he can try some kind of food to see if the surgery was successful. (His surgery was September 5th Monday) What we praying for now is to God to intervene and heal him or at least he gets well enough he can get out of the hospital.