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My Son Andrew and his battle with Cancer
I thought I would give you an update on my son Andrew and his battle with cancer. After his months of chemo and minor operation in Adelaide he went to Sydney for specialist surgery not available in Adelaide. He first had an operation to remove tumors in his lymph nodes in the abdomen before Christmas which went very well. He had a break over Christmas back in Adelaide and went back to Sydney early January for surgery on both lungs. After the first operation on the 5th Jan all seamed to be going well. He had his second lung surgery a week later and after he started to have some serious complications and he became worse after each day, he was in a small private hospital and the staff were at a loss to what was causing the problems. On the 21st Jan he went into respiratory distress and required assistance with his breathing, we were told about this on the 22nd and decided we should head up to Sydney to be with him and his partner, we would have gone earlier but we were taking care of his daughters and were not sure if they should be up there. While we were organizing to go there his condition worsened rapidly and it was decided he would need to be put on life support under an induced coma, he was first ventilated but this was not working and he came close to cardiac arrest so he had to be transferred to RPA and placed on an ECMO machine (blood oxygenation machine). We got to Sydney on the 23rd and met with the doctors and told there was slim chance of his survival but as he was only 32 and has a young family that they would try everything to save him. After 3 weeks on the ECMO the doctors had decided that his condition had not shown enough improvement to possibly survive and made the decision to remove the ECMO machine on Monday and it was expected he would pass away shortly after. We have been staying by his bedside for the past two days. He kept fighting after it was removed but with high CO2 levels and they then advised they would remove the ventilation this morning. Just before this was due to happen the senior Dr's had another meeting with us and advised they had seen a very slight improvement in his condition and would keep trying to save him. They did a tracheotomy to improve his chances in the afternoon. His chances of survival are still extremely slim and if he does survive he will be very compromised health wise for life but we will do anything to have him still in our lives and to be there for partner and two little girls who are 5 and 6, the younger Liliana only turned 5 last week. He had previously advised his desire to survive no matter his condition as long as he could have a positive roll in his kids lives and as long as his mind is sound he will certainly do that. I have had phone calls and messages form people on the forum but l have been physically and emotionally exhausted and have found it difficult to make phone calls or answer messages to keep everyone updated. Today's reprieve has helped give me a bit more hope and energy and I thought an update was due.
This is Andrew with his beautiful family.
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