My Son Andrew and his battle with Cancer

For what it's worth Tony...

My parents went through exactly what you are going through with myself.

Without waffling on too much, I had cancer in the bowel and spent my first 2 years in hospital mate and had many of nights the doctors told my parents, pray tonight as we believe he won't make it through the night, say goodbye, etc.

From the stories I've read about him being a strong fella and seeing his old man in person as a stubborn head strong individual, he'll get through it old mate ;)

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Originally Posted by TPC

We had another long and anxious day today. He had been having fluid buildup alongside his lung that was causing some problems so they decided to fit a drain today. This turned out to be a major procedure that took 3hrs with a few problems like rising CO2 and elevated heart rate but he came through it. They had give him drugs to paralyze him for the procedure. He is now back in his room and hooked up to his bank of monitors and ventilator, when we left the hospital his figures looked better and stable. I have spent so much time in the hospital I am begining to understand a lot of what they are looking at and what is and is not acceptable so each time I go in I always check it all out first. The doctors keep saying there is still little chance but they do not know how determined my son is to survive.

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OH mate.
I really do wish all the best for your son.
Please let him know that all of us (strangers) are thinking of him.

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Originally Posted by mudnut

Now I'm crying, too. These are the people we should count as celebrities and super stars.

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Our nurses are the best in the world. They are underpaid and overworked.
Many of them are leaving as the profession become more and more difficult to carry on as a long term career.
So, we are bringing in overseas qualified nurses, but they are not nearly as good.
I witnessed it firsthand when I was in hospital few times, recently.
We don't realize how emotionally draining it for the nurses to work with patients who struggle to live.

They have been reducing my son Andrews drugs over the last couple of days and he is now conscious part of the time. They have also been trying to very slowly reduce his ventilation. There has been a few problems with elevated heart rate and blood pressure so they sometimes have to dial the meds and ventilation back up again. He has been a bit frustrated that he cannot talk due to the tracheotomy , we have tried to find out what he is trying to say but it is not easy. His wife, Ana said he was giving her dagger eyes for being so crappy at charades. Every so often he gets agitated and needs a bit more sedative, it would be very confusing for him as he has been out of it for about 1 month and will have short term memory loss. They have said it will take a while for the drugs to get out of his system. He could have a long battle ahead just to get out of ICU and there is a lot that can go wrong. The head of ICU is still saying hope for the best but expect the worse but I told him that he does not know how determined Andrew is to survive. The best thing is I saw him smile today when we were joking around and said we needed to get Stephen hawking around with his communication machine, I never thought I would see him smile again.

mate hang in there....last april we as a family sat in ICU for over 7 months..my FIL is still in hospital...not for the same thing......it is a struggle...it is hard as hell.....we didn't hear him speak for 7 months.....and it is amazing how they can still smile,and let us know they still love us....send him our love from the williams tribe,

It is wonderful that he has come back to you, Tony. He will get there, bit by bit mate.

Onwards and Upwards Tony !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope this is the turning point to coming home after a long journey
away all the best Tony for you and your family and thank you mate

Wow! Just Wow! Warrior!

Tony that is awesome news.
By geeze he's a fighter..
That smile must have been a world changer..
Fingers crossed the worst is behind yas mate..