10 days and counting!

Written by Neil

Well it really is 10 days since I arrived for my operation and in some ways the time has flown by and in many way time has really dragged away. But I feel in can say that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully I with all things being well the plan is to be home by mid week.

As for health progress there a bit to fill you all in with.

I’m no longer a’Man of Steel’ as all the staples holding my face together have been removed, which has also made my face less pulled together so more comfortable. I still have some tape strips just to protected the scar.

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For my swallowing, I’m still being fed and watered via the tube through my nose, which does mean I never really feel hungry, but I do still feel thirsty partly because the ward is always so warm and I can just give myself a syringe full of water. So part from syringes of water the rest of my daily food comes in the from of a 1500ml carton with a liquid the colour of cup of tea, but with a more soup like consistency. I did walk by on the ward a couple of days ago where they was serving everyone’s lunch and even hospital food smelt great and did start to realise what I’m missing out on at the moment.
Re learning to swallow is taking a bit of time and on Wednesday I had Video fluoroscopy which is an X-ray of me swallowing and they found out that the automatic safety aspects of my swallowing was far better than they was expecting them to be. I have since been doing lots of exercises to improve these abilities and after learning to swallow a tea spoon of water and am now able to sip water, the goal in the next 24 hours must be to sip ‘Pepsi Max’

Over the last 3 days I’ve had a bit of a runny nose which hasn’t helped especially when trying to sleep, but hopefully this is behind me and last night I had 2 blocks of 3-4 hours sleep, which is more that I’d had over the last 10 days.

It’s been great to see some friendly faces over the last week, although some should have been kicked out from the hospital for not showing full respect for a sick man! Mum has been down form Ipswich 4 times in the last 10 days and Sue has been everyday but one.

There are still some challenges ahead like eating! And I also found out Friday that I will need to have some radiotherapy which wouldn’t happen for another 6 weeks or so. My left eye still isn’t right which makes reading or evening watch TV an effort as I can’t fully focus and general I have a way just to getting fit. I’m so thankfully that I am though the worst bits and it now just putting all the pieces slowly back togetherness.

Thanks again for all your prayers and support and we have definitely know God’s protection on my life through all this.

Just to finish on a high. Movember has been a great success for me and our team bandofbros_spc. The team has raised between us £1250 and I’m straggled that I have raised £415 myself. So a great big thanks to everyone of you who has support me and my team through this effort.

If nothing else Movember is about us men looking out for out health and getting help if we need to.

Thanks Neil

Introducing the Man of Steel

Written by Neil

No, not Superman, just a man with metal staples in his head…

For those of you that are interested (especially Dr Liz Cameron) here is a photo of my 57 metal staples (which are obviously from my battle with Lex Luther)
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I’ve heard via Sue that some of you kept waiting of these regular updates to know what’s going, so we know Jeremy household has been a bit slack with the blog, but I’m now back on the case and will try to update you all more regularly.

The last week has been a bit of a journey and as you can imagine we have been a bit pre-occupied with trying to get my body back in working order. I am on the slow road to recovery and am aware what my body has been through in the 15 hours operation and every day is about achieve one small step. I was aware of some of the complication that I would be facing after the operation, but I didn’t quite understand or appreciate what they said when I would have to re-learn how to swallow, which when you can’t eat or drink any thing direct down your throat you realise just how much you take these things for granted, I am now just thankful that I am though the operation so far and generally just how healthy I have been in life so far.

Sue has done an amazing job in the last week with juggling the whole stress of seeing me,feeding the kids and working and still managing to update you guys as much as possible. I also want to thank you for your amazing support of me, Sue and the kids, and for all your prayers and for all our friends at St. Paul’s who have been sorting out meals for Sue and the kids each, day, which have been one least thing for sue to have to think about. Thanks

And remember, no, it’s not a bird and no, it’s not a plane, it’s SuperNEIL!!!

There’s still 3 days left in Movember, and it’s not too late to sponsor me or my team me on this link www.mobro.co/neiljeremy1. So far our team has raised £898, thank you for all of your support so far!!

At time of writing this they are talking about getting me home early next week. So if you do pop by for a visit in the next week you might also be asked by Neil to help write a blog post (just like Pete Doorey has done today)

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Making Progress

Written by Neil

It’s Mon evening and we have just got home from seeing Neil. He is so much better tonight, maybe it has something to do with the fact that he has been moved out if ICU and onto a ward. He has been given his own room, which is really nice and should allow him to finally get some sleep as it’s dark and quiet. He has also been detached from all the monitoring equipment and tubes, so can move around now. His speech is improving each day and he was able to concentrate better today and keep his eyes open more.

He is however, having some problems with the sight in his left eye; we are hoping that this is just temporary, so please continue to pray that this will be fully restored in the coming days. He has had all the bandages off too. Now you can see the stitches (the wound has been stapled – ouch!) you get a measure of how big the operation was. Having said that, he is not suffering too much pain and he feels the staff have been very good at helping him to manage it.

He has finally been reunited with his bag (and phone) – what a relief, as I haven’t seen it since Thurs morning and I was praying like mad that it would turn up safe and sound. I wasn’t looking forward to explaining that one! Anyway he is now reconnected with the world so you can text and email him now. Although he is not up to having lots of visitors yet, as he finds talking tiring, we are trying to keep it to mainly family this week and the odd friend, please feel free to send him messages, he would really like that. No doubt he will be blogging himself shortly, as from tomorrow evening he will have the iPad. I may be made redundant soon!

So I am feeling much better about things today, even if still very tired myself.
Sue

Next Update

Written by Neil

I’m aware everyone is hanging on to their emails, searching them for the next snippet of news, but I know you’ll all forgive me for not updating every day too. I’ll probably blog every couple of days as life has suddenly become quite tiring.

Neil is still being cared for in Intensive care for the time being, he is making good progress, even though it is very small steps. I was amazed to find him talking yesterday, albeit a very soft whisper, I was not expecting him to talk at all for at least a couple of days. He is still very sleepy, which I think in part is due to all the anaesthetic and the fact that it is impossible to sleep in ICU as it’s always light and noisy, also the nurse has to check on him constantly, so it’s almost impossible to sleep for any length of time. He had a bit of a temperature today which was making him feel a bit grim, but he doesn’t appear to be in much pain, which has surprised the nursing staff and currently is only on paracetamol. This could well change as he becomes more aware of things over the next few days.

The surgeon’s are sure he hasn’t suffered any major stroke, but we won’t know if there is any minor stroke damage until he is more mobile and conscious in the next few days. Something to keep praying about please.

Finally, just a word of thanks for your continued support and especially to all our wonderful friends at church who are coming round with a meal for the family everyday – you have made life so much easier to manage while we get used to going up and down to Guy’s each day.
Sue xl

The Big One!

Written by Neil

Well it’s 11.30pm and it’s been a very long day. I’ve just spoken to the surgeon and he has just come out of theatre. He went in at 8.30am. The main thing is that he has come through it and is still with us. They are going to keep him sedated till tomorrow morning in ICU. It would seem that the tumour was larger than they had expected and had invaded more than just the Vegus nerve, which is why the operation was so long. Having said that the operation was successful as they have removed most of the tumour.

The good news is that they have been able to save the facial nerve and the nerve that serves the ear, so there will be no hearing loss. Also he did not need the tracheotomy. The main issues he will have to cope with are swallowing and talking, but that should all improve in time and with speech therapy. They also had to take out the carotid artery, but because he passed the occlusion test last month we are hoping that he has not been affected by any stroke, but we won’t know for sure until he wakes up tomorrow.

Many answers to my list of prayer requests, so that just leaves me to thank God for listening and all of you wonderful people for praying all day. God is good and I am exhausted!
Sue x