So Dov is home at last!! He was discharged this morning and is currently passed out on our couch. The pain still gets rough at times but he is doing pretty well for the most part and we are all glad to have him home again.

It has been an interesting day though. As if this hasn't all been challenging enough, this morning at 4:30 am Matan started throwing up. Apparently there is a stomach bug going around the day care and he picked today to get it. Since Dov had staples width-wise across his abdomen just a day ago (they took them out before he left and soon he will have yet another huge scar) it seems like a bad idea to expose him to the flu. Fortunately my wonderful parents were willing to wake up at 5:00 this morning to drive down to Salt Lake and take care of my pukey child so that I could take care of my invalid husband. THANKS MOM AND DAD!!

Fortunately Matan seems to be feeling better so now we just wait to see if either Siena or myself comes down with it next. Fun Fun.

One more change...they aren't 100% sure that they have Dov's pain under control so they are going to keep him here for one more night. It sounds like he will be coming home tomorrow morning.

Quick update! It looks like they are going to send Dov home today. I think the nursing staff is getting tired of being harassed...

Good news! Dov is almost completely unplugged. They are going to remove the last of the tubing today and then they are planning on springing him tomorrow. He is drugged off his noggin but is able to walk and eat and sit in chairs and everything, almost like a normal person. I've told him if he can do all that then we should plan on him heading back to work on Monday. I don't think he'll quite make that but he is doing well.

We are still waiting on his creatinine levels for today, hopefully they will be on the way down, which will be a good indication that his kidneys are on the mend. But overall things are going well and we are looking forward to having him home.

Hello everyone, sorry that I wasn't able to post over the weekend. Things were a little crazy.

Dov is doing really well all things considered and it looks like he will avoid dialysis after all!

They keep saying, "we are going to do dialysis tomorrow" but then tomorrow comes and they say, "well, let's give it one more day and see how things look." Not that we are complaining or anything. Dov really wasn't looking forward to having a giant needle stuck in his neck. It looks like his kidneys might be starting back up on their own. His potassium levels are going down and his creatinine is holding steady. They think that will start going down too soon which is good. They are going to keep checking his levels but for the moment at least his liver surgeon thinks that he is going to pull out of this on his own.

He is still tired and sore but things seem to be looking up. They will probably start turning his epidural off tomorrow and then once he is eating and walking and everything like normal they will send him home. We are still hoping for sometime this week but we will wait and see. I'll let you know what we hear.

So - it has been a challenging day for us. It turns out that Dov's blood loss during the surgery and the associated drop in blood pressure has damaged his kidneys. The doctors aren't expecting that the damage is either severe or permanent but they are concerned enough that they are beginning him on dialysis tomorrow. The plan now is to do a two hour treatment tomorrow then reassess the situation. If his kidney function doesn't improve then they will do another 2 1/2 hour treatment Sunday and then a three hour treatment on Monday. It doesn't sound as though they expect him to need more than those three treatments but we really don't know anything for sure at this point.

The good news is that, while sore and tired, he still feels pretty well physically. He has already gone on one walk today and plans on doing another one later this evening. (By the way - special thanks to everyone at ARUP, we have been getting our test results just as quickly as possible and I can't tell you how much that means to someone on this side of the test tube.)

I will update again when I know more.

Hello everyone,

I am in the waiting room at the Huntsman Cancer Hospital and I just got the chance to talk to Dov's liver surgeon. The surgery is over and it sounds as though things went well.

Because of the tumor placement they decided that it would be safest to remove the entire right half of the liver. He should have enough for adequate liver function and it will regrow to normal size in the next 6-8 weeks. They also removed his gall bladder, both because he had some stones and because it was in the way of some of the area that they needed to get to.

He did lose more blood than they would have liked, approximately a liter, and because he is anemic from the chemo they are still concerned that he might need a blood transfusion. They will keep an eye on him for the next couple of days to determine if that is going to be necessary. The good news is that we have an in with the blood folks (thanks to everyone at ARUP - you guys have been wonderful).

The other good news is that they poked around Dov's innards and didn't see any evidence of disease. They will know more when we get the pathology results sometime around Tuesday and they will make more decisions on further treatment at that point.

So everything is going as well as we could ask. Dov will be here at Huntsman for the next 5-7 days and then he should be free to go home.

We are so grateful to everyone for all the love and support. Thank you all!