4th of July, 2009, from Kaye

I apologize to Will's friends for not updating his blog. Every day, I kept thinking he would have the energy to do this himself. To summarize:


After the abdomianl pain continuing long after the surgery had healed, in April the doctors recommended he do a PET scan, EGD & xray to determine why he still had pain. The good news: no sign of cancer and the esophectomy had healed nicely. The only thing they could see was a calcified gall bladder. They recommended that he have his gall bladder removed, which was done in mid-May. The need for pain pills was preventing him from the eating and walking that he needed to do to regain his strength & energy. After recovering from the gall bladder surgery, the pain is considerably less and he is eating about 1200 calories per day and walking 20-25 minutes per day.

It is a very slow process, since his stomach can only hold about 1 cup of food at a time. But they assure us it will stretch in time; just cannot tell us how much time. The return of his energy and strength is so slow that sometimes he has a hard time seeing his progress! But he takes my word for it. I can see a big difference since the gall bladder surgery.

So, we plug along every day, trying for a hundred more calories and another block to add to our walks. He's tough, he will get there, we just need patience and to keep our eye on the ball.

I cannot tell you how much your emails and cards mean to him. They sure perk him up and give him something to be grateful for.