Not one but TWO surgeries in 5 days!!!
Finally after having severe stomach pains for two weeks Mike couldn’t sleep and could not take the pain anymore so we talked with our friend and PA Jodi Heyer who recommend that we go to our local Floyd County ER to be checked. Mike’s electrolytes were all low and his WBC’s were high so he got fluids and was examined by Dr. Ebensberger who ordered an abdominal CT scan. The scan revealed an acute appendicitis! Dr. Vangilder and her team came back in and did an emergency appendectomy on Friday evening (12/2/22). Everybody that helped us did an amazing job and we felt like Mike was in great hands. We highly recommend our local hospital!
Saturday Mike spent resting while watching Jackson and the Knights basketball game online. Saturday evening was the dealership Christmas party and Mike really wanted to make an appearance, so… he showered and put on “real clothes” and we went and surprised the employees. We only stayed at the party for about an hour and the headed home for more rest. I think it was good for him and the Mike Molstead Motors Family! 🤍
Tuesday (12/6/22) we headed up to Mayo for a full day of appointments which took a lot of walking, especially for someone who just had an operation! Mike was exhausted so we just ate a light meal (cereal) in our hotel room and he went to bed at 7 pm.
Wednesday morning we had to be at St. Mary’s at 7am to get ready for his Gamma Knife Surgery. Dr. Parney and his team were doing 5 of these procedures on Wednesday and Mikes was last because they thought his would take longer because they were going to try to “zap” as many spots/METS in his brain as they could (5-6 of them). I got to be with him for about 3 hours before they took him to the surgical area to screw on the metal frame helmet they use to target the tumors. When they did the MRI they could only find 2 spots, one 9mm and the other 4mm, so either the previous MRI showed blood vessels or the METS dissolved but either way we thank God that they only had to radiate two areas!🙌🏼🙏🏼🤍
Mike’s head was bandaged up and we were on the road home by about 2:30pm. with instructions to remove the bandage after about 2 hours and either leave the small wounds open to air or possibly apply a bandaid….. Well shortly after getting home Mike got up so we could remove the bandage but before I even got into our bedroom to help he started pouring blood out of his right screw/pin hole!!! Jared and Kelly, who were still visiting from Chicago, applied pressure to the wound while I called Mayo in a panic! They told us to apply pressure for 15 minutes and if that didn’t stop it to apply neosporin ointment which should stop the bleeding. After soaking through quite a few thick gauze pads the wound did dry up. I’m not gonna lie, I lost my cool for a while because they did not tell us that heavy bleeding was a possibility, so I thought we were going to be making another trip to our local ER and even though we had a great experience there, we did not want to go there again that soon!
Mike is on the mend now with some swelling on his forehead and around his eyes. He is trying to rest but it is not really his nature to lay around this much so I keep having to remind him that he has to let his body heal after all this trauma! Thank you all for your texts, calls, prayers and well wishes, we both really appreciate it! If you could continue to pray for a quick recovery so Mike can get back to work and to encouraging people we would appreciate that too.
Last thing, today I took our almost 12 year old golden doodle Bella in to the vet, because she would not put any weight on her back leg since yesterday. It turns out she has a torn CCL (ACL in people). She is the sweetest most loyal dog and could use some prayers of healing as well.🤍