Plans Change

Have you ever heard the saying "If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans"?  Well, God must be ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing) these days.
Our usual plans for Fall involve getting ready and leaving for the trapline, usually in the first part of October.  Things were going as we had planned...we had spent a couple of weeks visiting with our grown kids, grandkids and my folks on Vancouver Island, and returned home to the Little Shack the day before Trapper had an appointment for a colonoscopy in Kelowna. After that we would be spending a week getting the house and property ready to be left for the winter and packing to head to the trapline.  This is the part where God laughed.
Trapper's colonoscopy started out pretty routine. They found 3 polyps, removed them, and sent him on his way. I picked him up after they told him to 'walk off' the pain he was experiencing. It wasn't long before he knew there was something wrong.

We spent the evening and wee hours of the night in Emergency waiting to be seen by a doctor. It was 5 hours until we did. I had already done some 'googling' to see if I could find out anything and had discovered that it sounded like his colon had been perforated during the colonoscopy. After a scan which apparently showed nothing, but Trapper still being in intense abdominal pain, they admitted him to the hospital.
For 2 days, he lay in the ward receiving morphine every hour to ease the pain. No one seemed to be particularly worried, I was never there when a doctor came in to see him. An x-ray and a scan later, the surgeon though it might be his appendix and decided to go in with a scope and take a look. This is again, after over 48 hours of being in extreme pain, fever, and nausea after a colonoscopy. What the surgeon found, in his words, was "shocking". Trapper's abdomen was completely infected with the contents of his bowels. The colon had a large perforation which resulted in his bowels emptying in his abdomen. He had to have a large section of the colon removed and was then set up with an ileostomy while it heals. The doctor also found that part of one of Trapper's lungs had collapsed. Trapper spent 2 days unconscious and sedated while on a ventilator, reinflating his lung. After a week in ICU he was then transferred to the ward where he spent another week. During the 2nd week his incision became infected and he was on and off an IV with various meds.  Finally, after more than 2 weeks in hospital, he was released. He has had to deal with learning to live with an ileostomy until his colon heals enough for it be re-attached to his bowel. We have become very educated about the workings of the intestines and other body parts.  I am still amazed that I was able to find out what the problem was by 'googling' while the surgeon took 2 days. We feel that they dropped the ball with Trapper.
Needless to say, our trip to the trapline had to be cancelled. Trapper should be going back in for the surgery to be put back together around Christmas time.  Wether we make it up north after that remains to be seen.

The Little Shack

So, here we are, biding our time, feeling sort of like we are in limbo. I keep thinking about what we'd be doing on the trapline if we were there.  The snow, the ice, the northern lights. It's almost like being homesick, but not for 'home', for our time up there. It makes me appreciate it even more.
In the meantime, I will be using my time to get some long overdue chores done here at the Little Shack and also  blog about some of our past adventures on the trapline.  I hope you'll stop by again and visit awhile!