My dad, David J. Chiu, age 68, has as many of you know, been undergoing chemotherapy for colon cancer. He has stage 4 cancer, and has been undergoing treatment for 2 years now. He was diagnosed in the spring of 2002.

On March 27, 2004 Saturday, he woke up with severe abdominal pains. We called the oncologist, and he said to try some antacid and if the pain got worse to go to an emergency room. My dad lived with the pain for the day. It didn't get worse, but it also did not get better. On the morning of March 28th, Sunday, he woke us up around 7 and said we should go to the emergency room

I went with my mom and dad to Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City. We arrived close to 8 am, to a pretty empty emergency room. Within an hour they had diagnosed my dad's pain as most likely a perforated bowel or stomach, and recommended immediate surgery.

They called in the surgeon, who sure enough looked like he walked in off a golf course. The surgeon was the same one who did my father's original surgery to remove the cancer from the colon. Somewhere around 1pm, the surgeon came out to tell my mom and I that the surgery was a success, and in fact my dad had a perforated duodenum. This was perhaps the best possible outcome for him, but still required over a week stay in the hospital to recover.

The short of the story is that after a week and a day in the hospital my dad, got to go home on Monday April 5th.

He's been home a little more than a week now, and is still relatively weak, but doing well. He's able to have guests, although he's kept himself house bound at this point.

He is on the computer and reading e-mail, so feel free to contact him if you want to send him get well wishes.