Dad left for Tri-Cities, Washington on Monday
afternoon. He stayed with his sister,
Karen in Richland in preparation for his flight to Phoenix the following
morning. He flew into Seattle and hung
out with my brother, Sam until his connecting flight took off for Phoenix. When I met him at the airport he was
exhausted and ready to done traveling.
I got him settled into the hotel about an hour later and he
ate ferociously, which was excellent!
His appetite has been sporadic at best for the past few weeks. I was pleasantly surprised how easily he was
able to get comfortable in a hotel bed.
But, he was napping shortly after he ate.
Early Wednesday morning, around 4:00, he fell while trying
to get out of bed. The rest of the
morning he was groaning in pain and struggled to sleep peacefully. Despite giving him pain meds, he was very
uncomfortable. When it came time to get
him ready for his appointment, moving him was nearly impossible. It took us nearly 30 minutes to get him
upright and into his clothes for the day.
I became increasingly worried about his arm being broken and anxious to
get him into see his new oncologist.
His appointment was at 1:45 on Wednesday afternoon. By 2:00 we were preparing to relocate to the
Mayo Clinic Hospital via ambulance transport with the emergency room first on
the list of stops.
The oncologist said his cancer has turned into an aggressive
form of cancer instead of the opposite he’s been fighting for the past
year. The tumors on his clavicle and
ribs have grown substantially over the past month. With the fear of a broken bone being
addressed, the fragility of his body was enough to postpone any immediate plans
for a bone marrow transplant.
Fast forward to what we know right now. They pulled a liter of fluid from his right
lung. A LITER. He has gone through another bone marrow
biopsy. He received a central line
(PICC) today. His pain has been mostly
managed, which has been a major battle for the doctors and nurses. He has had an EKG, MRI, CT, and x-rays.
The fall he made broke his humorous (the long upper bone in
your arm) and may have caused his clavicle to splinter as well. We’re not sure exactly when the clavicle
broke. His clavicle has significant
tumor growth and may have broken from the tumors.
Tomorrow he’ll get a heart echo. He has tachycardia and the doctors are doing
what they can to keep him calm and comfortable.
His blood pressure has been all over the place and they aren’t exactly
sure why yet. Tomorrow we’ll be getting
a lot of results from cultures, blood draws, the fluid pulled from his lungs,
and the rest of the tests they’ve conducted over the past 24 hours.
There is concern the fluid in his lungs is multiple
myeloma. I’m not freaking out just
yet. I’ll freak out when they tell me
it’s time to. His fever has been managed
and he has been more comfortable this evening.
We have left him under the care of the staff tonight so we can get some
much needed rest. I’m hopeful he’s
getting good rest and will feel more together tomorrow morning.
He has been very confused over the past few weeks. The ammonia levels in his blood have spiked
to 90 (normal is less than 30). They are
continuing to administer drugs to help bring those levels down. His kidneys have shown some signs of distress
as well. But, we’re waiting on
conclusive results from lab reports.
There are a lot of things hanging in the balance right
now. Things can go several different directions. We are hoping the next couple of days will
bring some health and strength back to him so he’ll be able to go through his
new chemotherapy. Right now we are waiting to see how he responds.
If you have any questions about anything above, please don’t
hesitate to shoot me an email. Text
messages and phone calls are difficult to answer right away. But, I’m happy to email back when I’m in a
lull. Today was very busy, but I expect
things will be a tad slower tomorrow.
But, tomorrow will be filled with doctor updates and consults. Oh! Please keep spreading this around and help us meet some major goals!
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