I want to wish everyone a wonderful and blessed Lord's day. I'm looking forward to calling in for our church services. We have received much scripture encouragement from many of you, and we appreciate the daily reminders to keep our focus on things eternal.
On Friday, we saw a GI doctor who grew up near me, and I so appreciated his insight on Derek's stomach tube. By 3p that day, we had it tightened up correctly and began to use it. It has caused no trouble since. I believe what was happening is that when Derek had an empty stomach last Friday morning (when it first began to tighten/pop and cause trouble), the stomach was trying to process food which wasn't there. Instead, it tried to "process" the balloon which was there. So, as the balloon got sucked into the intestines, it would tighten. Then, because the disk on top of the skin did not allow it to go through, it would "pop" and release it. So, the answer to this was to put food into the stomach to give it something to process. Well, instead, he went two days without food as the infection process started. Then, the slow drip worked well, because it gave food, but we had loosened the disk on the top of the skin thinking it was too tight. Wrong answer. By loosening it, when the stomach wasn't full, it had even more give to pull that balloon towards the intestines again. So, in the end, by tightening the disk correctly and keeping food in Derek's stomach, the tube is working properly, and it did need time to heal up where it had been traumatized by pulling the prior tube out. Anyhow, that is probably too much detail for some of you, but my nurse friends/sisters appreciate knowing the "reasons" sometimes.
On Thursday this week, Derek had an unusual strong right-sided headache start. It has increased in pain, so he had to get a fentanyl patch (50 mg/hr) plus additional fentanyl and now dilaudid. I believe this is from being off of the pazoponib for a week, and the tumors had begun to think they should grow. It could also be a buildup of fluid around the tumor site. They give lots of IV fluids to him while here. Thankfully, Derek's counts were all up, the hematologist okayed him to start pazoponib Friday night. We declined a brain scan knowing that even if they found growing tumors, we didn't want to do any surgery or switch up the chemo right now. Getting the dexamethasome (to reduce swelling around tumor) at the right dose for Derek is tough. Too much = hiccups, too little = bad headache. Right now, he is on 1.5 mg/day which only caused about 5 hiccups last night.
We've been told he may go home today, and our hopes are high in that direction. We came in with infection and stomach tube trouble. Those have been resolved, and I think we can deal with the headache at home. Please pray the headache lessens either because of dexamethasome, pazoponib, or simply because God wills it to go away. Sometimes, we never know the causation, and I have to let my little mind rest not knowing.
The weather has been gorgeous this weekend, and I'm looking forward to seeing if Derek will sit outside a little to enjoy it. May your day be filled with Holy Spirit abundance.
Leann
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