Minor Setback with Chemo Start

Update as of 12/3/2016
   

     I hope this finds all who read it well on this cold, rainy night. I wanted to give an update on mom for all who are interested in her continued fight!
  
     On Monday, 12/1/2016, Mom was scheduled to go in to Montgomery Cancer Center (MCC) for a teaching session on the chemo drugs that will be in her regimen. However the night before she had a bad headache and wasn’t feeling well and decided to lay down early.  On waking, she found that she had a temperature of 100.4.  She took 2 Tylenol and went back to sleep, waking later in the night with a temperature of 101.6. 

     In the morning she contacted MCC and informed them of her fever and her generally not feeling well. She had a headache still, some lower right sided back pain, pain along her surgical incision and nausea.  They decided to bring her in Thursday morning for a full fever workup, seeing as how she was scheduled to start chemo on Friday morning (12/2/2016) and could not do so if she was acutely ill.

     I went to MCC with her Thursday morning where she received a full set of lab draws and blood cultures as well as a urinalysis.  She also had a chest x-ray.  We went after all this to talk with one of the nurse practitioners, Melissa English (of whom I could not speak more highly about). 

     After all of her tests and talking with the Nurse Practitioner we were here:  Mom had a fever with all the before mentioned symptoms to go along with it, WBC count was 9.2 which is normal, but her potassium was low at 2.9 and her bilirubin had gone up to 2.2 from 1.1.  This seemed to indicate to Melissa that mom had some sort of obstruction possibly in her common bile duct.  She thought that it could possibly be cholangitis, which is an infection of the bile duct.  She said that this was not normal after the Whipple procedure but also not uncommon.  She recommended a CT of mom's abdomen and pelvis and also to start IV antibiotics at the cancer center for a course of 5 days.  She stated that as soon as the CT was back that she would let the surgeons in Birmingham know what was going on in case they wanted to see mom again or if there was something there that would require additional intervention.

     So we started her antibiotics and potassium replacement on Thursday.  Mom's CT came back Thursday afternoon and showed that there was not cholangitis to be noted.  To everyone’s best guess, mom had the beginning of an abscess near her bile duct.  However, Melissa was happy to report that mom had had no changes in her CT from the last one a couple weeks ago. Everything still clean. This was good news! 

     (As an aside, while we were at the cancer center mom had the 3rd radiologist that had read her PET scan to sit down and go over it with her, and he concluded, like the 2 others, that mom's PET scan was clean with no metastasis and only a small area of inflammation along her incision line. Praise the Lord!)

     So, since Thursday mom has been going to the cancer center everyday for IV antibiotics through her port. She is recovering Vancomycin and Invanz as well as IV potassium chloride.  She will be finished with the antibiotics on Monday the 5th.  She is feeling much better than she did on Thursday!

     Because of the infection, mom was unable to start her chemo on Friday and will now, instead, start her chemo on Friday 12/16/2016. 

     Prayers that her infection will clear up, and for her appetite to increase and for her to find some foods that she likes and tolerates are appreciated. Also, prayer for increased mental and physical strength to handle this chemo when she does receive it. 

Thank God for all of you who have cared and loved us all deeply.

- Luke