October 3, 2011

October 3, 2011 – When I arrived at the hospital yesterday morning I was shocked. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anyone drop so fast health wise in a 12 hour period as Karen did through the night. It didn’t help any that the night nurse refused to help her turn, refused to help her drink water. When I arrived at 7:30, she couldn’t even speak out loud; only whisper. She was begging for water, and I immediately began swabbing her lips...she wasn’t strong enough to suck on a straw. After about 5 minutes of that, she was able to talk, and she told me what the night nurse had done. Fortunately for the nurse, she was gone, because she and I would have had a come to Jesus meeting L  

There’s probably nothing worse than a health professional sugar coating something or withholding information.

In my last post I mentioned that we had an oncologist come in and say there is no cancer on the pancreas, only to find out yesterday early afternoon that she withheld information. Nothing perturbs me more…tell me the truth, I can deal with it.

We had another oncologist come in and tell us he is not going to sugarcoat anything, but give it to us straight. Did we like what he had to say? Hell no! But he let us know exactly what the pathologist found in the CT-scan. She does have cancer on most of her organs, including the pancreas, and in her lymph nodes surrounding the stomach.

The prognosis is this – after the biopsy we will be able to tell more what cancer we are dealing with, and he gave us several scenarios. If it is lymphoma, it is treatable, but in his mind, only by chemo [we didn’t discuss that further!!]. If it is anything other than lymphoma…well, we’ll just have to wait and see. Her bilirubin levels [What is Bilirubin] aren’t exactly where we want them. Her’s is at a 3.8 and if they reach 4, we can’t do any kind of treatment, no matter what the biopsy says.

This morning was a full and busy morning…bone scan, brain scan and a biopsy. It pretty well took all morning, and Karen was pretty well worn out by the time she was done – but she was very brave and so sweet.

She is still on in ICU and on oxygen and on a heart monitor. Her heart rate is still very high, and she has labored breathing due to fluid in her lung. They took a chest ex-ray on Saturday and then another one yesterday, and it remained the same.

On the positive side, she seems to be more alert at times, and since her sodium level is back to normal, she has some of her strength back. She is able to drink water again by herself from a straw, and pull herself when she wants to turn in the bed.

I spent the night with her last night, and will probably do so tonight again, unless one of the girls stays, which they did volunteer for.

Right now we are simply sitting and awaiting the biopsy reports….and keeping her as comfortable as possible. It's great to have all 3 of our children with us here right now, and a blessing!

We are very grateful for all the prayers and well wishes, as well as the monetary support. May YHWH G-d bless y’all, and may your blessing multiply many times over!