Wednesday, May 19, 2010

So...Mom continues to have problems with nausea and vomiting and getting food to stay down. She is weak from dehydration and lack of nutrition.

Her second chemo treatment on Thursday caused increasingly worse nausea. By Friday, the increase in nausea, dehydration, and weakness have severely altered Mom's activity level. Bobbi arrived Friday night to lend a hand addressing her nausea and nutrition. Friday, Saturday and Sunday were spent sleeping, in pain, and in various stages of mild to terrible nausea with vomiting. All the medications were not giving her relief from the persistent nausea. Sunday evening we went to Brandy and Wade's for dinner, as usual. Mom was unable to find a way to be comfortable. She also had some yellowing of her eyes (Jaundice) that was new on Sunday. All of this was making us anxious. All the tools we had were not helping. We decided we needed to contact her doctor.

The on-call doctor advised that we take her to the ER for evaluation. We got to Sacred Heart Hospital at about 6:30 pm. They started with getting her on some IV fluids, nausea and pain medication. They took blood, urine, chest x-ray, liver ultrasound, and head CT. Heather flew in from Vancouver at about 9:00 pm.

Blood and urine tests showed her liver and kidneys are stressed. Elevated liver enzymes told us why her eyes are yellow and her urine is dark, like iced tea color. The chest x-ray was good, no problems with her lungs or heart. The liver ultrasound showed she has gal stones, but we knew that from a CT scan a few weeks ago. The CT of her head was normal. There is a brain (he he!!) with no tumors, no cancer!

She is still in the hospital at Sacred Heart in Spokane. The plan is to continue to hydrate her, giver her medications to TRY to control her nausea, and get some food in her when we can. So fat, this has been difficult! The IV fluids are helping her feel better, but the nausea meds help most of the time. She is still vomiting everyday and only able to eat a little jell-o and broth and juice. Her demeanor and activity level are very changed. She sleeps, walks to the bathroom, sits up to the table for meals and dozes a lot.

We try our best to keep her smiling and entertained. Ron, Heather and Bobbi stay with her all day. We take turns leaving early at night and coming in early in the next day and staying late and coming in to the hostpital a little later. Brandy got a promotion last week (yeah!! yahoo! Congrats!) so she comes before and after work. Wade comes after work as well. Her bishop visited Monday evening and gave her a blessing of comfort. She has had some visitors. A few ladies from her work brought her some flowers and raspberries. Also, a few ladies from Dad's work stopped by Tuesday with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. She does get calls from friends and family. That is fine. Please only call in the afternoon or early evening. Getting enough sleep at night is still quite difficult. (that is code for if you call in the morning and wake her up our dad will be really mad!)

Today, Wednesday, we met with Dr. Joni Nichols, mom's oncologist. We talked about another nausea treatment. Its a patch that is put behind her ear and left in place for 3 days. We will back off on food, continuing with clear liquids as she seems to tolerate that better. She has terrible edema or water retention from her feet to above her waist. The IV fluids are leaking out of her vessels (where we need it to prevent dehydration) causing all this edema. Doctor said we can try to get rid of some of this fluid "third spacing" or water retention gently, so we don't dehydrate her further. Hydration is most important, food is not so important. Food feeds the cancer too. We are correcting the high calcium level with some IV meds. Hopefully this will help the nausea as well. She needs to get long-term IV access that will allow blood draws with no extra pokes and allow fluids and meds whenever she needs it, even at home.

This week will be her 'off week' for chemo and we will discuss whether or not to start the next set of treatments next week. She still feels weak and chemo will make it worse. Hopefully next week she will have more energy, be hydrated and not so nauseated!!