I'm unsure how long they will be keeping Chris in the hospital. I should be able to talk to the radiation oncologist tomorrow to find out the schedule for radiation (it will be every day for three weeks) and whether they anticipate moving him out of ICU and into another room over in the cancer center or not.
In a nutshell, Chris had a panic attack on Thursday that resulted in him being unable to catch his breath. When someone takes pain medication one of the 'side effects' can be an impact on the breathing, so add that in and it made for even more anxiety. His saturation levels had been in the 90's when he left the hospital at the beginning of March, but since he's been on the pain medication for a while, this reduction may have been gradual. Now, the clots in the lungs can also add a strain to the heart which could then also reduce the breathing a bit so what we had was sort of a "perfect storm" brewing and luckily we got to the hospital before the clots that we did not know about moved around and cause something we won't talk about to happen. The doctor said yesterday the overall condition of his lungs is good and that is one reason why the clots stopped there. These clots can originate in the legs, but if the lungs are in good shape, as his is, they are usually stopped before they head too far north.
I will be setting up a spreadsheet as soon as I'm done that I will give to Chris when I go down to the hospital. That way they can let him know about things that they plan on doing on certain days. He still continues to have panic attacks, but now they are giving him xanax the wonder drug so he should be able to stay calm when they come in and out. They bring all the equipment to his room, but nobody seems to tell him they are going to show up so it's overwhelming. The spreadsheets will also help us plan so that when he's out of the hospital we can keep him on the same schedule.
The doctor put him on Decadron the other day which is a steroidal anti inflammatory that will help prevent any swelling that might occur as a result of the radiation. From what I read, it seems sometimes they prescribe it after they know how people react, but they want to make sure that once they start the treatment they can get rid of the METS. As an FYI, there were no METS on his brain on 12/31 so that should give you some idea how aggressive the cancer is. A significant number of people with lung cancer do get the metastases there, so he's not experiencing anything that they have not seen over and over again. And even though there's going to be a delay in starting chemo, it's only two weeks as he was not going to start it until 3/30. I will verify the method they will use but it appears from Chris's explanation about how it works that it's the newest technology and all the leading hospitals have it.
I think that's about it right now. Kellie came to visit yesterday and I know that made Chris happy. His new "throne" will be arriving on Tuesday so when he comes home he'll have something to sit/recline and sleep on if he needs to.
I will be home later this afternoon and will start getting things ready for the furniture's arrival on Tuesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment