Unfortunately, no news is not good news this week. Marye was quite busy with doctor's appointments all week. She started with the pulmonologist and a chest x-ray. There was some fluid in her lung, known as pleural effusion, but it wasn't enough to be worried about. The doctor wants to see her in two months. I'm afraid that's the extent of the good news.
Since she's been home from the hospital, Marye has been suffering from a good amount of pain from her abdomen. We've been attributing that to her sick gall bladder, but it seemed to be getting worse. She was scheduled to see Dr. Riley on Thursday, and the doctor wanted to get a CT scan to see what was going on in Marye's abdomen. So, we did that. The CT scan showed some abcesses in her abdomen that are probably infection. They also took blood to check on the tumor markers to see what the cancer is doing since Marye hasn't had chemotherapy in five weeks (still waiting on the lab results).
Since Marye is scheduled to see Dr. Vitale on Tuesday about the gall bladder drain tube, Dr. Riley prescribed two fairly generic antibiotics to hold off any infection until next week. She also gave her an anti-estrogen medication to try to keep the tumor at bay while Marye is off chemo. Since Marye's cancer is estrogen-receptor positive (ER+), it feeds off estrogen. Prescribing an aromatase inhibitor slows the body's production of estrogen to keep the tumor from growing too much. We're also concerned with the amount of pain Marye is dealing with, so Dr. Riley gave her MS Contin (long-lasting morphine). Unfortunately, the problem is that Marye is suffering from pretty bad nausea and vomitting for the past two days. We've yet to figure out what's causing it, but we're suspecting the MS Contin, so she moved back to Dilaudid. As of Saturday night, she hasn't left the bedroom since Thursday night, but she is awake and has periods where she feels ok. I'm giving her a lot of Gatorade and trying to get her to eat as much as she can. I'll update again on Sunday or Monday.
-Chris
