Cancer is NOT for Sissies

Hi all, Kim again with the latest update. Myrth will add her thoughts again soon as well, but Karri remains at the hospital so she won't be able to get online for awhile yet. Today was a very exhausting one. Karri's pain from the slipped disc has continued unabated so they got a great deal more aggressive on pain management today. The result was more sedation along with a slight decrease in spasms and pain. Meantime, a physical therapist visited and evaluated her and decided that she was in no condition to try to sit or stand yet - she was either in too much pain or too loopy from pain meds to have the necessary balance. He was very patient and good with Karri who was as compliant as anyone could be who is lying flat on their back and susceptible to frequent knife sharp lower back spasms without warning. The hospital doctor explained that her lengthy period of enforced rest due to recovery from surgery and ongoing chemo has left her back muscles very vulnerable, hence the disc issues. But at the same time, the latest blood work reveals a serious drop in red blood cells - quite common with chemo. [This is a reversal from yesterday - turned out that they had gotten an erroneous lab report that her count was up, so they triple tested to verify.] So they decided to up her red blood cell count with a transfusion. At the same time, they put her on continuous drip of her pain med - result was not so good. She went into a drug induced stupor with labored and infrequent breathing - Myrth and Claude were with her when this happened and said it was pretty dramatic. So they quickly cut off her pain med drip and carted her off to Critical Care down the hall to keep a careful watch on her while they finished the transfusion. She will remain in CCU at least overnight while they watch her vital signs to become stable again and make sure nothing else is going on. Then they must continue to work to get her in less pain so her inflammation and nerve impingement from the disc can be ameliorated. They are calling in the pain management specialist to consult on how that might best be accomplished. She is likely looking at several more days hospitalization, a possible postponement of her next chemo treatment, and ongoing physical therapy as she recovers from the back issues. Thank heavens we can at least report that her tumor markers are all down - the CT scan revealed no new tumor tissue at all, and her blood work aside from the low hemoglobin (red blood count) is excellent. And her appetite is also picking up - nausea is NOT an issue at the moment - hooray! Just wish she wasn't so looped on her pains meds to appreciate these bits of good news! We are trying to be patient but it is a bit challenging just now. Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.