Stent Placement

We were thrilled that the Stent placement went well. Yesterday was a long day as George was the last case to be done, but once we were given the word that the stent was placed it was worth the wait for endoscopic Doctor. George was back in his room by 9:00 PM, and felt encouraged for the first time in days. Dr. T was not the one doing the procedure, but he came to observe and give me the good news. We are so fortunate to have him on our case. Thanks to Suzanne and Kim for waiting with me, it helps to have a distraction.
George is doing good today, just tired. We are so thankful to be here at UCLA, however when you are at a teaching hospital the Doctors arrive very early for rounds. Today the first Doctor knocked at the door at 4:45 AM, and then Dr. Tomlinson's surgical team arrived at 6:00 AM. George only received about 3 hours sleep, so he's napping now as I write this. I stayed last night here with him, and found it so odd to be the patients family member, and not the nurse. It gives me new insight into how my patients families feel when the Doctors arrive so early and just flip on the lights. We are Glad to have such good care, but I know George will get more sleep when he's back home.
The plan will be to advance from the clear liquid diet he is on now to soft solids later today. If he is able to handle his meals well he will be discharged Thursday morning.

Thank you for all the prayers, and encouraging emails. We feel so grateful for the support.

~Donna

Quick Update

Sorry it took me so long to get more details posted. Thursday we ended up in the ER at UCLA, not a great way to spend your Birthday (George turned 51 Thursday). He was having increased abdominal discomfort, and we needed him to be assessed. The ER attending had a CT done so they could see what was causing the distention. George had been scheduled to have an outpatient CT done on Friday to check the progress of the Chemo treatment and re-staging. The CT showed that the primary tumor in the Pancreas was pushing on the part of the small bowel that is directly below the stomach. The stomach was unable to empty, and allow food passage. The blockage in not complete so some liquids were slowly passing, but not much. The obstruction needs to be resolved, so the surgical team was consulted. George spent the next several hours having his
stomach drained (I'll spare you the details) but not a fun night. The surgical team contacted Dr. T our surgical oncologist, and George was admitted in the middle of the night. I will not go into details, but between 12 and 4 AM I was on the phone with the ER attending as our primary medical group was giving UCLA a difficult time with approving the admission. They wanted us transferred out of UCLA. Clearly our Medical group has system issues with documentation, and can't see that we were granted treatment with the UCLA oncology department. Friday I spent another full day of phone calls, dealing with the medical group as they had a hard time understanding the obstruction was related to the cancer, I was in no mood to be messed with after only getting 2 hours of sleep. The end result is that after they spoke with
Dr. T it was clear that they are unable to provide the car, and procedure needed so they approved for George to stay at UCLA.


The plan is as follows; George will be limited to small amounts of liquids to taken by mouth for the next few days, he will need have a procedure in which a Stent is placed in the upper small intestine to open the obstruction. Dr. T is not sure the stent will work, but this will
be the least invasive way to open the obstruction. UCLA has a GI doctor that specializes is this type of procedure, it is done with the scope. If the procedue in not successful Dr. T will need to do a surgical procedure to bypass the obstruction. The stent placement will be done on Tuesday, and George will stay in the hospital until then to allow his bowel to rest, and receive IV hydration.
Yesterday was not an easy day as Dr. T also shared that the CT showed the cancer cells have spread to several areas in the Liver. We will meet with our primary oncologist on Monday to
talked more about this, and what our treatment plan will be.
Please pray for that the stent placement is successful on Tuesday, and recovery goes well. George will most likely be in the hospital until next Thursday. You may send him a message at his email gmvanca@aol.com if you wish. He may not be up to responding to all his messages and text, but he reads them all :)

~Donna

Hiccups Resolved

Well I'm glad to report that Georges Hiccups have resolved. Thank you to our friend Lisa G (who is not only a friend, but a former oncology nurse as well). She was kind enough to pass on some information related to Hiccups and Cancer patients. We feel is was the Zofran George takes for nausa that was the cause. The day they started he had been given a great deal of Zofran due to the nausea he was experiencing during Chemo. The hiccups have now stopped but the nausea continues. He has a few different things he takes, but it has really wiped him out.
Thanks also to Georges Uncle Roy who always calls at the right time with words of encouragement.
Please pray that he is able to eat, and get enough calories in each day as he's having difficulty doing that right now.

~Donna

Quiet Week

This past week was the first of two off weeks from Chemo for George. I wish I could say he feels great, and is enjoying the off week but, that is just not the case. He has been very tired and just feels drained. He does have one odd, and annoying symptom that we continue to search the cause of. He has hiccups that last for hours at a time. They frequently start at night, and keep him from sleeping. Just when we think they are gone, they start up again. Very odd and kinda disruptive as far as sleep goes.
The plan will be to have a CT next week and then hopefully we will have results by September 26, and know if we continue the treatment plan or make a change.
We appreciate all the prayers and help these past several months. Please continue to pray that the treatment is effective and the scan results are good.

Frustrating Morning

Today George is on Day 8 of cycle #3. Sleeping at night has been difficult for George, and last night was no exceptions. He actually fell asleep pretty well, only to be awaken at 1:30 AM with the ringing of the doorbell. After rushing to the front door, and realizing no one was in sight, we concluded it was just teens being rude. The hard part was that then we couldn't go back to sleep. As morning came George was so tired from the lack of sleep, and frustrated knowing he had a long day of Chemo ahead. We discovered as Matthew was leaving for school that our car and house had been egged in the middle of the night. I felt overwhelmed at the task of cleaning up this mess, getting the car cleaned off, and having a deadline to get down to UCLA. After a few phone calls, and the help of our neighbors Chris and Kelly we got it all cleaned up. Sadly we were not the only house on the block that had been hit.
We headed down to UCLA for the Chemo. His counts were pretty good, and even know George felt so lousy the Chemo was started. It was decided would get some extra fluids via IV to help flush out the Chemo, and keep him hydrated.
We are now done with 3 complete cycles of the Chemo. You may have noticed that I wrote out the exact way the Doctor counts the cycle. Each cycle is really 21 days during which he gets Chemo on day #1 and #8. So Chemo is day 1 then again day 8 then 7 days off starting the next cycle after day 21 is complete.
This time we will end up with an extra week off. The plan for now is that George have a repeat CT scan to see the progress, and start Cycle # 4 around September 26.
We will let you know when that is scheduled.