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