Day 38

These last 7 days have been filled with dr's appointments. Starting last Monday, Jeff had an appointment every work day. Monday Jeff could hardly stand the itching from the rash all over his body. It is called graph vs. host disease. The nurse practitioner came in and asked if we wanted to continue to torture him---she couldn't make the decision to start him on steroids, so a dr. came in, examined him, and made the decision to start on what they termed..low dose prednisone. It is 40mg per day which isn't really that small of a dose in my opinion, but he said that most times they start the patients on 80-100mg daily. Jeff had also been running a temp for days. That morning at the dr. his temp was 100.9 so they drew blood cultures. The steroids started to help him that day. Tuesday started with a call from the dr'.s office that one of the blood cultures had come back positive meaning that he had a blood infection. We had to get into the car and go downtown for him to be dosed with IV antibiotics--vancomycin. It is a big gun. I administer it at my hospital all of the time. Wednesday the nurse practitioner wanted some labs to be done on Thursday which didn't make us too happy. They have to do with his immunosuppressant drug and the antibiotic. No other changes were made on Wednesday. Kind Monica took over care of Jeff Thursday so I could work my one day a month to keep current and employed. He had a PET scan done that day at noon; the purpose of a PET scan is to see how much cancer is in the body. The scan lights up like a Christmas tree wherever there is cancer. Friday was D-day to find out the results of the PET. We had an appointment with a physician that day rather than a nurse practitioner. Prior to his coming in, the dietician came in to talk with us and get us familiar with a one touch glucose scanner. Because Jeff is taking steroids, he has steroid induced diabetes. His pancreas has shut down for the time being until he is finished with the steroids. The dr is planning to keep him on the prednisone for about 8 weeks. So, for the next 8 weeks or so, Jeff gets to take his blood sugars 4 times a day. They get progressively higher as the day goes along, so he needs insulin shots just prior to lunch, dinner, and at bedtime. He isn't thrilled at all about it, but is getting used to it and being a trooper. When Dr. Bearman came in, he told us that the PET scan looked great. He read it to us, reiterated that it was good, and we--especially Jeff, still didn't believe it. I even had to tell him to smile, that this was great news! Right now we are status quo, with his getting iv fluids, iv antibiotics, insulin, and having his wife shove both food and drink at him constantly. Tomorrow is another day and another week. We supposedly only have to go in 3 times this week. Hurray! We are so excited about the results of the PET scan. We are getting into a pretty good routine. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. We know they work!!