Catching Up the Blog

It's been a while since I've written on the blog.  During the last few months, my anxiety has been higher than I've ever experienced before, not only with dealing with cancer and seeing someone I love so much going through such a hard time, but also because my world at work has been turned upside down, starting with the abrupt departure of my boss a few months ago.  Between my work and personal life stresses, I didn't feel like writing much.  Lately though, I've been so encouraged by all of the good thoughts and well wishes sent our way and I know everyone wants to know what's been happening with Chris.

Perhaps it is a good thing that a couple of months have gone by though I'm still a bit angry at the turn of events in January.  We were referred by our oncologist at Swedish, Dr. Gold, to see if Chris would qualify for a trial at VM.  As the last few blog posts described, the first thing the oncologist at VM did was get Chris into surgery.  Chris is still happy they did that as they drained 2 and 1/2 liters of bile from his very distended gall bladder.  It comforted him to have the risk of a ruptured gall bladder lowered.  It would have likely been fatal for him if that had happened.  After several appointments and a PET scan, the oncologist informed us that Chris didn't qualify for the trial after all.  Turns out the trial was for pancreatic cancer and the doctor concluded after the PET scan that Chris had gall bladder cancer.  The frustrating thing about it was that Dr. Gold had already given Chris a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer a year ago and we've been told that no one can tell the difference between gall bladder and pancreatic cancer even under a microscope, much less from a PET scan.  The good news was that the PET scan showed the cancer had not spread beyond the areas we already knew it was in.  Once the VM oncologist determined no trial for us, he told us to go back to Dr. Gold at Swedish to continue chemotherapy.

I don't remember if I wrote this before, but Dr. Gold had already told us that Chris had undergone all of the chemotherapies that were commonly used to treat both gall bladder and pancreatic cancers.  He said there may be a trial at Swedish in a few months and that there was one additional chemo treatment he was willing to give Chris to help perhaps slow down the cancer growth enough that his condition would not deteriorate any further in case he could qualify for the potential future trial.  The catch was that only three cycles of the Mitomycin chemotherapy could be given because there were dangerous side effects, usually at a cumulated total amount higher than the three doses would amount to, and that the side effects could be fatal for someone in Chris's condition.   

Mitomycin is given via a very large syringe pushed through a tube into his IV.  It only takes about 5 minutes, a dramatically different chemo experience from our previous 5 hour sessions.  He has had two cycles so far, 28 days apart.  In addition, he takes Capecitabine chemotherapy in pill form, three in the morning and three at night for 14 days in a row and then two weeks off so the cycle is also 28 days to match up with the Mitomycin cycle. It was seeming to help him for the past two months. 

Ever since the surgery in January, Chris has had more stomach pain.   This makes it difficult for him to ingest food and liquids as that intensifies the pain. It has been somewhat manageable by taking Alka Seltzer and Tums after eating.  It seems to me that ever since he had the new stent put in between his gall bladder and duodenum of the small intestine in January, he has had this stomach pain (previously the pain was more around the gall bladder on his right side).  In addition, a couple of weeks ago, Chris tripped and bruised his midsection. Since then, he has had additional pain and has had a really hard time eating.  We've been in contact over the past two weeks with our care team at Swedish and after last week's appointment with Dr. Gold, the doctor and I both contacted the GI surgeon at Swedish that operated on Chris last October, Dr. Brandabur.  He called us last night at 9pm and said that from the lab tests Dr. Gold had done last week, he thinks Chris has cholangitis, an infection of the bile duct. 

That brings us to current day.  Dr. Bradabur had me bring Chris down to Swedish first thing this morning so he could go in endoscopically to see what is going on.  He will likely clean out or swap out the two stents.  Chris is in pre-op now, waiting to go into surgery. I am very glad this surgeon is going to get a close look at not only what is going on in his bile duct but also with the new stent from January and I hope they figure out something that will ease the stomach pain so Chris will find it easier to eat. The man can not afford to lose any more weight!

There have been so many people praying for us and for Chris to be healed and I am so grateful to everyone.  We don't need much right now but prayers and positive thoughts.  I'll likely post again today and/or tomorrow to let you know how everything turns out after the surgery.

Wendy