tommy
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Margaret, my wife Judy gets somewhat grouchy after chemotherapy. She is doing the same drugs as your husband. Usually after a couple three days she is back to her same old pretty self. She is pretty tired and wore out for another week. I think my breaks from caretaking come to me at work. I still work full time. I’m in agriculture also. Our work week depends on the weather and the season. Sometimes 80 hour work weeks. It does seem like a never ending ride. Doctor visits, lab, chemotherapy, grocery shopping, house cleaning, transfusions, the list of tasks go on and on. Judy has been wrestling with this cancer for 19 months now. She was always a busy person, working, gardening, taking care of grandkids. That is what seems to bother her the most, not having the energy to be with her babies. We have 8 of them. We are in our early 50s and certainly was not expecting something like cancer to cut our life together short. I know the feeling of wanting to pack up and leave, but you know and I know we could never do that. Our 3 daughters live fairly close to us and visit often. They do call first. We would keep the kids quite often before, now only when grandma insists. I could go on forever about the hassles of this disease but I don’t have it. Whenever I get to feeling really mad at Judy I just remember the reason I married her. I love her. Take care of yourself, relax, have a drink or whatever and keep on getting up in the morning. Make other people take care of themselves. We have someone who has taken care of us and now it’s our turn. Happy Thanksgiving. I realize now, more than ever what all I have to be thankful for. Our 3 girls make sure I,m not in this alone, couldn’t do it without them. Hang in there, We can do this.
Marion, thanks for being here. Judy did radiation last summer,09, and has done 19 rounds of chemotherapy. I am not sure what type of radiation treatment she had. The treatment I heard about on the radio sounded like something new and now available at the treatment center. I called and asked about it. Didn’t get any answers but did get an appointment with the Radiation Dr. she had last summer. I feel like I am wishing on stars and grasping at slivers of hope. This seems to be the best news we have heard in the last eighteen months. Scared of getting our hopes up. It just sounds so much better than what we have heard. We will know more about it next Wednesday. Thanks again for being here. This has been the most unexpected and emotional turn of events in our life. Thank You so much. Tommy
Hey everybody, Tommy here, Judy is my wife, not my mother. One of our girls was using this site as well as me. I haven’t been on here for some time. I am pretty sure our oldest daughter, Jacque, is the responsible party for the updates. Judy did fine with the spleen removal. We have a tough time keeping her pain under control. I heard of a radiation therapy on the radio today that targets hard to reach and inoperable tumors. I think it is called trilogy. If anyone has heard of this kind of treatment please let us know. Thank you for all the support you have given our family. It is nice to talk to people without really having to talk to people. Thank You.
I often wonder if Judy doesn’t have a tumor in her pancreas because of all the symptoms that she has. When I research on-line everything points to that. Does anyone know if the symptoms for CC and pancreatic cancer the same? Or if CC spreads to the pancreas do you still have the same symptoms?
We have learned that sometimes the family is the best advocate for the patient, if the patient can’t be. So, if you don’t feel right about something keeping pushing and demanding answers.
Last night was a little ruff for Judy. She’s been running a fever of 100.7, but no one seems to be concerned about it. We’ve even mentioned to the nurses that they’ve been giving her tylenol since Saturday so whey would you have a fever at all if nothing was wrong. We were told that it’s normal for patients to run fevers after a major surgery????? Her oxygen wouldn’t stay above 90 so they had to up it from 2 1/2 to 3 1/2. Which the respitory therapist seemed more concerned about than the nurse. He said that they were suppose to start weening her off the oxygen today…. guess not now. Her lungs also rattle which the nurse said was just because she needed to cough…. well throughout the night the rattle noise got worse and you could tell that finally the nurse was starting to get more concerned because she came in the room more often to listen to her. Judy is very sleepy and yes still seems to be in pain. She’s still on the morphine epidural in her back and the PCA pump that has dillaudid (sp) in it. Yesterday she hit her button for the pump 16 times, not sounding to me like they are gonna be takin’ her off that anytime soon.
Has anyone else experineced any of this after any surgeries?
At about midnight last night they finally were able to get her pain under control and she was able to sleep and so were her daughters- they will NOT leave her side. This morning her spirits seem to be better as well and says she really wants to get up and walk, which she hasn’t done yet.
We are a little worried however because again they are talking about trying to take the PCA pump away from her…. or “ween” her off of it. They did that when they moved her from ICU to her room and then she had to play catch up and it was horrible! So, it might be another long day today.
The Dr. has already been in and said that he really feels happy with the way things are going. He also said that we should get the pathology back on her spleen Monday or Tuesday. Is it weird to be exicted about getting those results back ??
Oh, and her platelets are back! YEAH!!!!! Which could mean that in the future she could do more chemo. They haven’t been above 100K since February cause her stupid spleen was hoggin’ them all. Today they were 250K.
Today has been ruff. Her pain is HORRIBLE and they can’t give her any more pain meds because it will compromise her breathing. However, she is out of ICU and I see that as a positive sign.
So no partying just yet. Her daughters have tried to make her room feel more like home with air freshners that smell like home, butterflys on her window, flowers, her favorite slippers, her favorite blanket and pillow….
since my mom doesn’t get on the computer I read all of this to her and this is what she hates:
I hate: being in the hospital and the machine beeps and the nurse takes forever to come.
The nurses question you on how bad your pain really is.
Being some dang emotional.
Not being able to take girl days with my daughters because I’m sick.
Not being able to hold my grandchildren or babysit them because I’m weak and tired.
Not being able to work in my garden because I’m weak.
Waking up in the morning and not knowing weather or not I’m going to throw up or not.
Walking up and wondering will this be a good day or a bad day.
I hate having more hair on my face than my husband does.
I hate being 54 years old and looking like I’m 9 months pregnant.
Today the Dr. said that there is the option of removing moms spleen…… but until they can do the CT scan on Tuesday, he’s not willing to make any decisions. So this is me venting: 1. why aren’t they doing the scan NOW? The dr. said that her situation doesn’t warrant an emergency situation, so they can’t call in the CT team. Um, this is an emergency!!!!! We need and deserve to know what is going on. 2. he said that if he removed the spleen due to her low platelets there is the risk of bleeding. Now he says we will just give her platelets. WHAT? Give her platelets NOW so that she can do chemo! ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR We are just so frustrated! So again, we sit and wait. Hopefully on Tuesday we will get some GOOD news. My mom has cried so much today. She’s so worried that the cancer is spreading. Which, it could be…. it probably is. But how do you say that to her? This sucks! Cancer SUCKS!!!!!!!!
However, at least I have this site!
All I’ve done the past 3 days is read, read, read, and read on this site. Some good stories, and some sad stories. But, all of it was beneficial!Thank you all so much. I’ve been doing so much research that now I just feel lost. There is just so many things that “it” could be. I do trust her dr., but sometimes wonder if they just don’t miss things.
Our question now is what if it’s not a blood clot, but that the cancer has spread to ther spleen? That can’t be good…. but, is it horrible???
UGH….. I am so not a patient person! And I HATE the unknown!
thank you so much for that positive information.
always good to hear that something “new” isn’t horrible. this disease is just so unknown, it’s scary.This is Jacque, Tommy and Judy’s daughter.
My mom’s cancer is located in her bile duct. She was diagnosed April 2009. Because of where the tumor was located in her bile duct they said it was inoperable.
I’ve been doing a TON of research and I now wonder if what she is experiencing right now is chronic pancreatits (sp). Has anyone else had any problems with their pancreas?
Hi, my name is Tommy, my wife was diagnosed April 15, 2009. I have never been on a computer in my life. I bought this one for my wife to mess around with. I have been exploring ever since. My wife, Judy, is doing fair. I don’t know if she will be able to do any more chemotherapy. Her platelets just don’t seem to be coming back up since her last treatment on Feb. 1st. She went through 30 days of radiation and 9 rounds of infusion chemotherapy. I am really starting to worry about her, and her pain. Judy’s Dr. and Nurses have been great, and I think I just need to talk to some real people that I can understand. Thank You for your time and listening to me.
