A New Hope
Sorry, couldn't resist the Star Wars reference.
There is a lot of news here. Instead of going to New Orleans, we spent a week in Houston, with Teresa working with the doctors at M.D. Anderson Hospital. They ran several new tests, as well as gene-sequencing the tumor that they had originally taken from Teresa. Then we came back to Burnet to wait for the results of all the tests. Thank you for those of you who have contributed to the GoFundMe, they paid for our time in Houston.
The result of the tests was that there were no specific treatments for any of the mutations in the tumor. Instead, we are going back to the original gold standard for pancreatic cancer treatment. It is going to be a little rougher this time. But the doctors feel confident that the side-effects of this treatment are less than letting the cancer progress further. We started those treatments today and Teresa seems to tolerate those well, but she is having more nausea with this treatment.
These treatments will be every week for 3 weeks, and then a week off to let her body recover.
She has also been having problems with fluid building up in her right lung. She has had 3 treatments to remove that fluid. The first they removed 500ml of fluid, the second (8 days later) they removed 800ml, and this last one they removed 1200ml. These fluid build ups have caused her right lung to collapse a bit (there are 3 lobes in the right lung, it looks like one of them completely collapsed). She has an appointment with a surgeon to install a shunt into her pleural cavity (where the fluid buildup is) so that we can drain it ourselves.
This has left her short of breath and subject to panic attacks. She's continually out of breath and is pretty much limited in what she can do. The kids and I have been picking up the slack with laundry, dishes, cooking, etc. She still tries to do stuff, but we won't let her get too tired doing it.
We met with the Palliative Care doctor, and she is now receiving oral morphine daily as needed for pain. They have also given her medical marijuana to deal with the pain and anxiety. She's not thrilled with the fogginess these drugs cause, but the pain relief is quite welcome.
I'm not hopeful that we will make it to New Orleans because she really cannot deal with a long car drive. Still trying to make it happen, but it will require her to be somewhat better. Hopefully, the chemotherapy will help with that.
As always, your prayers and support, both emotional and financial, are always welcome.
Jon R. Nials is organizing this fundraiser.