Back to the Hospital

Hello all,

I am taking John to be admitted to the hospital tomorrow in the hopes that we can find out why he can no longer walk.  His last MRI showed that the tumor was stable and had not grown, but over the last two weeks he has become weaker and weaker.  He can no longer shower, or dress himself.  He can't get into the car and this morning I almost dropped him.  His NO wants to take him off of all meds until we find out what is happening.  She will not let him take the Chemo until we can come up with some kind of idea of what is happening.  He is fighting going into the hospital and I had to tell him that I could no longer take care of him, I wasn't physically strong enough to provide the assistance that he needs.  We are reducing his decadron and will try to find something else that may work.  Please pray for him, that God's will be done.

Thanks for all the support over the last two plus years.

You are in my prayers.  I remember having to help my dad with everything.  It's so physical for women.  We really aren't built with the upper body strength that we need for that.  His inability to walk though was a result of a VERY severe seizure he had.  I hope the doctors will provide some insight to you.

Cris

I'll keep you both in our prayers.  We are going through almost the same thing.

We saw dad's NO yesterday and they admitted dad to the hospital to find out what is going on as he wasn't responding to commands hadn't had a bowel movement in 5 days and stopped eating and drinking unless we physically made him drink it.  He's also been shaking really bad and repeating the same word over and over.  He was dehydrated and this morning he was a little more responsive, still confused but he's improved a little with fluids.  This afternoon he seemed a little worse and was having conversations with himself.  They did a neuro consult and they ordered and EEG  but they thought it was from the infection and his anal abscess.  The general surgeon came in and said his pelvic ct was fine and wasn't causing the neurological issues so hopefully tonight we'll know more.  They are doing head scans to see if he has bleeding from when he hit his head two weeks ago.  They haven't ruled out if it is tumor progression or if he's had a stroke. 

Next month will be two years since diagnosis for us and the roller coaster continues!

My dad had a recurrence at the end of July and although there were some noticable differences - loss of some fine motor skills, not big deal.  And then in a period of 4 days went from walking slowly by himself, to needing some help, to a walker and finally a wheelchair.   New MRI and no growth so they did reduce his medications.   Problem is that with everything else going on, that was too late and he is now in a hospice but they suggested it could well have gone the other way and in a positive direction.

They attributed the rapid decline to "UNDERLYING" causes and his GP who has been deeply involved basically admitted that was shrugging of the shoulders and saying that they did not have a clue.  I was in the room and the look of puzzlement was real as was it after they took his file in front of a multidisciplinary committee.   Or another way, stuff happens and sometimes it is bad and sometimes it is good.  

And to illustrate this - across the room from my dad's is a 59 year old with the same brain cancer.   They put him in as he only had a week or two to live and that was seven weeks ago.   He stopped eating and drinking, family flew in, goodbyes were said and yesterday, he suddenly pepped up and ate a big dinner.   Good to remember that there are essentially nothing more than educated guesses and it is also good to question the experts.