Cycle 2, Day 5

Things are going good and not so good with Dad's treatment, though "not so good" is probably best stated as "what's up with that?" Let's start with the obvious good, though. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, Dad's body is responding well to the treatment. The lump under his arm is completely gone, and the mass in his chest has almost totally dissipated to my laymen's eyes. THAT is AWESOME, and yet another answer to prayer. He has yet to experience any pain or nausea, but his hair is finally falling out — but that's not too big a deal. So all in all, things are going great.

Having said that, he began experiencing shortness of breath last Thursday and Friday, and it got progressively worse on Saturday in the wee hours of the morning. We hauled up to MD Anderson's emergency room around 6:30am, and we've been here ever since. CAT, CT, and x-rays all show, well, that nothing's amiss — which is great. Everything is stable as far as previous scan comparison goes, but his white counts are higher than they like, which is a sign of infection. Unfortunately — or fortunately — they really aren't able to see any pneumonia in his lungs, so the Docs are admittedly scratching their heads. But, based on all their data, they feel it best to treat him for infection, so we've been getting strong antibiotics every 12 hours. The pulmonary team will also be evaluating him sometime today.

Some other good news that ties with the above, is that he feels fine. As long as he doesn't try to do much, he's totally fine — it's only when he walks too much. So the shortness of breath is what's causing the issues.

Hopefully the Doctor will be making his rounds soon, and we'll know more about what the next step is. Please pray that there will be no new discoveries, and that whatever is causing this breathing problem will be taken care of with the least amount of issue possible.

Excuse any spelling or grammar, as I've gotten about 6 hours of sleep since Saturday.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/11 at 08:15 AM

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On 08/12 (03:46 PM), .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) said...