Sunday, April 24, 2011

Succumbing to another round of chemo.

Rebecca is in the hospital receiving a couple of bags of red blood cells. That is not why she is in the hospital though. On Thursday we went to a regular doctors appointment. Her hematocrit was down to 23 and her platelets were down to 29. The plan was to get a shot the next day of something to stimulate the release of more red blood cells.

On the way home we picked up some food from a deli. About an hour after she ate she started to get nauseated and diarrhea. We ended up in the emergency room. Initially thought it might be food poisoning but no one else got sick who ate the same food. After an X-ray showed the small intestines to be dilated they labeled it ileus. A non physical blockage if the small intestine. I would assume her peristalsis is slowed way down due to the high amount of pain medicine and/or the neuropathy. Her stomach was very distended and firm. They put a nasal tube into her stomach. Not much liquid came out but some gas may have been released since her stomach went down.

They shut the suction off yesterday. They should be able to remove the nasal tube today. Then she can try to take more by mouth.

The platelets dropped to 23 today. Surprisingly the absolute neutrophils are at 1.96. After the last cycle of melphalan they had dropped to 0.8.

Managing bowel movement is very critical. During the last cycle she had diarrhea about three weeks into the cycle. So this time we cut back on the anti constipation medicine some. I guess it was to much. We have decided it is better to have diarrhea than constipation.

Rebecca will not be happy with me talking about her bowels.

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