Cough Cough Cough Crack!

During the recent trips, I caught a cold, then Chase did, then Craig did which was what we dreaded all winter that he would get sick. Well, now it's summer and he's had a cold since Yellowstone and it's settled in his lungs as usual. He's struggling to breathe at times and is coughing constantly. We went in yesterday to Dr. Craig and he had a chest x-ray and an Echo cardiogram. Craig's ankles have swollen up this past week and we're afraid maybe the heart isn't pumping as well as it should. The x-ray showed no pneumonia in the lungs and some excess fluid around the lungs and heart. This is common in cancer patients and can be helped with diuretics but we have to be careful not to dehydrate him. The heart looks good otherwise but we haven't had the final diagnosis from the cardiologist. So later last night Craig was watching TV and I was in my office and I heard him almost scream out in pain. Chase yelled for me to come up and Craig was doubled over and said he coughed and then felt a sharp pain in his back and felt like he'd broken a rib. (He's broken 3 before on a fall through a deck at our old house so he knew the feeling.) I called Dr. Craig and he said to get him to the ER fast as it could be something to do with his liver. We helped Craig to the car and carefully drove to IMC in Murray (trying not to hit bumps which created more pain) and luckily were ushered in fairly quickly to a room when we mentioned cancer and a possible liver rupture. They got him on pain meds intravenously and he relaxed a little. His vitals were good. They did a chest x-ray (2nd one for the day!) and then a CT scan. The results came back about 2 am and showed he has a broken 8th rib on the right. It is amazing a cough can do that! All we can do is wrap him in a stretch wrap around his middle to support him and give him some pain meds. It takes about 4-6 weeks to heal and he can't do much lifting or twisting (not that he wants to!). He still has the cough which we'll try to help with some steroids. Poor guy had a tough night getting comfortable and not coughing.

He did receive the Sutent (oral chemo) from Pfizer through their patient assistance program. Once he's through the cold (and now the rib fracture) he'll start on a smaller dose to see how he feels with it. Dr. Jones said 3 other patients are on it and have mainly been more fatigued but not really nauseous. They have stabilized their tumors and one patient even had some reduction in tumor size which is incredible. Hopefully this will be a possibility for Craig soon.