The vacation from chemo is over

Unfortunately, cancer has decided that Craig's vacation from treatment is over.  Six months was long enough. On Sept 13 Craig had a scan of his abdomen and chest. The next day we met with Dr Weis and he revealed the results of the scan. The tumors in his liver have grown by about 25%. Tumors that were 12 cm x 6 cm are now 15 cm x 8 cm. Dr Weis said that we had 3 choices: do another chemo embolization (liver-directed therapy); undergo intravenous chemo; or start on a new chemo pill, Everolimus. Craig was surprised that the tumors had grown that much. He said he was willing to try the pill. So a few days later the insurance was worked out and he picked up the medication. Interesting thing about the packaging. The pill is in a blister pack and on the outside of the bag it says to only handle with rubber gloves. Pretty crazy he's ingesting something that you can't touch with your bare hands. In true Craig fashion, he refused to take the full dose at first and broke the toxic pills in two. He took the half pill for 6 days and noticed a few side effects. Weird things like the pads of his fingers feeling very hot, extreme headaches that start with the feeling you are inhaling a toxic smell and it goes up in your sinuses and then your head "closes in on you". Those last for more than 10-15 minutes. When he started on the full pill a week ago he still continues with the same side effects including being more tired but now having thrush (yeast infection) in his mouth and throat. He has been gargling with baking soda and salt which seems to help.  His gut feels tight and he has cramping quite often. He says the side effects are better than the last pill Sutent.

One issue that forced Craig to go back to the doctor was his blood sugars. He's been having a tough time keeping his blood sugar up. He can't eat enough food to keep from crashing every 3-4 hours. We thought it might be the tumor on his pancreas coming to life or maybe an insulinoma which is a new tumor on the pancreas that overproduces insulin.  What Dr Weis surmises is that the new tumor growth is eating the sugars in his body. We hope the new pill will help with the low blood sugars plus stop the tumors from growing. It's not likely the pill will kill the tumors but it should hold the tumors from growing more.

In other news in the last 6 months: we had a wedding!  Amazing to think that Craig is still here for Maddie's wedding. I remember when we hoped he would see Maddie graduate from high school and now she has graduated from college in May and was married in July.  It was a beautiful day and we absolutely adore Mitchell Devon Peterson her new husband.  They are living in Richmond VA where Mitch is in his second year of med school at VCU.  Maddie is currently applying to med school for fall 2017 and working for a urologist in VA as a scribe. We are officially empty nesters and we aren't real happy about it but we do have Scout and we hope to travel on the motorhome and visit our kids regularly!  We just hope Craig will be up to it all.

Maddie and Mitch are Married!!

In other news in the last 6 months: we had a wedding!  Amazing to think that Craig is still here for Maddie's wedding. I remember when we hoped he would see Maddie graduate from high school and now she has graduated from college in May and was married in July.  It was a beautiful day and we absolutely adore Mitchell Devon Peterson her new husband.  They are living in Richmond VA where Mitch is in his second year of med school at VCU.  Maddie is currently applying to med school for fall 2017 and working for a urologist in VA as a scribe. We are officially empty nesters and we aren't real happy about it but we do have Scout and we hope to travel on the motorhome and visit our kids regularly!  We just hope Craig will be up to it all.

Pain at a 10!

Poor Craig!  On Tuesday (2 days ago) he was awakened in the late morning suddenly with horrible pain in his abdomen.  Unfortunately I was not home so he had to deal with it by himself for a little while until I received a desperate text to come home asap!  When I got home the poor guy was moaning and more miserable than I've seen him for a long time. It was unbearable pain. We went up to the Acute Care Center at Huntsman Hospital which is so much better than going to an ER. They know his history and could immediately get him into a room. His pain was at a 9-10 and the morphine they gave him did not touch the pain. His whole abdomen was very tender and the center of the pain was right at his belly button. Even jiggling his bed at all created pain. They gave him morphine and it still wasn't hitting the pain.  He had a CT scan that showed a kidney stone but it was not where it should cause pain. His kidney looked inflamed so there is something going on there. Dilaudid was then given for pain and after about 4 doses of that he started to feel some relief!  He was moved to a room in the hospital and started to settle down more. They wouldn't let him eat or drink all day because there was a possibility of doing surgery or a procedure under anesthesia. His mouth was extremely dry and he could only suck on little ice chips. They continued the Dilaudid through the night and he was able to rest.

On Wednesday, his pain disappeared and he was able to touch his stomach again without pain.  Amazingly the pain didn't come back all day. The doctors are not sure what caused the pain in the first place.  The scan didn't show a bowel obstruction/perforation or internal bleeding.  The doctors said that sometimes we don't know the answers. I didn't like that answer!  Later in the afternoon the 3 doctors came in (all oncologists!) with news about his kidneys.  He has Acute Tubular Necrosis which means the kidney is breaking down inside and granules of the tubes are showing up in the urine.  This usually occurs when there's been a trauma like a heart attack or stroke. We really can't figure out what happened but it must have something to do with the pain. Now we know that the kidneys are worse than we thought. They can sometimes repair themselves if you don't have any other health issues. Obviously, he does. The doctors took him off his cancer drug, Sutent, which they feel is contributing to his kidney issues.  They also took him off his blood pressure medicines to preserve kidney function. His creatinine level is now 3.2 where it should be under 2. He's been flirting with above 2 for the last year but now it's gone much higher.  The protein in his urine is also too high which means Kidney Wasting Disease.  His level is 3 grams.

Today is Thursday and he is doing well but wants to go home. They want to observe him another day. The issue now will be what to do about the cancer and still keep his kidney function going.

Maddie and Mitch are engaged!

Here they are at the Jefferson Memorial in Wash DC on Sat., Feb. 13, where Mitch went down on one knee in 8 degree weather (brrr!) and asked Maddie to marry him!  Mitch goes to VCU (Virginia Commonwealth) medical school in Richmond VA.  Maddie visited over President's Day weekend and this happened!  We are all thrilled!  love