The latest

Brad here.

Well, today is another day. However, before I explain what the day has in store, I will elaborate a little more on yesterday.

On Saturday morning Jordan woke up complaining of pain in her rib cage area. She said it felt like someone was pushing on her ribs constantly. She felt like it was probably a side effect of Gleevec as she has had other aches and pains soon after beginning to take it. So, we just chalked it up to another weird pain caused by Gleevec. Jordan spent the majority of the day in bed getting out of the house on two occasions. Each time, in pain but on Tylenol which made it manageable.

Saturday evening she woke a couple times in pain and to take Tylenol. About 7:00 Sunday morning she said she wasn't feeling up to going to church but for me to take Eli and leave her with Phoebe. She texted me and called about 11:30 and told me to come straight home. After wrangling Eli to the car we left church and upon walking into the house Jordan said her pain was increasing, her hands were going numb, and she was having a difficult time breathing. We immediately decided to go to hospital.

I started calling every friend from church who I knew was still there visiting (we only live a couple blocks from church) to see if they could keep the kids. I finally got a hold of our senior minister and within 10 minutes they were at our house and we were giving them the essentials of care. I called a friend who was a doctor and told him we were headed to the ER. He said he would call and tell them we were coming and he would meet us there. He had us pull up to the ambulance bay and he got us in immediately.

The next 2 hours were pretty bad. Jordan was in a lot of pain. Her legs and hands were going numb. She was likely hyperventilating which was causing her numbness. Once an IV was started, pain killers administered, and anti-nausea medicine given, she finally was able to rest. She was pretty much out of it due to the drugs for the rest of the day.

About 4:30 Jordan started drinking the contrast for a CT Scan with contrast. At 6:15 we had the scan. About an hour later Dr. Smith (the same ER doctor we had in March) gave us the results. He said he couldn't see any reason for her pain on the scan. None of the existing tumors were bleeding like they were in March. This was great news. He wanted to order one more blood test to check for blood clots. He said this is a common side effect for patients with cancer. About an hour later he and the GI doctor on call reported the results indicated she could have a blood clot and they were going to order a VQ (some sort of chest nuclear test). I don't remember what is stands for. After it was complete, I was talking with Dr. Smith and wondering if we needed to take our Gleevec for the night. I told him that the oncologist in Dallas didn't think it was working but told us to keep taking it nonetheless until our last prescription ran out. He had earlier mentioned that the radiologist thought that one of her tumors in her liver was smaller. I asked him to explain this further. He actually took me to the computer and we spent about 15 minutes looking at her CT scan from yesterday and then comparing it to the one on March 7th. From what we were able to see, the tumor has shrunk! It measured 5.8 cm across and 4.? the other direction in March. Yesterday, it was reading 4.2 cm across and 3.9 the other direction. So, possibly Gleevec is working! Of course I don't want to get our hopes up too much since this is me and an ER doctor comparing two CT scans as opposed to an oncologist comparing two P.E.T. scans. However, at this point we just need some good news so I am going to share this hopeful observation.

Anyway, about 10:00 last night they moved us to a room in the hospital. BSA opened a new bed tower about 3 weeks ago so we have a nice new room. This is a good plus to being hospitalized in Amarillo! I visited with Dr. Smith about midnight down in the ER. He showed me the VQ scan and let me listen to the dictation. He said it appears to be clear...not blood clots. So, that is where things were last night when I blogged.

Now, since then, Jordan is doing a lot better. She hasn't had any pain medication since about 10 last night. She also isn't sick at her stomach either. Dr. Tom Johnson (our GI doctor here in Amarillo) stopped in this morning about 7:00. He reported that Jordan's red blood cell count dropped during the evening. They were going to do some more lab work to see if they can figure out why from it. If not, possibly we will have some more test run today. He also mentioned there possibly could be an area near her spleen where blood is pooling. Possibly is the key word. She doesn't hurt in that area when pressed and it isn't absolutely clear that it is blood on the scans. In the end, he told us he would be visiting with Dr. Strauss (oncologist in Dallas) and see what he wants done....if anything. He also indicated we would probably be staying here most of the day. I don't think anybody is going to take any chances with our recent history. It is possible that Gleevec is causing the red blood cell count to drop, so this could be an easy explanation.

Speaking of recent history, in talking with Dr. Smith last night about all that has happened in our care since the first day he treated us in the ER back in March, we started talking about that day. I mentioned to him that Dr. Shires had told me the day after flying to Dallas that it was a "home run" that Jordan was able to be embolized in Amarillo so she could fly to Dallas for surgery. Then he said, we embolize people to "save their lives". Dr. smith then said, yes, your wife was really sick back in March. He said, she didn't look as sick as she was, but that she was really close to death. He said, there are not many people that he bites his fingernails over, but he did over Jordan. Wow! It just brought back many many memories of March and once again convinced me that God was with us on March 7, 2007 as he is today.

Well, I will post more later as we learn more. Jordan's mom and aunt Sharon went to pick up the kids about 30 minutes ago. If anybody wants to come by we are in room 420 at BSA in the new Ware Tower.

Brad