Another Eventful Holiday

Jon and I spent New Years Eve in the Auburn General Emergency Room to ring in 2009. Gezz, what a way to start a new year! He had been feeling crummy since he returned from having his port installed and spent most of Wednesday in bed while I was at work. In the cancer world that is not unusual so honestly I didn't think that much about it until I came home and he was still in pain and extremely tired. We called the Nurse Hotline to ask about the pain around his port and the fact that it was "left open" for the chemotherapy that was supposed to take place on Wednesday. He had me cancel the appointment because he was feeling so tired and wanted to have a week off. The nurse suggested that we go to the ER to have the port evaluated and insure that he wouldn't have to have another one put in. As he was up and moving around he became increasingly weak and short of breath. By the time we got to the ER he was extremely pale. It took the nurse about 15 minutes to figure out he was bleeding internally and they immediately got him into a private ER room and hooked up to IV. The tests confirmed he was bleeding from his stomach secondary to the chemotherapy. This particular chemo has always bothered his stomach but never quite to this degree. Since chemo targets rapidly dividing cells it kills not only tumors but red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and the lining of your stomach. His blood work showed a hemoglobin of 6 and a hematocrit of 24, normal is 12 and 48 respectively. They gave him IV meds to stop the bleeding and two units of blood. He is looking much better this morning with some color in his face, but his vitals are still on the low end. They will be doing an endoscope today to be sure of the location of the bleed, he may also have more scans.

I just came home for a shower and to grab our cell charges so we can talk to all of you. He is ok for visitors although he asked that everyone keep there visits short. They think they will keep him 2-3 days to make sure he is stabilized. We plan on switching to the Revlimid as soon as it is available since there is no way Jon can tolerate any more of this POLF chemotherapy.