Another ER visit…

Going for an abdominal CT scan

I would love to write some good news for once but…we had another ER visit on Thursday 9/14/23 and ended up being admitted to Floyd county hospital. We went to Mayo last Friday 9/8/23 to their eye/glaucoma department because his vision has been terrible lately (his vision was bad last time on Gavreto) and his eye pressures were climbing and his field of vision was declining a lot. They did a lot of testing of his eyes and his eye pressures were 28 that day.

Anyway, Mike didn’t feel great that day and just felt off with a bit of a stomach-ache. Saturday his stomach hurt worse and he developed a low grade fever that came and went. He got his blood drawn on Monday because he felt terrible and several of his blood counts were low, especially his hemoglobin which was at 11.4 (12.7-17.1 is normal) but they weren’t overly concerned. Mikes stomach pain, nausea and fatigue continued, so we decided to head to the ER about 2pm to get him checked out. Labs were done and his C-Reactive protein was elevated and his hemoglobin dropped to 9.9, so they suspected he was having some kind of internal bleeding. An x-ray was normal, but a CT scan showed inflammation and some fluid in his abdominal cavity. The ER doctor wanted to send us to Mayo but… they have been diverting all ambulance patients to other hospitals because of staff shortages, so we could either 1) be admitted to our local hospital or 2) drive to Mayo ourselves. Since it was 11 pm we decided to stay in Charles City. I ran home to get some necessities and stayed in the hospital room with Mike. We had a restless night but were happy with our decision to stay in town and had good care.

After visiting with the attending physician, surgeon and oncologist at Mayo they decided to treat him with fluids, IV antibiotics, and rest. They are scheduling a scope for next week to determine where the bleeding is coming from. Bloodwork today showed the hemoglobin dropped very slightly to 9.8 so praying it doesn’t drop any lower!

To be honest we were very scared last night! We have been going through this cancer journey for over 22 years and we’ve had lots of ups and downs but last night was just surreal and it made us both think about end of life things and even though we know we will be going to a better place we don’t want to leave our families or our lives prematurely!!! It’s also hard to keep God’s promises in your heart when your mind wants to worry.

Thankfully Mike is feeling “better” this afternoon and it sounds like they are going to let us go home🙌🏼 Unfortunately we had to reschedule his followup appointments that were originally scheduled for today with a glaucoma specialist at Mayo.. and they can’t get him in until November, so we pray his pressures don’t go any higher! We would love prayers that they figure out the cause of the internal bleeding and… for his MRI next Thursday 9/21/23. We pray that they are no new METS in his brain and no growth in the “nodule” they saw last time! Thank you in advance for the prayers, we feel blessed to know people are praying on our behalf! I know I’ve said it before, but enjoy life to the fullest! Be present with your loved ones.

Be blessed,

Paula