THE DEATH WATCH
I have not written in this Blog since February because I really had nothing much to write about and I had very little incentive to just sit and write nonsense. However, since February I have been fighting with a worsening condition related to my esophagus. I started to have trouble swallowing and I was told that it is a very common occurrence to have scar tissue build up in the location of radiation treated cancer.
In April I had a CAT scan and it was determined that I was Cancer free and that not getting the esophagus surgically removed was not a bad decision.
Since February it has been harder and harder to eat food but I was told that I had very few options short of actually cutting out the entire esophagus and attaching my stomach directly to my throat. I didn’t particularly like that option. Another option was to have a feeding tube re-inserted. I had the feeding tube that I had during Chemo removed when I got my taste buds back. As the condition worsened, however, I was reduced to drinking protein shakes and Ensure. I was losing weight, which was a good thing, but my general health seemed to stay good.
Just prior to going East for my 50th class reunion even the liquid diet was becoming more difficult. The crises hit about a week before we were headed home when I even had trouble swallowing my own saliva. I had been crushing all my pills for high blood pressure, diabetes etc. but that now also became impossible. Obviously I was also not getting enough water into my system so I was getting dehydrated. By the time we got home I was in bad shape and my physical condition was not helped by the delay leaving Boston and the entire airport waiting due to missed flights. By the time we got home I really felt like I needed to be hospitalized. The doctor we called suggested I go to the Emergency Room at the hospital where my Oncologist was located so that’s what we did. My only goal was to get a stomach tube put in and I was prepared for feeding through the tube from now on.
My hospital stay turned out to be a bit longer than I anticipated because my Oncologist wanted to get a complete picture of my condition so before I had the stomach tube inserted my dehydration was stabilized and I met with a GI doctor to see what could be done about the closing of my esophagus. The GI doctor suggested he could insert an endoscope and try to dilate the scar tissue, in ever increasing amounts, so that an opening could be created. In addition, he said that it looked like the constriction was too high up in the esophagus to allow a stent to be inserted. I left the hospital with a stomach tube and a clean bill of health with reference to my blood pressure and my diabetes. I have not taken any of the medication since.
Although I started the endoscope procedures with the GI doctor, I had an underlying belief that the cancer had returned. In the period between June and October I had almost weekly procedures, which only temporarily fixed the problem. After a procedure I could swallow soup for a day or two but just prior to the next procedure I was back to having to spit out my own saliva. It got to be a real drag. My regular GI doctor went on vacation and his stand-in was the one who found the new cancer.
Thus begins The Death Watch.
In April I had a CAT scan and it was determined that I was Cancer free and that not getting the esophagus surgically removed was not a bad decision.
Since February it has been harder and harder to eat food but I was told that I had very few options short of actually cutting out the entire esophagus and attaching my stomach directly to my throat. I didn’t particularly like that option. Another option was to have a feeding tube re-inserted. I had the feeding tube that I had during Chemo removed when I got my taste buds back. As the condition worsened, however, I was reduced to drinking protein shakes and Ensure. I was losing weight, which was a good thing, but my general health seemed to stay good.
Just prior to going East for my 50th class reunion even the liquid diet was becoming more difficult. The crises hit about a week before we were headed home when I even had trouble swallowing my own saliva. I had been crushing all my pills for high blood pressure, diabetes etc. but that now also became impossible. Obviously I was also not getting enough water into my system so I was getting dehydrated. By the time we got home I was in bad shape and my physical condition was not helped by the delay leaving Boston and the entire airport waiting due to missed flights. By the time we got home I really felt like I needed to be hospitalized. The doctor we called suggested I go to the Emergency Room at the hospital where my Oncologist was located so that’s what we did. My only goal was to get a stomach tube put in and I was prepared for feeding through the tube from now on.
My hospital stay turned out to be a bit longer than I anticipated because my Oncologist wanted to get a complete picture of my condition so before I had the stomach tube inserted my dehydration was stabilized and I met with a GI doctor to see what could be done about the closing of my esophagus. The GI doctor suggested he could insert an endoscope and try to dilate the scar tissue, in ever increasing amounts, so that an opening could be created. In addition, he said that it looked like the constriction was too high up in the esophagus to allow a stent to be inserted. I left the hospital with a stomach tube and a clean bill of health with reference to my blood pressure and my diabetes. I have not taken any of the medication since.
Although I started the endoscope procedures with the GI doctor, I had an underlying belief that the cancer had returned. In the period between June and October I had almost weekly procedures, which only temporarily fixed the problem. After a procedure I could swallow soup for a day or two but just prior to the next procedure I was back to having to spit out my own saliva. It got to be a real drag. My regular GI doctor went on vacation and his stand-in was the one who found the new cancer.
Thus begins The Death Watch.
posted by Michael at
4:15:00 PM
1 Comments:
I spent 4 hours last night in the emergency room as the PEG tube that they replaced after a year and half had to be replaced on Thursday. Friday night it came out in my hand while trying to feed. It is supposed to be a "new " technology with a balloon holding it in and apparently the balloon leaked and I pushed the whole thing in and taped it up and drove to the emergency. You do not want to spend Friday night in a city emergency room trust me. They put in the same thing and I am a little more than paranoid about this new technology. My radiologist never told me that I would lose the ability to make saliva and let me live in a fools paradise for about a year thinking it would come back. All I have is this heavy load of mucus in the back of my throat at all times which makes swallowing even the smallest pill impossible so I need the tube for both food and medicine. Then there is the irony of while I was fighting for my life my son graduated as a master chef from the Culinary Institute of America and it drives him crazy he can't make anything for me. I came on your blog by accident and it just struck me that we both have a similar problem. If you need to put on weight let me know as I have a way to do that. There is this stuff called Two cal HN that is made by Abbot labs that is the same as Ensure plus but has 175 more calories per can. I have gained 45 pounds from losing 85 and am actually at a good weight for me now. I'm losing all my teeth from the lack of saliva and am currently undergoing hyperbaric chamber treatments before they can take all my teeth out as now all I have is broken stubs and raw nerves and a lot of pain. It's tough trying to be a survivor isn't it?
Mike(Blorno)
By
blorno, at 8:59 PM
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