Second Phase Chemotherapy

Our mother began the second phase of her chemotherapy last Thursday after having a subcutaneous mediport inserted on Monday. She was given Gemcitabine via IV for a little over an hour. The nurses gave her Zophran for any potential nausea. Her reaction to this first infusion wasn't too bad. She suffered some very mild nausea and a mild fever for a couple of days (100.5 degrees). But she was going out to lunch by Saturday so I think overall it wasn't too bad. Hopefully it will continue to not be too difficult. Today is our parent's anniversary - I hope they are enjoying themselves.

Johns Hopkins Checkup

Our mother was at Reston Hospital for about a week after the bleeding scare. Her hematocrit was at 9 when she was admitted to the hospital. When we mentioned this to Dr. Laheru, he looked astonished and said "that's incompatible with life". Mom is just fine right now but I think that was a very very close call. The staff at Reston Hospital seemed excellent and we were very happy with her care there. We also were happy to meet a good GI doctor - Dr. Plotner, who performed the endoscopy.

The checkup with Dr. Laheru at Hopkins went very well. He said my mother's scans were clear and that the previous CT was probably an "overcall". He said the liver area looked just fine. We were all very happy to hear that. He recommended three rounds of Gemcitabine. Each round consists of three weekly infusions of Gemcitabine followed by a checkup with Dr. Laheru. Dr. Picozzi had recommended Gemcitabine plus Taxotere. I think this is probably based on the GTX protocol that seems to have good success with advanced pancreatic cancer, although he is not using the X part of the protocol (Xeloda). Dr. Laheru mentioned that this would be significantly tougher and that he recommended Gemcitabine alone. Given our mom's condition, I think everybody agreed that it was best not to put her through something too difficult. We begin next week - on Monday my mother will get a subcutaneous port and her treatment begins on Thursday. Under this schedule she will be done by mid September. Dr. Laheru also mentioned that there's still a good chance that the Hopkins vaccine booster trial will begin sometime this year and that we can try that after the chemotherapy is done.

It was also very nice to meet our friend face to face at Hopkins who has followed a similar battle over the last 6 months. She's been doing a very similar treatment plan as our mother so we have been comparing notes via email. We couldn't believe how great she looked even after having been through so much.

Bleeding Scare

The last few days our mother complained of stomach pain which she thought was indigestion from eating spicy foods. This started two or three days ago. She also mentioned to me on the phone that her blood pressure was very low and that she had stopped taking her blood pressure medicines. I spoke with her yesterday afternoon and no alarm bells went off since we thought it was related to the foods she ate. We were very wrong. Last night she vomited blood and she vomited blood again when she woke up. She was pretty near unconscious this morning and our father called 911 to take her to the hospital. She was admitted in the ER for internal bleeding and they started giving her transfusions. They said she had lost 3/4ths of her blood. This was also very dangerous since it strains the heart and she has suffered from heart problems. Extremely scary situation. The doctors performed an endoscopy and thankfully the source of the bleeding was easily found in two ulcers near where the Whipple was performed. The doctor cauterized them and she is doing fine now and should be fine. We need to be much more careful in the future. Maybe she should also increase the protonix she is taking.