Partial Blockage

After the bleeding incidents, we were all hoping our mother would be able to gain some weight so she could start back on her chemotherapy. However, she started getting weekly fevers in conjunction with sever stomach aches and the inability to eat. This would last for a day and then she would recover. However, a couple of weeks ago she had a very bad attack that lasted for many days. During this time she had high fevers and she barely ate for over a week. So we brought her to Hopkins again and she was admitted. A gastric emptying test the day before she was admitted showed that the food was just staying in her stomach. Dr. Hutcheon performed an endoscopy but was concerned that there might be multiple "strictures" or partial blockages. She did another barium test that showed that things improved. However, Dr. Hutcheon opted to insert a metal stent at the opening between her stomach and her intestines. She was released after about 9 days in the hospital and we are hoping that this will give some resolution to the issue. She is very weak and still suffers from frequent stomach issues. She just can't catch a break. Her weight has dipped down to 97 lbs.

We are now aware that she really needs to watch exactly what she eats. One thing that is interesting is that when she eats tuna sushi, she doesn't get a stomach ache. I know that there might be some risks with food poisoning, but the benefits here for her seem to outweigh the risks. So maybe she just needs a lot of sushi :->. Our parents are planning to come out to California so I'm hoping her condition improves over the next weeks.

We've also had some slightly worrisome CA 19-9 results recently. One test came out at 43 (previously at 26) but we retested and it was at 32. So the trend appears to be upwards which is not good. However, Dr. Laheru said it was still within the normal range. There's probably not much that she could tolerate in terms of chemo even if we had a higher number so we may just need to wait it out and retest. We're trying to go over strategy at this point - we may have to decide between completing the rest of the Gemzar treatments or trying to get her on the Hopkins vaccine trial. I need to find more information from Dr. Laheru in order to make this decision. I pray that her condition continues to improve.