Day 402 - Getting better, I think...

First off, I'm sorry if yesterday's blog was a bit disjoint.  I was typing in the car on my phone at 5:45 am after spending the night in the ER, and I didn't proofread before hitting submit.

To summarize: yesterday, Ryan started complaining about his belly hurting.  We were worried that the 5 days of chemo had brought his ANC down to 0, which would have meant that his immune system wasn't doing anything.  If this was the case, we would need to be in-patient, to make sure that we got antibiotics and extra stuff to keep him from getting sick.  In addition, if his belly opened up again, we would need to deal with that.

However, when we got to the ER, we found out that his ANC was still fine (about 850), so we felt much better.  Unfortunately, his belly was still tender and swollen.  Patrick said it reminded him of when it opened up last time.  So, we were still worried.  The CT scan let us know that the intestines were inflamed, but not opening up inside him (which would have been bad), but were probably just following the same track they had the previous few times.  By 5am this morning, the doctors let us go home to keep an eye on him.

We fell into bed and slept restlessly, as I kept getting up to check Ryan's temperature and his belly.  He got a bit worse by noon, with a fever of about 102.  His belly was also starting to stretch, which looked more and more like it would open up with his fistula (the technical term for when the intestine pops though the abdomen wall).  We called Seattle a few times, and decided to wait to go into the ER until it popped open.  Once it did, if his fever didn't immediately break, there was probably something else going on.

So, we slept a bit this afternoon, until around 4pm, when Ryan walked into my room and said, "Hey mom, my belly is leaking.".  Sure enough, there was a hole in his abdomen, and he was oozing ucky stuff from it.  It wasn't a ton of fluid, so we covered it with gauze and called Seattle again.  We decided to head into the ER to get some ostomy supplies.  Fortunately, his fever was totally gone by this point.  We also decided that we would give him a dose of GCSF to help him heal from the trauma of a belly rupture.

He wasn't too thrilled with the ostomy bag, or the psychological feelings about a hole in his stomach.  But, he did say that he felt better now that the pressure was relieved.  If I understand the mechanics of this fistula, the intestines excrete acid to break down the abdomen to open it up to the outside... that's gotta hurt.  Now that he's open, it should start feeling better.

The ER docs agreed that we could handle this at home and discharged us (we could have stayed, but both Patrick and I felt more than comfortable taking care of him).  We got a quick dinner in town and headed home, where Ryan fell immediately asleep.   If this fistula is like that last few times, it should take a few weeks to heal back up.  But, that is so much better than the original estimate of months.  In the mean time, he is still home, with his family.  We all get to have a good night's sleep, in our own beds.

We have a clinic appointment back in Seattle in about 2 weeks, so we will see if they have any suggestions on how to proceed with this little 'side effect'.  We also have labs scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.  In the mean time, we are hoping for a day with no drama tomorrow.

Thank you all for the continued prayers and good thoughts!