Jeremy’s Cancer Journey

Still here. We slept well last night, due to Lola, the bossy nurse, working with me to come up with a schedule to disturb him the least amount of times as possible. I call her bossy because she basically told me I was going to sleep and she was going to help him in the middle of the night if he needed it. 😆 I like her kind of bossy. 💜 We were close to be going home today. Calcium levels are within safe range and kidney function numbers look good. A few things have popped up and it looks like we may be here another night. Sooooo.... Here we stay.

Looks like Jeremy's kidney function is back in the normal range! Grateful they were able to find the problem and correct it before there was kidney damage. The doctor said it was a good sign that his numbers improved so quickly after putting in the stents. They will continue to monitor this as we move forward and hopefully nothing else will need to be done.  His calcium continues to stay too low for it to be safe to go home so he will be here probably for the next 2-3 days as they work to bring that up. The type of chemo he is on is most likely the culprit for this issue as it is a known side effect. We learned the results of the CT scan. The mass in his chest wall has decreased in size and the other known masses appear stable.  Unfortunately,  they found another mass in…

It's been a couple weeks since I've posted an update on Jeremy, so while I'm sitting in a bay at the hospital waiting for him to come back from having a para and thora done, I thought I would hop on here.  Last week he finished his last chemo for this round and so now it's time for a CT scan to see if it's working. We will head over to have the scan done around noon today.  The oncologist is hopeful that it is being effective. We go back to see her on Thursday so I'm assuming we will go over the results then.  Unfortunately there are no clinical trials in GA that Jeremy would qualify for at this point.  Every day is a roller coaster, some bad days with some better days. Jeremy has been able to eat, though nowhere near pre-cancer standards and has slowed down the…

We headed to Emory today for a second opinion today. It was a long and tiring day for Jeremy, BUT we got a second opinion and the doctor who specializes in gastric cancers said they would not do anything different than what Jeremy's oncologist is doing for him. He didn't tell us anything different than what we already knew and confirmed that the Foundation One biopsy is important in knowing how we can move forward with his treatment. So today's appointment confirmed what we already had peace about and now this doctor can be used as a resource especially when the biopsy results come back, hopefully within the next two weeks. He was more than willing to discuss those with Jeremy's oncologist when she gets the results.  Tomorrow morning, we head back to the hospital for hopefully the last procedure until after Christmas. He had a paracentesis done on Monday…

So it’s been a bit since I updated on how Jeremy is doing.  Jeremy just finished up his last chemo for this first round of treatments on Wednesday. He will have one more round of 28 days before he has another scan to see if this chemo is effective.  He has tolerated this chemo way better than the first type of chemo he was on. Now I cringe at thinking how hard it was on him, especially in comparison to this one. It’s even more frustrating to know that it didn’t work and he suffered unnecessarily. But it is what it is.  Next chemo day is the day after Christmas so we are happy that he gets a break. He does have another paracentesis on Monday because of the ever present fluid buildup.  He actually has had a couple good days though, which is wonderful because before we were happy if we got…

We haven't had the appointment with the oncologist yet this week but Jeremy saw his CT scan results last week and talked a little bit with the doctor yesterday over the phone. Unfortunately  (or maybe fortunately...not sure on that one yet), his cancer has spread and grown. Chemo didn't work at stabilizing him. We are still waiting on the results to see if he has any markers to do immunotherapy. I am a bit frustrated with that because we knew they most likely didn't have enough in the first two tests to get a good reading, but because of protocol, this is the procedure they had to follow. I had thought by the time he was done with Round 4 and had the results, we would know if he had other options. However, there is still Hope and Hope is good. Of course, when I read the report, I couldn't…

Jeremy went in for his fourth treatment yesterday. The fluids have been building up again and he hasn't been eating or drinking much this week. We didn't see his body release any fluids after the the third treatment like we did with the second treatment. Yesterday he was even contemplating holding off his treatment based on how he was feeling. The oncologist agreed to have a paracentesis (drain) done since the benefits outweigh the risks. He has to wait until Monday morning to have it done because he has to be off the blood thinner that he has been taking for 5 days. He will still be on a blood thinner, just one that won't stay in his system as long. Since Jeremy will have another scan done next week, he really wanted to push through and do the treatment so that that could take place. He wants to know…