Humbled :-(

Hello, dear friends and family members,

Perhaps we started celebrating a bit too early.  I had a very good weekend and Monday dawned as an absolutely glorious spring day.  I may have overdone it with several walks and some shopping that day.  By Tuesday morning I felt miserable, so much so that the lab techs at St. Vincent's were trying to get me to take a wheelchair out to the car after a routine lab visit.  It wasn't the blood draw itself, because I was fading fast during the wait and they could tell.  They brought me water and offered to let me lie down for the draw.  Besides being in a lot of pain, I felt light-headed, weak, shaky and generally crummy all over.  We finished the blood draw and went ahead with our visit to the gastroenterologist, who's office is in a medical complex just down the street from the hospital.  From there we came home and I went right to bed.  I am still in a lot of pain and it seems like the narcotic is no longer doing its job.  Anyway, I spent most of yesterday afternoon and, except for trips to the bathroom and a light breakfast, all of today in bed.  This is the first time that I have actually been bedridden since treatment started.  It may be something unrelated, but it seems to be a composite of all the minor symptoms I felt at one time or another during treatment.  The doctor warned us that it would take some time to recover and he may be right.

The visit with the gastroenterologist went well.  He was the most straightforward and compassionate doctor I've seen since we've been here.  He had obviously read over all the notes from Dr. Hansen, my radiation oncologist, and was very familiar with my case history.  Unfortunately, he had no immediate solution.  He is waiting on the results of a three-day bowel sample and has scheduled a flex sigmoidoscopy for April 20.  That is the earliest that he is available to do the test at the same time there is space in the Medical Procedures Unit  at the hospital.  Because of the level of pain, the procedure also   needed to be coordinated with the availability of an anesthesiologist.  What was that I said a couple of blogs back about big-city health care?

I bring all of this up not for sympathy, but because all of the prayers and positive vibes worked so well during the treatment, I wanted to let you all know that we are not out of the woods yet and that they are still very much needed.  Obviously what I thought about a short recovery and what my body is telling me are two very different things.  Please keep us, and little Rowan, in your prayers until we get our respective medical conditions sorted out.

Thank you all so much!!

Shalom,

     Barry and Kathy