Back In The Hospital

This is Manny typing this post...

Because so much has happened since our last post and due to time I am going to keep this as simple and brief as possible. Well it has been a hectic past three weeks since we got home from our last visit to the hospital. Three weeks ago. Kelly and I have had to change our entire way of life because of her immobility. Our living room looks similar to a hospital room these days. Our days are either spent in the house or up at the oncology office in San Jose. First few trips getting South Bay oncology were nightmares because of transportation issues...but Jan Holthouse came to our rescue. She has been so nice and gracious to let us borrow her family's handicap equipped van when we have appointments etc. We also found a very nice live in caregiver (Edna) who has been great the past week for us. But this post is more about where we are now... which is at O'connor Hospital. Things started this past Tuesday. Kelly received chemo on Tuesday afternoon, two new ones (carboplatin & gemzar) along with her normal intratheical chemo. It was a long rough day to say the least. We got home late in the afternoon and Kelly almost immediately started to run a fever. Long story short, over the course of the next two days Kelly got progressively worse. Fever went up to 102.7, had major chills, really bad pain through her whole body and started to get really confused. The Dr's told us over the phone that if this condition persisted that we should get to the ER. I finally got Kelly over to Hazel Hawkins on Thursday night. She got admitted a few hours after they evaluated her in the ER. The docs at hazel felt that because Kelly was a cancer patient and high risk, they did not really feel all that comfortable treating her. They got her on antibiotics, fluids, etc but started contacting our Doctors to see if she should be transferred. They decided yesterday afternoon that it would be a good idea for her to be transferred to O’connor since they are more familiar with Kelly's history. I must say, we were quite happy with our experience at Hazel. The nurses and the resident Doctor (Dr. Minoee) were fabulous. Also must thank Anthony Mojica for being so helpful in getting us admitted quickly and for taking such good care of us during our stay. We got transferred by ambulance last night (Friday) and got into our old room at O'connor at about 8:00pm. The staff immediately got Kelly hooked up to more antibiotics and pain medicine. Because Kelly has some open wounds on her chest from the cancer, it could be a source of infection or it could be that she has an infection in her brain or spinal fluid from the chemo. Could also just be the cancer getting more aggressive. Everything is really up in the air right now. We are awaiting results from lots of blood tests, and spinal fluid cultures that we drawn this morning from her brain port. As of right now, Kelly is doing a little better. Yesterday was a very scary day for everyone…I never felt that scared because Kelly was not responding much to me. Kelly was basically not cognitive for most of the day. She was very confused and tired. Her fever got up to 102.9. Today it’s been back down to 99.5-99.9. The Doctors think we will be here for a minimum of 2-3 days until they can figure out what’s really going on.On a side note, our wonder drug that we have been waiting for (The PARP Inhibitor) that would have been given with our current chemo regimen is not going to happen. We found out on Monday that the drug was finally available but the company that produces it will not let Kelly participate because she is not mobile. Somewhere in the tiny print, it mentions the patient must at least be able to stand and walk a little to qualify for the drug. This is due to the company that makes the drug trying to get FDA approval. It's very political and we are not happy about any of this, but there is not much we can do at this point. Basically it’s Bull S*@% and other expletives that I won’t mention here. Our oncologists say their hands are tied. All I can say is unbelievable!Our main focus right now is to get Kelly better, then get her standing again, then walking so that we can get that drug in the future.

Thank you all for continuing to pray and support us during this time. I know a lot of you want to see Kelly but she is just not up for visitors still in her condition please understand. You can always try to text me if you want to know info, just cannot guarantee I can respond to everyone.

Also want to say a big THANK YOU to all of you have participated on the dinner delivery for...that makes a huge difference for me and one less thing I have to worry about. The food has been great and Kelly and I really appreciate the kind gestures. Thank you to Shawna for setting everything up and for Tiffany helping with deliveries everything else you do.

God bless, Manny & Kelly