Another eventful day

We had hoped for a quiet and relaxing day today. It was not to be. At 5 AM Kay started to have pain in the left lower anterior chest, worse with breathing. By 6 AM she was short of breath and had severe pain with deep breaths. It got so bad we called Dr. McCroskey who recommended she go to the ER to assure she did not have a pulmonary embolus, a blood clot to the lungs more common in certain cancer patients, ovarian cancer especially.

The good news is that all the tests at the ER were negative for a pulmonary embolus. Last night we had clamped off the external bile drainage tube, and it is possible that Kay developed an infection in the biliary tract. Tests today did show that her internal bile stent is draining perfectly, and that her bile ducts are decompressed just fine.

Kay is staying in the hospital at Good Samaritan at least tonight, to be on antibiotics while blood culture tests are done to see if she has serious infection. Our hope is that these tests all come back negative, she goes home tomorrow, and this was all much-to-do about little. Anyway, I just got off the phone and Kay is ecstatic, she just finished a whole sandwich and fixings, her first complete meal in recent memory, and she feels good.

My poor patients again today had to be rescheduled on short notice, but everyone at the office has been extremely supportive, and I suspect I'll have some patients left when I become more dependable. Anyway, I feel blessed that I could be with Kay this morning to help with decision making and for love and support.

Tomorrow evening I help Brett move home from Seattle. He is going to live at home for the rest of his quarter at school, and commute to classes, either by rail, or by car. Then Friday, all-goes-well we are off to Portland for Jean's graduation party Saturday and graduation Sunday.

So far really no problems we can directly relate to the chemotherapy. Maybe this pain was somehow related, but we just do not know what caused that with any degree of certainty.

I'll post again after I see Kay this evening. I had a series of meetings at the office this afternoon, and Kay is much more confident and comfortable in hospitals now, not necessarily a life-skill we all want to develop, but a good one for Kay to be accruing now. She is as always, a quick study.

Until later.

Ed