The Tumornator: Tom's updates

Despite having a trip to Mayo this week--this update is pretty anticlimactic 😐  Sorry in advance!   We did try a new/different hotel that's pet friendly and near a park area/outdoor pool for future summer needs and the kids.  Reviews were a bit all over the place, but we liked it well enough. Decent free breakfast, shuttle that runs back and forth to Mayo all day, free parking, etc.  Downside was the pool/hot tub was closed currently, but should be up soon they said.   On Wednesday afternoon Tom had labwork and a CT scan scheduled at 430ish.  They were super behind for the CT scan, so we didn't get back to the hotel until almost 8p. We grabbed dinner at the hotel restaurant, which it turns out was slamming and pretty good. We were scheduled to have a PET scan that was denied (again) by the insurance company until the results of the CT scan are in and the Dr. can "prove" to them the PET scan is needed/justified.  So with that fun fact, we jus...

Chemo #9 got wrapped up this week.  For those that haven't heard it was a bit of a wacky Wednesday this past week.  Tom and I hung out at chemo until I got a call from the school nurse for Scarlett.  During PE Scarlett rolled her ankle pretty badly and needed picked up.   While I was taking her home, Tom texted me that the chemo suite lost power! Luckily they had some emergency flood lights and fully charged pumps so he could finish the last 30 minutes, but he had to walk down 5 flights of steps and maintenance was propping open the automatic doors.   To be safe, I took Scarlett to DMOS urgent care (they were awesome and in/out in about 1.5 hours) Good news, no breaks--just a bad sprain.  She got a compression sock and soft brace to help healing.  She did have to miss her volleyball game this week though                                       Be...

Some of you have already heard this information from one of us--but Tom's visit earlier this week on 9/3 had a bit of good news for us.  His lab work is still looking really good!  His white blood cells, neutrophils, and platelets all are holding steady which means chemo proceeds as normal without delays. Lots of people run into issues the longer they receive chemo. His CA 19-9 has dropped again to 467.  For those of us without pancreatic cancer, normal numbers are under 35.  I believe I shared previously, but during our first visit in May, it was 3500ish.  It's possible that was still higher than it should have been from just the cancer with all the other abdominal inflammation and issues he was having in May...but the continued dropping is a good sign that the chemo should be helping the tumor die off.   The other exciting news is Tom has gained some weight back 😋  He's back up above 150lbs!  We are continuing to take enzymes to absorb nut...

Some of you have already heard, but Tom developed his first fever since diagnosis last week.  Unsurprisingly, like everything else about cancer and chemo--illness gets a lot more complicated!  He went to bed not feeling great and chilled, but no fever.  However, he woke up at 630 on Thursday morning with a 101.9 fever.  It dropped slightly between 101.5-101.7 once he got out from under his 3 blankets 😮 Much to Tom's chagrin, I called the oncology office to see what they wanted us to do.  After determining we lived nearby, they requested we come in ASAP so they could check bloodwork and examine Tom.  Luckily his bloodwork looked great and he had no other new symptoms beyond the fever. They anticipated it was likely viral and sent us home with the standard reminders to rest, drink plenty of fluids, and manage his fever with Tylenol.  His viral panel actually come back clear (everything was negative) on Friday. They also drew blood cultures, which we hav...