Today basically went exactly as planned. She was discharged early and we left just after 1000. Lori’s brother and I drove her in our makeshift “vanbulance” to Indianapolis for the appointment. Dr Miller seemed like a good guy, and he was on board for doing the gamma knife procedure. We showed up an hour early for the appointment, and we got in and out quickly. In fact, we were on our way back to Lafayette by the time our original appointment time arrived. Continue reading

On Wednesday, we came up with a plan to get us through the week. The goal was to wean Lori off of the Dilauded pain meds which are fed via IV, and move to oral pain pills. This was necessary if we ever intended to be discharged from the hospital. The goal was to finish the transition to the oral pills (a mix of Oxycontin and Morphine to supplement) by Friday morning so we could be discharged in time to drive her to Indy for her neurosurgeon appointment at 1230. Continue reading

I’ll post a full update tonight. Bottom line, she’s doing about the same but she’s still in the hospital. Hoping for a discharge Friday morning so we can see the neurology guys tomorrow in indianapolis.

For the past 20 hours, she was very loopy and still experiencing pain at a 3 to 4 level. Sometimes 5. That was through a significantly higher amount of dilauded pain meds. Today, the hospitalist (who sucks at cancer stuff but is great at acute care) came in with a plan to control the pain. We planned to slowly increase the amount of dilauded and to administer it at a regular interval. Every two hours she received .5 mg which is pretty much equivalent to the old pain pump’s prescribed entire daily output. For the first 4 segments (8 hours) she still experienced pain at a level 4 or 5. Not a good sign. Continue reading

I’ll be brief because I’m in the ER triage with Lori. On the way to my parent’s house today following her appointments in Indy, Lori began feeling very hard and sharp pains in her arms, thighs, and lower back. We drove the last 15 minutes home and she was wrestling quite a bit with the pain. I noticed it wasn’t routine. Continue reading

We’ve spent the past week getting a new set of scans for review with Dr. S. The breast tumor was significantly larger with lots of bigger nodules around the breast area. Also, her arms were hurting a lot more, and she couldn’t stop the pain even with extra meds. So, we weren’t surprised on Monday when Dr. S. reviewed the scans and found progression of disease in almost every area. It is also in the tissue of the muscles in her arms, and that is causing significant swelling and associated pain. Of course he decided to forego that day’s scheduled chemo infusion, and he laid out a few new options. Continue reading

Thank you all for the prayers and offers to help! We’re doing all right. She had her first good night in the past 5 or 6 days last night! It’s amazing how something simple like that can provide relief for another day. Specifically, I think she slept from 10pm- 4am. Woke up with arm pain and took meds for that. Then slept again until 8am. That’s a huge improvement. Hopefully that continues to happen. She’s also incorporating some physical therapy stretches which may help calm the inflammation of the nodes.

Pain control! Or lack of control…is what we’ve been focused on lately. The pain problem has persisted despite another increase in the pump’s dilauded output. Some days/nights it’s her back, others it is her arms and legs. Yesterday, Lori went to the ER to get some kind of relief. She had tried morphine pills, but they didn’t even begin to help. The ER doc gave her a shot of some extra strength Motrin-like medicine, and it immediately helped alleviate the bulk of the pain. Continue reading

Lori’s brain scans came back all clear!
As far as the second tumor, the biopsy results are still being worked but so far they’ve eliminated ER/PR as a type. Still waiting to find out whether or not it’s HER2 positive. Lori goes to Indy on Monday for another round of chemo, and we may hear then about the final test results.
Great news!

Answer: If you’re diagnosed a second time, you can just laugh it off.

We had a mixed bag of news today. Over the past couple of weeks, Lori has increasingly experienced more pain in her knees, femurs, lower back, shoulders and neck. She had been supplementing her pain pump with daily oral doses of morphine as well as the maximum daily allowable amounts of ibuprofen/Tylenol. Even then, she felt the pain through it all and had trouble sleeping each night. Continue reading