Tough times

The last two weeks have been difficult at best, and horrific at the core.

To catch up, the chemical stress test was completed on September 18, and it was found that Ed's heart would be able to withstand the surgery.  So now, we just had to get the surgery rescheduled.  Simple, right?  Not so much.  Dr. Cousins' office called us on Monday, September 21, to tell us that the soonest they could get the surgery scheduled was on Wednesday, September 30.  Pre-admission testing was to be done the day before, which is the day I'm posting this entry.

To back up a little, the level of Ed's pain has been steadily increasing and his appetite and mobility decreasing.  Things kind of came to a head on Sunday, the 27th, when his breathing began to sound rattly.  I called the doctor on call, who told me the only thing he could recommend was to take him to the ER if he was having trouble breathing.  Ed adamantly refused going to the hospital.  I called Dr. Cousins' office the next morning and was told we had two choices:  wait until the surgery which would be in two days, or go to the ER.  Again, Ed did not want to go to the ER.  He was in so much pain, even with me giving him pain medication every four hours as prescribed, that he couldn't bear the thought of sitting in the ER.  So we toughed it out for another day.  We told ourselves that surely when we went to pre-admission testing the following day, they would admit him when they saw how bad his condition had become.  Secretly, I was praying that they would admit him.  I was so worried about him that I felt he may not even be able to have the surgery in his weakened condition.

So Tuesday, September 29, we went to the hospital for PAT.  They ran him through another battery of tests, but upon getting the results of his bloodwork, saw that his white blood count was twice the normal level.  That fact alone made them decide to admit him and cancel the surgery for the following day.  They also did another chest X-ray and CAT scan, which they did not say much about.  After a while, he was taken to his hospital room and IV's were started for antibiotics and pain meds - the good stuff.  He began to get sleepy and I told him I was going home and to call me if he needed anything.

At home on the computer, I looked up the results of his reports today.  I know that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but I was alarmed at the CAT scan report.  It said, "Metastatic disease is worsening with increasing chest wall invasion and bone destruction."  It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or a brain surgeon) to understand what that means.  What I don't understand is that if the difference in this CAT scan and the last one was that pronounced, why weren't we told this by one of the doctors?  You can bet I'll be finding out some answers tomorrow.