Daniel's Update #1

Go to content

Daniel's Update #1

Motojicho.us
Published by Nevada Motojicho in This & That · 19 September 2019
Tags: This&That


Daniel's Update #1

It’s been a whirlwind the last two weeks starting with Daniel’s emergency room visit in New York to the return home and now meeting and scheduling with the oncologist that our friend arranged for us.  The friend has been our friend for over 40 years and is practicing medicine somewhere in Florida now but in the past, he’s been the medical director for the Nathan Adelson Hospice here in Las Vegas so he knows all the good oncologists and sure enough, he got us the best.  We feel blessed and believe everyone’s prayers and positive thoughts have gotten this for Daniel.

We were able to get the oncology appointment scheduled last Thursday morning and we’ve met with the doctor.  She is wonderful!  She’s not only a calming, gentle and positive person, this woman was written up in Newsweek back in 2015 and listed as one of the top cancer doctors in the country.  So, thank you everyone for sending light.

As I said, we met the oncologist and she asked if we were prepared to go back in the hospital and have the PIC line and a stomach portal to bypass the tumor which by-the-way turns out to be more than just a mass at the base of his esophagus, that sucker is a foot long.  The PIC (I think that’s what it goes by) is a portable injection catheter for the chemo as well as for blood draws.  The stomach portal is for the obvious, so we had to get connected to a medical liquid food supplier for supplies and a nutritionist and whatnot.  I say we had to get connected as if we had to open the phone book or something – no, everything is kind of all coordinated together among the agencies and they are getting all the insurance approvals and the like together and we just have to schedule it all in a planner.

We are not fooling ourselves – this is serious, but we feel confident in everything the doctor is telling us.  We know there’s a long road ahead, but we also feel that the opportunities that we’ve been given with regard to how quickly things are falling into place, happened for a reason.  Remember, this oncologist’s first opening for new patients isn’t until November and here we are already getting treatment.



Yes, Daniel was re-admitted to the hospital supposedly for an overnight'er for those placements mentioned above.  As the doctor came into the room to schedule his discharge, she said she wanted to keep him another day so he could start his first chemo treatment.  A baby treatment to see how he tolerates it both in blood work and in nauseous tolerance.  He did fine but because the treatment takes a total of 7 hours for both the chemo and aftermath hydration, we didn’t get checked out of the hospital until this past Sunday.

On Monday we were supposed to go to the oncologist’s office to pick up some prescriptions and to schedule Daniel’s weekly chemo sessions but that got delayed until day before yesterday because her staff had no clue what she was ordering on a Sunday until they would arrive to work the next day.  In addition, they were to refer us to another doctor for radiation treatments that will coincide with their weekly chemo treatments.  The radiation treatments will be a daily treatment for an unknown period until we meet with that doctor.  We are scheduled for an initial consultation with that doctor this next Monday the 23rd.

Anyway, the cases of food arrived yesterday.  The delivery added to the supply provided by the hospital prior to Daniel’s release last Sunday which was something like 50 or 60 cartons – roughly 8 ounces each.  Like a ditz I come home and make room in the cupboard; clearing shelves and moving things from here to there.  Then the delivery came – OMG, what was I thinking?  It’s not just the food, there are giant syringes and all kinds of trays and shit – where am I going to store all these boxes?  They are in the entryway right now.  The house now looks like it could be in an episode of a hoarder’s TV show.

We got Daniel’s chemo treatments scheduled day before yesterday.  He will have weekly treatments on Thursday’s beginning today.  I don’t know how many treatments he faces but I know that since the cancer is aggressive, so is the doctor and I believe the doctor when she says this is treatable.  She has been up front and told us that this cancer is advanced, but she won’t know what stage until she gets another report back from Mount Sinai in New York.  She is looking for some kind of enzyme from the biopsy to further define the tumor.  Once she gets whatever she’s looking for, she started talking other advanced technologies that didn’t exist when my mother had cancer 20 years ago.  A lot has changed.

Today will be a full chemo treatment for Daniel; remember the one he had in the hospital last Sunday was a mini treatment to see how he would tolerate whatever the doctor is mixing up.  As far as my understanding, the doctor is combining two different chemo products into each treatment session.  Daniel came through last Sunday without any side effects so we’re hoping the same will be true after today.  Wish us luck – we’ll let you know how it turns out on the other side.

An Update on Daniel is located at:  http://motojicho.us/blog/index.php?daniel-s-update--2


Comments has an email field but the address doesn't need to be real.  It's a software issue, don't ask...  :(
If you'd like to leave a comment but don't wish to provide your real email, just type something like, 123@123.com in that field. :)

Bookmark and Share

There are no reviews yet.
0
0
0
0
0
Back to content