The follow up GI appointment

Its been a while since I posted progress about Phil. Let me start off by saying, this summer (according to Phil) he has been doing pretty well. And I agree, to an extent. Last week was horrible. It started out with all of us catching a stomach bug. For Phil that meant his pancreas decided to do its thing and not work. Thursday, Friday and Saturday Phil ran a temperature of 105 degrees. He had fevers, chills, hot and cold, aches, pains, the left quadrant of his belly was swollen, he threw up a bunch and not to mention when he ran the fever of 105, he was delirious and doesn't remember a whole lot from those three days. Back to the appointment. Still not sure if its Chronic pancreatitis. Phil now has a standing order to get blood work done when an attack occurs. Next up, blood work. Phil's GI is going to run more tests, even for weird things like a male only hep. He's going to have an MRCP and an ERCP. As for the diet stick to low fat, and when the attacks occur he is on a liquid only diet, home made protein shakes, Ensure and Boost. Phil is happy he can have meat. The only catch, it has to be sliced deli meat. :/ Most of you who read this will probably think I'm the most horrible wife, but we asked the question about cancer. Often there are no signs or symptoms. And most of the people who get pancreatic cancer are men in their 60's or 70's. The doctor was very understanding. He understood Phil's reasoning for not going to ER last week during the presumed attack. Understood to a T. So more testing is in order, go to ER if another attack occurs, and it will be after January before he can get for a follow up with the GI (he's a very good doctor but very hard to get into). Thats all the news we have.

Update

I haven't updated Phil's medical progress for a while. I'm not sure where to start or even how to describe whats going on. Everything, I suppose. He's better, but with getting better, new things develop. Its hard to explain. Phil has an "On" and "Off" switch. Over the past several months, his doctors have come to terms with this. By "On" and "Off" I mean either Phil is laying on the couch or in bed, or he's up and running a million miles an hour. And I literally mean, running. Mowing the lawn, doing house work, working on his hobbies, he won't stop until whatever he is working on is finished. If he's not doing that he's on the couch. He has developed a chest pain that usually happens once a day. He describes like someone stabbing him with a knife, and twisting it around in his chest. The belly pain is still off and on. He gets cold sweats, and hot flashes. Its been an interesting ride. Wish I had more to report.

Its been over a month

Its been over a month since I've posted anything about Phillip and his crazy health conditions.
After canceling 3 colonoscopy appointments the doctors suggested he make an office visit with his GI.
Today was the day of that office visit.
The nodes/lumps or cysts that they found on his kidneys/pancreas and some other organs, will have to be removed.
He has some sort of severe intestinal infection, so that will have to be cleared up.
Basically, he will have surgery at some point either at the end of this month or beginning of next month.

They also want to do another test, but over the phone, Phil couldn't remember what it was called off hand.
I think we are finally getting somewhere. I will learn more when he gets home from his appointment.

Unfortunately I couldn't go because I had to wait for the painters.
But of course, being the person that I am, I made a list for the doctors visit.
Symptoms Phil has had over the last 5 weeks
Questions to ask the doctor
Then a list of suggestions to monitor his insidey parts.

Trip to the ER

While for most people trips to the ER are scare and infrequent.
For Phil, ER is a last resort. When all of the doctors on our "team" can't figure out what to do for him. They actually have recommended that we go to ER while at the doctors offices. But usually Phil will take any other path than to go to ER. He hates hosptials.
I'm actually really proud of Phil. From September 2010-April 2011 Phil had already stayed in the hospital 3 times.
He has been back to ER only twice since April 2011 and both times he was checked in but not admitted to the hospital.
Last night was one of those two times.
I always push for an ER visit. Why? Because I don't know what to do to help Phil when he becomes uncomfortable. I'm not a doctor, and I feel that doctor would have a better idea of what is going on and could help him out. I think maybe I get confused, because this is not always the case.
Yesterday I called DHA (Digestive Health Associates), to check in with the nurse because Phil wasn't able to hold down food or liquids, which was an issue prior to starting prep for the colonoscopy and endoscopy. The nurse became concerned when I told her Zolfan wasn't really working (Zolfan is an anti-nausea medicine) and he had a temperature of 103 plus he had blood tests that came back last week that the pancreatitis was still active. So she suggested we go to Urgent Care or ER to at least get Phil pumped full of liquids.

We first made our way to Renown. Poor choice on our part. 4 hour wait. So we headed back over to our side of town, to Northern Nevada Medical Center. We waited maybe 20 minutes, if that. I'm really glad we got there when we did. The rush came about 2 hours after Phil was taken to the back and given a temporary room.

My dad was awesome and came and took Ava to his house. Although several others were happy to take her, I have to say I'm glad my dad took her. We were in ER until 10pm. I can't imagine anyone else having to deal with Ava attitude on a work night, with a toddler who thinks she runs the world (sometimes) two hours past her bedtime. Maybe its just because we are her parents, but she has been a crazy girl this week. I'm glad Ava didn't have to sit with us in ER. Lots of people were stomach sick (YUCK).
Phil went through 1 bag of fluids in less than 30 minutes. He had four doses of pain medicine, I probably should have written everything down that they gave him, but I didn't. He was also given Motrin,
They took tons of blood, they did another CT scan. They even took about 4-6 samples of blood cultures. They put it in a machine that will test for blood infections. The results for that should come in within a few days.
Mostly he was given fluids and broke the fever.
The CT showed some swelling in his colon but no sign of diverticulitis or kidney stones. So they had some fancy name for a colon infection, and gave him antibiotics, which should also help if he has a bacterial blood infection as well. If its a virus, there is nothing they can do.

So at 10pm we finally got to leave the hospital. 5 hours after being admitted.
Phil still hasn't been able to sleep well. And the doctors think I'm kidding when I suggest to give him something as powerful as horse tranquilizers. I'm not kidding, but I don't want Phil to end up dead either.

Anyways, Phil is out of the hospital.
The colonoscopy and endoscopy are postponed, again.

And hopefully, whatever it is will be cleared up by Monday so Phil can rest up and prepare for our trip to San Diego next week to see our cousin Julie get married!

Pulmonary Appointment

Today was Phil's Pulmonary Appointment.
Who knew there was a doctors that sole focus was the lungs?!
Phil was pretty anxious for this appointment. With nodes (we were told 4) on his lungs, we didn't know what to expect.

The doctor was great! He had a personality, and a sense of humor.
He addressed both Phil's asthma and the nodes in his lungs.

Usually there is a reason or explanation behind asthma but Phil doesn't really seem to have any unusual reasons other than allergies. I don't understand all the medical stuff to explain anymore.

The nodes on his lungs- nothing to worry about for right now. They are too small to tell anything from the scans. They are smaller than the pinky finger nail. They aren't big enough for a biopsy. So the doctor ordered another CT to be done in 6 months.
If there are more of if they have gotten bigger, Phil will be given a sugar substance and then will be put through a PET Scan which tests strictly for cancer. But the doctor is 99% sure that these are benign, or even just scar tissue.

So nothing new to report. We don't need to go back to the Pulmonary doctor for another 6 months.

Glad to know that the nodes were nothing to be concerned about.

Colonoscopy cancelled

Update
We had to cancel the colonoscopy and endoscopy today.

The tri-lite- prep did not do anything to Phil.
If you don't know anything about colonoscopy's- you can go to www.colonoscopyfordummies.com or www.colonoscopyfordummies.org

The test is rescheduled for March 16.

Just a random update

So maybe I just feel guilty because I stay home, and I don't "work" at the moment, but I promise I don't sit around doing nothing.
I did get a nice break when Phil was actually doing better, we didn't have as many doctors appointments.
Once the celiac plexus stopped working, we started going to more doctors appointments.
So my days are full of phone calls to doctors appointments. Yesterday, I spent over 3-4 hours on the phone with doctors. This morning I spent the morning running around getting medications, stopping by doctors offices in person and calling doctors.

I feel like a crazy person with all of these appointments.
I feel bad I don't have a "real" job.
But in the long run, I'm happy to have extra time with my husband. We've gotten really close.
I'm so happy to have more time with my husband and quality time with our daughter in the evenings. We have so much fun together.