August 7, 2009

OK, things are getting tense and many thoughts are going through our minds. It is so much easier to type these words than the speak them. I hope I will give you enough information and thank you, in advance, for not calling, as it is so hard to keep things going. You have my email address and I could respond late at night, if you want to do that. I always relay any messages to John, so feel free to send him a message at: njmiles@mac.com.

So, Wednesday, John started getting greater pain than he had been having, which was still pretty heavy. In all the years we have been together, I have never heard him moan in pain. So, at 7:00 P.M. I took him to the ER and called is doctor. Within minutes of getting the IV in and starting pain medication, his heart went out of control. They were scurrying around like a flurry. They didn't know if he was having a heart attack or possibly a blood clot. They took a scan of his chest and reported back that the lesion on the heart had enlarged and was causing the heart to over work. They also took a scan of the stomach area.

The pain meds were not touching him and after a solid day and night, they took all his pain meds away and put a stronger one in a patch. They said it was 10 times stronger than morphine. Well, it took awhile for it to kick in, but last night he was feeling great relief.

It was our 32 wedding anniversary and the nurses staff put an announcement up on the board and brought us a large ice cream sundae to share. It was pretty touching.

The results came back on the stomach and the doctor came in and told us the mass had increased in size and the cancer was more or less advancing at a rapid rate. It is a very fast and aggressive cancer. We discussed a few options to take at this point and we are going to bypass the radiation treatment as they feel it is not working, due to no pain relief and the enlarged tumor. So, John will start on the first chemo treatment and in 30 days they will retake the pet scan and see if the treatment is helping.

For now, they are keeping him in the hospital until the heart gets regulated (by medications) and then we proceed from there.

Until next time, we send our love to all and thank you so much for the support we are receiving in so many ways, from so many places throughout the country.