If you are going to be a fly, be a big green one!
James returned at 8:15 pm from interventional radiology where the embolization of his bleeding liver occurred last night. He was exhausted, and frankly miserable. Lindsey and I tried to get him as comfortable as we could before leaving as we had been up since 4 am. They were giving him fluids and IV pain medication through the night as he was unable to move his leg for another 4 hours and the procedure itself can cause pain. The stenting of his Inferior Vena Cava that is 90% occluded was canceled. It was deemed too risky…they are afraid part of the Tumor thrombus will break off thereby causing a major heart attack, pulmonary embolis. or stroke. Last night, James complained of chest pain, EKG was slightly abnormal but cardiac enzymes are so far negative. However, he did receive another unit of blood giving him more oxygen carrying Red blood cells. James is going to start radiation today. The liver doesn’t like radiation so they have physicists working on how best to give him some radiation to shrink the tumor near where it is occluding the artery but not damage the portion of healthy liver that he has left. It is the only possible solution for this life threatening complication of this cancer at this point. His room is literally a revolving door, between surgery, oncology, IR team, radiation oncology, palliative care, pharmacy, spiritual care, nurses, residents for all the teams, people that mean well but wake him up to say hello. He is EXHAUSTED. They are also going to have a meeting of the minds (think tank) on Monday to see what else if anything they can do. The Oncologists continues to reach out across the country to find any research or Specialist that knows the best treatment for this very aggressive cancer. In the meantime, we are hoping the immunotherapy is working but we will not know for sometime.
The McVey Report 