Update from Stanford
Finally! It looks as though my blog is working again. I've been sending emails the last few days with updates since my blog was down. Below is the latest update I sent out...
I had a very rough night last night. Around 9:30pm I started having rigors and they had to give me a dose of Demarol (a narcotic) to control them. I had another episode around 2-3am and again had to have more Demarol. About an hour later I spiked a high fever (above 102F), my blood pressure was very low (70/40), and my pulse was high (140). They gave me a bolus of fluids, which has now made me puffy and uncomfortable. Since my blood pressure is still on the low side, they won't give me any Lasix to get rid of the fluids. As usual, I've already gained 2-3 lbs since being admitted yesterday.
This morning I got to see my oncologist. She came by to tell me they were going to do a CT scan. The pulmonary team wants to see the results before deciding for sure whether I need a bronchoscopy or not. If there's no blockage or collapsing of the lung from the pneumonia, they might skip on doing one. My platelets were still on the low side, my white count went up, and my red count is down again. I will be receiving two units of blood shortly. This should help give me a little more energy and raise my blood pressure, but at the same time it will make me puffier. As you can tell by now, there's nothing I hate more than feeling puffy/bloated.
I'm still on IV antibiotics every six hours. It's called Zosyn and is in the Penicillin family. Hopefully the antibiotics will start clearing up my pneumonia soon so I can get back on track with chemo.
The pulmonary team ended up coming this evening and they said they would be moving forward with the bronchoscopy. It's scheduled for 2pm tomorrow, meaning I won't be able to have any food/fluids after midnight. They seem to think that I don't have pneumonia, but rather some other type of infection or progression of my disease. It's crazy having so many people say different things. I honestly don't know whom to believe anymore.
After the pulmonary team, I was seen by the infection disease specialist that I have been following up with the past few months. He went over all kinds of bacteria/viral/fungal infections that could be a possibility. He decided it would be best to add two more antibiotics to my regimen to cover all bases.
Thank you all for your emails and e-cards. I really appreciate all your thoughts and well wishes! If you don't get a reply from me, please know that I really appreciate everything; I'm just too exhausted to write back to everyone individually.
I had a very rough night last night. Around 9:30pm I started having rigors and they had to give me a dose of Demarol (a narcotic) to control them. I had another episode around 2-3am and again had to have more Demarol. About an hour later I spiked a high fever (above 102F), my blood pressure was very low (70/40), and my pulse was high (140). They gave me a bolus of fluids, which has now made me puffy and uncomfortable. Since my blood pressure is still on the low side, they won't give me any Lasix to get rid of the fluids. As usual, I've already gained 2-3 lbs since being admitted yesterday.
This morning I got to see my oncologist. She came by to tell me they were going to do a CT scan. The pulmonary team wants to see the results before deciding for sure whether I need a bronchoscopy or not. If there's no blockage or collapsing of the lung from the pneumonia, they might skip on doing one. My platelets were still on the low side, my white count went up, and my red count is down again. I will be receiving two units of blood shortly. This should help give me a little more energy and raise my blood pressure, but at the same time it will make me puffier. As you can tell by now, there's nothing I hate more than feeling puffy/bloated.
I'm still on IV antibiotics every six hours. It's called Zosyn and is in the Penicillin family. Hopefully the antibiotics will start clearing up my pneumonia soon so I can get back on track with chemo.
The pulmonary team ended up coming this evening and they said they would be moving forward with the bronchoscopy. It's scheduled for 2pm tomorrow, meaning I won't be able to have any food/fluids after midnight. They seem to think that I don't have pneumonia, but rather some other type of infection or progression of my disease. It's crazy having so many people say different things. I honestly don't know whom to believe anymore.
After the pulmonary team, I was seen by the infection disease specialist that I have been following up with the past few months. He went over all kinds of bacteria/viral/fungal infections that could be a possibility. He decided it would be best to add two more antibiotics to my regimen to cover all bases.
Thank you all for your emails and e-cards. I really appreciate all your thoughts and well wishes! If you don't get a reply from me, please know that I really appreciate everything; I'm just too exhausted to write back to everyone individually.
posted by Erika @ 11:32 PM
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