1/28/14

To the point, Darrel has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Background:
When we were in Mexico, his right leg was swollen and a bit painful. When we got back he was diagnosed with blood clots. At first just superficial, then DVTs.

He was put on Lovenox and warfarin, then just warfarin on 12/6.

His legs continued to get worse and develop clots until shortly after Christmas he was in enough pain that he wanted pain pills – he had never taken them in his life.

He worked on January 2 but was unable to go back on the 3rd. Worked again on the 17th and 21st, trying to just grin and bear it, but the pain was unbearable.

We have seen an internal med specialist, a vascular surgeon, and then another internal med specialist. He had several ultra sounds. They did blood tests of all kinds and they all came back negative.

Finally, last Thursday, they decided the warfarin wasn’t working for him and put him back on Lovenox. Over the weekend he worsened to where he could hardly walk. I emailed doctor on Monday and they called and told him to go to urgent care.

We spent a lovely 7 hours there. He got an ultra sound again and a blood test. His INR came back at 1.1 so they decided to put him in VM and put a filter in his vein to catch clots and also on Heparin. So that was Monday night.

Tuesday morning they did a CT scan. We had gotten one scheduled at GHC but it wasn’t until the 10th. I had asked the doctor last Friday to get it moved up, but…you know how it can go sometimes in our system.

They found lesions on his pancreas and ‘innumerable’ ones on his liver. I read the CT yesterday. He had also had a clot go into his lungs at some point, small so not a lot of damage.

Just so happened Dr Eric Feldman was the oncologist on call here at VM this week so he will be his oncologist. We talked with him on Tuesday and he thought they would do a biopsy on Wed but they would have to take him off the heparin for 8 hours. They had sent off the CA 19-9 blood test too which would be an indicator of pancreatic cancer.

The CA 19-9 came back at over 60,000 so they said they wouldn’t do a biopsy because of the risk of clots, etc.

Had his first chemo yesterday. Gemcitabine and Paclitaxel. 3weeks on, 1 week off for 2 months, then another CT.

So, still in hospital trying to get blood clotting levels where they want them on heparin, then will switch him to twice a day Lovenox until that levels out, then home.