Darrel slept basically all day yesterday and then all night last night. He did get up at one point and managed to eat a little dinner. But that was about the extent of his awakeness.

He was tossing and turning and groaning around 4:00. When I asked him if he was in pain, he said he had a bad headache (he never gets headaches but has had them a couple times this week) so I got up and got him a couple of tylenol and pain pills. He decided to go out and lay on the couch.

When I got up he seemed to be doing a little better but lay on the couch most of the morning. (I think the headache was either lack of coffee or dehydration since he didn’t have coffee yesterday and barely drank anything.)

Then about 12:30, he decided to go pick the beans. When he came in his calf was hurting him. (He told me just last night that his calf had been hurting for a week. I was like, how come you didn’t say anything before?! Maybe it is blood clots!)

I called the doctor’s office and talked to the nurse. She spoke to Dr. Feldman and he wanted us to go to urgent care and get a ultra sound.

So, off we went. I dropped Darrel off at the UC door and went and parked. When I walked into the waiting room there was no one in there! Darrel was in triage, so I went in and he was immediately taken into a room. The doctor came in within about 10 minutes! After examining him, he thought it might be claudication.

Claudication is pain or cramping due to inadequate blood flow to muscles. This is caused most commonly by hardening of the arteries. This is probably back to his varicose veins. It gets worse with exercise and can eventually hurt even when resting.

They did an ultra sound and there weren’t any new clots, and most of the old ones were resolved. The doctor came in and said there wasn’t anything urgent since there weren’t clots and to talk to his doctor about the claudication.

After fighting our way home in Friday night traffic, he decided to try to walk around the block. He got up the hill from the house and had to turn around. Came back in great pain. He is now laying with his legs up and took his pain meds.

If your are interested, look up claudication and, so far, the symptoms seem to point right to it. We will see what the doctor has to say next week. The UC doc said it took surgery to repair, but with all Darrel has going on he wanted to give it a week to see how it goes.

Another exciting day in the life of a pancreatic cancer patient and his spouse!