Victor's Progress: Another Exciting Week

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Another Exciting Week - June 24th

Vic was doing okay on the TPN until late Sunday night. He went to get up and stepped on the feeder line to his port and wound up bending the needle. The TPN nurse instructed him on how to remove the needle (this was around 11:30 pm) At this time, I was sound asleep and had no idea what had happened until I woke at 4:00 to get ready for work and Vic came into the kitchen with his arms outstretched and asked me if I noticed anything different about him (he was thrilled to be off the pump!) He told me what happened and also said that he had to see the vascular surgeon before they put in another IV needle because they thought that something could be wrong with the port. The only day he could get an appointment with him was for Tuesday. Around Noon on Monday (hours after the IV was removed) Vic called and told me that his right leg was very swollen and red. He called his oncology office and they told him to come in immediately and that he would have to have a Doppler done on his leg.

Our son-in-law drove him to the hospital and I left work and met them at the Cancer Center. Vic hadn't eaten anything for lunch and by the time I got there, he was already feeling very sick with nausea. He had just been examined by the nurse practitioner, when he got sick (violently). Every nurse, not with another patient, came running. They immediately put him a reclining chair and started giving him IV anti-nausea medicine. The Doppler couldn't be done until he was settled down. The medicine did help and the Doppler was done around 5:30 and was found that he has one large and several small blood clots in his right leg. He was given blood thinning shots to inject into his abdomen once a day for a month. The oncologist also feels that he's filling with "fluid" again in his abdomen and that will have to be drained again - possibly by next week, if Victor keeps getting sick like this, just like before it was drained the first time.

Vic and I went to see the surgeon yesterday for his port and there seems to be nothing wrong with it. As far as the TPN, the nurse came this morning to insert a new needle, so for tonight, I'm good to go to torture him and set him up on his "feeding bag" again tonight.

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Vic's Story

As you may or may not know, Victor Barrales was diagnosed with colon cancer in April 2007.

His first surgery was on May 10, 2007 and it was believed that all of the cancer was removed but to improve his chances on a full recovery, chemotherapy treatment was advised for 6 months after the surgery.The chemotherapy drugs proved very detrimental to Vic’s health. He became very ill from the first treatment and had to be treated at the Sparta Cancer Center daily with intravenous infusions. His white cell count dropped extremely low and was prone to severe infections.

After his 10th chemo treatment, he was rushed to Newton Memorial Hospital with a very high pulse rate and the physicians at the hospital believed he was having a heart attack. It was determined by Vic’s cardiologist that the one form of chemo was causing this problem. He then decided to stop the chemotherapy and his first cancer marker test numbers came back normal. However, another test was taken in early January 2008 and the numbers came back unbelievably high indicating that the cancer had spread.

At the same time, a “lump” was discovered in the back of Victor’s leg and again, he had to have surgery to remove it. This, Thank God, proved to be noncancerous. Victor’s cancer marker test numbers, however, were now going up almost on a weekly basis. He went to see a new oncologist at the Carol Simon Cancer Center in Morristown and went through several Cat Scans. It was discovered that his cancer had indeed spread and was now in his peritoneal lining. He was immediately started on new types of chemotherapy with the hopes that this new cancer was caught early enough. This chemo did even more havoc to Vic’s body. He had to be hospitalized each time he was infused, sometimes twice in a month. He also came down with serious infections from one of the chemo drugs, which meant more surgery in August and again in December.

Now, Victor has been told that there is a surgery to help stop the spread of his cancer, but it is only performed by 4 doctors. Two doctors are located in Baltimore, one in Washington, DC and the other in California. This is very serious surgery, taking as long as 14 hours to perform and up to 21 days in the hospital. Complete recovery will be about 6 months. If the surgery is successful, it would mean not having to get chemo treatments unless the cancer returns.

Victor has been scheduled for this surgery (Cytoreductive) on April 14, 2009 by Dr. Sardi with Mercy Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. His latest Scans have shown that the cancer is showing in the surface of his liver but is still contained to the right side of his abdomen. We expect to be in Baltimore for a minimum of 3 weeks.

Victor's Progress

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Another Exciting Week - June 24th

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