A Moment of Truth

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As Nelson wrote in his last blog post, he’s looking forward to the scans that are scheduled to happen this Wednesday. It will have been six weeks since he started taking the immunotherapy pills (two each day), and the upcoming scans will be a moment of truth: Are the pills working or not?

In recent days Nelson has been feeling almost like his old self, breathing well without extra oxygen, cutting back on the pain pills, sleeping less, and dealing with only mild nausea. But as is true of this cancer, no matter how good he feels, there’s always a new crisis quietly brewing in the background.

On Friday, September 16, he, Ann Sophie, and Will drove the 80 miles to Luke’s house to spend a quiet weekend away from the apartment and from all things medical. But during the night, Nelson spiked a fever (102.7) accompanied by chills so powerful he shook all over. His oxygen slipped to 80 with a heartbeat of 160.

 On Saturday, the high fever and chills returned, prompting them to call back to Mayo’s for a doctor’s opinion. Their advice was for Nelson to head for the ER…again. So they left Luke’s in a rush, and he was checked into Emergency by late afternoon.

It was another nine hours before doctors finished all their tests and had the results in hand. Since his numbers seemed to be where they’ve been recently, many in the normal range, they weren’t sure what was causing the fevers, chills, fast heart, and low oxygen.

A thousand mg of Tylenol brought the fever down, but they hesitated to let him go without a reason for his symptoms. They did have a couple of ideas, though. The doctor told Nelson, “These pills you’re taking (immunotherapy) are hard core drugs.” In other words, it’s possible the weeks of taking them have accumulated somehow to now cause his body to react negatively.

Their other idea was that his cutting back on the opioids might be causing the same withdrawal symptoms as any addictive drug would cause.

Nelson hoped not to be admitted to the hospital again, and though the doctor suggested an overnight stay for monitoring, he chose instead to head home. But that wasn’t the end of it.

Today the fever and other symptoms have returned, and though Ann Sophie urged him to return to the ER, Nelson wanted to battle it out at home. They did call the doctor, who suggested they “pause” the immunotherapy pills for now. Nelson has four appointments at the Clinic this week, and as always, the medical staff will be current on all that’s occurred in these last couple of days.

While these new negative developments hang over Nelson and Ann Sophie, they did get some good news at the ER. A scan showed that the initial tumor, the one that has been causing Nelson to cough till he wretched, has shrunk by nearly half. We like to think that surely those powerful little pills are, indeed, beginning to overwhelm the cancer. His coughing has almost completely stopped.

Another plus is that his severe neck pain of a couple of weeks ago is gradually improving. They don’t know conclusively if it was a broken bone or cancer in the spine, but whatever it was, it’s been able to heal itself. This is refreshing news.

And so we await this week’s appointments, hoping for new hope—and a very positive moment of truth.

“Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.” (Ephesians 6:10)

New News

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I had a friend from Hawaii message me looking for an update and when I responded, he said, “Thank God, I was worried for a minute there.”
I understand that. No news isn’t always good news, so here’s some news. When Ann Sophie, Will and I first arrived in Minnesota and got going with the Mayo thing, we had appointments almost every weekday, and usually a few. I was at the clinic Monday thru Friday and worried if I would need them when they were closed over the weekend. If it was outside office hours, I’d go to the ER.
These days, the appointments are much less, the next one a scan on Sept.21. But it’s a big one. When you are in chemotherapy, you might feel better and hope things are going better on your insides, but you really can’t be sure until someone looks in there and tells you for sure. This CT scan is where we find out how the meds have been working. If you remember, I’m taking a couple chemo pills that are hopefully reducing and eventually eliminating the Cancer that almost killed me a short while ago. They are part of a “targeted therapy” taking the place of the standard chemo I started out with. If this works like we are hoping and praying for, I could at some point be cancer free!
Sept.21 is when we find out just exactly how it’s been going.
As for me, I am doing much better symptom-wise. The swelling in my legs, feet, stomach, and back has all but disappeared which is awesome for me. The fluid drain I had in both lungs has decreased significantly. The right one stopped flowing completely and was removed. The left one still produces about 150ml each night. But that’s way less than before when it was at 750ml.

One of the ways you tell how well treatment is working is to look at the symptoms. Less fluid means less reaction to Cancer, so we hope for the best. The only unknown is steady pain in my neck. This appeared about a month ago and we have not been able to get a hold of it or find out a reason for it. The docs have theories that it could be Cancer in my spine, which from an MRI scan 2 weeks ago, is still present-no bigger, no smaller. Is the pain coming from this? If so, they’ll do radiation treatment. I really would rather not have this and hope that’s not the case, but it’s possible. To me, it feels more like a sore neck you slept on wrong.
Ever since this ordeal started, I’ve been taking a medicine cabinet full of drugs, so these could be reacting to each other or maybe a side effect from one or more of them. Ibuprofen helps with the pain and morphine doesn’t, interestingly enough. We hope for good news on the 21st! Anyway, that’s it for now. Thank you for your prayers and support.

Plus Outweighs Minus

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The old adage “no news is good news” applies to the lack of recent blog posts. Nelson is doing better than ever in Rochester, Minnesota, on his journey through these six months (so far) of cancer treatment.

Since our last report ten days ago, lots has happened—or I should say hasn’t happened, since there have been no visits to the ER and no hospitalizations. And here are some other things that are, thankfully, no longer happening either:

  1. Nelson’s right lung has dried up in terms of producing fluid, and the catheter has now been removed.
  2. His swollen right arm and both legs are much less swollen after diuretics removed 20 pounds of fluid from his tissues.
  3. His appetite is back.
  4. His nausea is nearly gone.
  5. His doctors believe he’s almost strong enough to go to the full dose of targeted immunotherapy. (When he had Covid, along with simultaneous other challenges, they’d started him on only a half-dose so as not to overwhelm him.)
  6. His daily dose of morphine has been decreased by a third, so his pain is less.
  7. He doesn’t use oxygen at all now and maintains levels between 92-96. He can take short walks and go on low-key outings.

None of these things would have been possible a month ago, and Nelson’s overall situation has improved dramatically. As Ann Sophie put it, “He’s more of his old self now, interested in projects and very sharp mentally.”

Of course he still has lung cancer, so there are some negatives that remain:

  1. His left lung is still producing fluid, though it’s much reduced, measuring about 300 ml each day.
  2. He still struggles with fatigue, so outings have to be brief with space between for rest. This is quite the opposite of Nelson’s healthy self when he was hard working and loved adventure, the more the better. But his work now is to fight this powerful disease, and he is fighting well.
  3. Though the fluid being produced by the cancer cells seems to be decreasing, his swollen feet and bloated abdomen are still problems.
  4. A new development is a sore neck with pain traveling from neck to shoulder. Doctors are watching this and will most likely do an MRI to investigate. His team has told them not to worry about this, but as Ann Sophie said, “Easier said than done.”

Thursday Nelson will have another blood test to determine if he’s strong enough to handle the full dose of immunotherapy. If they decide to do that, he will no doubt experience an increase in nausea. But they’re ready with all the anti-nausea drugs he might need, and all of us hope the stronger therapy will agree with him. A double-dose would mean a doubly strong attack against every cancer cell.

In the mean time, we continue praying—and trusting the God who we know has a good plan for Nelson’s life.

“Trust in the Lord, and he will act.” (Psalm 37:5)