How low can he go?

I picked Todd up at noon today for his 1:00pm radiation appointment so he and I could meet with his oncologist. (Thanks to Glen, Beth and Roni for driving earlier this week -- it was a relief to be back at work for three days in a row!).

Dr. Yom decided today that Todd needs a feeding tube. They calculate his weight at 172, down from about 193 when treatment started (10 lbs of that was from the cheesecake-and-pie binge to fatten him up before the rigors began). In his "birthday suit" he is probably 168 or 169. In the past week, the most he's gotten down in a day is a can of the fortified instant breakfast and a few spoons of applesauce, maybe 300 calories if he's lucky. I am hoping the feeding tube will help us get enough nutrition in him to help with the fatigue. He currently does not have a big problem swallowing, it's that the thick mucus triggers the gag reflex which causes him to vomit. So he drinks and eats just a tiny bit at a time, rests, and eats or drinks a tiny bit more, and the amount he consumes over the course of a day is just not enough. If he tries to increase the rate or the amount, it all comes back up.

Dr Yom wants him to have the tube for 2 months only. He will continue to go for IV fluids tomorrow (Friday), Saturday, Monday and Wednesday. We hope to get the tube in early next week; it has to be scheduled at Kaiser around his 1:00 radiation appointment at UCSF. We will see how it goes.

We left UCSF at 3pm, and then drove back to WC Kaiser for his IV hydration. I met with the oncologist there to discuss the feeding tube with her, got more hydration scheduled, got 2 prescriptions from the pharmacy, and sat with Todd in the infusion lab until he finished with his fluid infusion. We finally got home at 6 pm. (Luckily we're only 5 minutes from the hospital). He slept for half an hour and I woke him up to take some meds and he ate a few spoonfuls of vanilla pudding before going back to sleep. Jim and Kristie brought dinner (thank you, thank you!) and stayed for a glass of wine (on Kristie's recommendation I will try a glass of wine more often). The kids and I had dinner together.

Over the weekend will try and talk to Diane and Tom, two cancer survivors who have experience with a feeding tube. Meanwhile, it's bedtime. We have to be on the road to UCSF by 6:45 am for the early radiation and nutritionist appointments tomorrow. Vince has the afternoon trek back to UCSF so I can go in to work for a while. Good night!