Busy Days

The days seem to be consumed with many, many Dr. appointments. Some appointments bring good news, others cause concern and apprehension. To say it's a roller coaster would be an understatement. Recovery from the kidney surgery continues to be on track and all is going well there. Blood pressure seems to be good. Swelling around the eye, not so good. Blood sugar levels, not so good.
My Dad was weaned off the prednisone, in hopes that the swelling around his eye would naturally be decreasing and that his blood sugar would become more stable. Unfortunately, neither thing happened. One of his Doctors expresses concern over this, another one says its too soon to sound the alarm. Because of the continued swelling, his opthamolgist believes that the tumor is growing. On the other hand, the radiation oncologist says that he does not believe that the tumor is growing. His assessment is that the area surrounding the tumor is just really inflamed from the radiation, making the eye remain swollen, and it will probably be another month to a month in a half before we will be able to tell if the tumor has shrunk. The radiation fails ony 5% of the time, so we remain hopeful that the results will show that the tumor in fact has shrunk.
So the new game plan -- its back on a high dose of the prednisone to get that swelling down with an increase in the amount of prescribed insulin plus an additional oral medicine to keep the blood sugar at a stable level throughout the day.
In my previous post, I had mentioned that there would be a PET scan performed this week to determine if the cancer has metastisized to any other areas. However, prior to the PET scan, an injection of a glucose solution that contains a radioactive tracer is given. You may guess where I'm going with this...because my Dad's blood sugar level was too high, they were unable to inject him with the solution and the scan could not be performed. The PET scan is now rescheduled for Monday morning - which will be after several days of the increase in the insulin dosage, and at a time of day when the blood sugar is typically at a lower level. Hopefully it will go off without a hitch this time and the scan will not show any spread of the cancer.
A kaleidoscope of emotions seem to have become our new kind of normal. We try not to careen out of control over a set of results or the lack thereof, but sometimes its just hard to remain calm, cool and collected! Thanks for checking in and supporting us in thought and prayer.