Tuesday Evening Update

The surgical oncologist who assisted Dr. Berkowitz with the GI portion of her surgery visited Mom this evening. She re-explained the surgical procedure she performed and Mom asked several questions. She mentioned that almost all of Mom's small bowel was extremely dilated above the section with the tumors and that they removed the fluid from her small bowel. The doctor mentioned that she was very backed up. The NG tube through her nose into her stomach is removing fluids from her stomach that can no longer move through her bowels because they are "sleeping." She will receive fluid nutrition until the bowels "wake up." Mom was encouraged to sit up and walk. She will no longer need a breathing mask (which was really uncomfortable) and they will also reduce her fluid intake. Then Mom had a CT scan of her chest, which came back negative (this is a good thing) - there was no pulmonary blood clot, which they suspected due to her abnormal blood pressure. Then Mom was moved back to the Connors Center.

Later, Mom's oncologist, Dr. Susan Berlin stopped by. She pointed out that the pathology report is not back yet, but she hopes Mom's bowel will be functioning soon. The next couple days will be very important in determining Mom's treatment plan. Mom will probably be in the hospital through next week at which point they hope to begin chemotherapy. Once the pathology report comes in they will be able to get a read on the right chemotherapy agents. Chemotherapy will be administered through an outpatient clinic at Dana Farber. Some of the agents she thought might be possibilities include Taxil or Carpoplactin.

After Dr. Berlin left, Mom was moved to a chair in her room. During the move, her NG tube (the tube going through one of her nostrils down to her stomach) got snagged on a nearby object and pulled out of her nose. This was quite painful for Mom who began to sob. The tube performs a necessary function of draining stomach fluids to prevent them from passing into the bowel, effectively resting the bowel. Because of its importance the tube needs to be reinserted. This has been quite a taxing event for Mom, whose nose has been extremely irritated already because of the tube.