Hershey Med ER and Memorial Sloan Kettering
So, on May 28th at the direction of my doctors in New York I went to the ER at Hershey Med. I had been bloating more and more without any sort of relaxing in between for the past 4 or 5 days and the pressure had built up to the point where my stomach was stretched as tight as a drum and the bloating was starting to spread out toward my hips because there was no more room at the front. As a matter of fact the internal pressure on my stomach was so bad that it was causing my to vomit every few minutes, it was so bad I couldn't even keep down water and all that was coming up was bile.
I was kept overnight due to the usual SNAFU status of that hospital and on Friday they drained 5 liters of fluid from my abdomen to relieve the pressure. My stomach went back to something resembling normal and I felt better than I had in over a week. After they made sure that I could eat and drink without issue they sent me home.
Over the next few days I started bloating again, but no where near as bad as before I went in to the ER. The only problem was I ended up with a short bout of UTI and was having to run to the bathroom to urinate far more frequently than before I went in to the ER. I wasn't too worried because I knew that my regularly scheduled appointment at Memorial Sloan Kettering was coming up on the 4th and if something new was wrong they would catch it and take care of it.
On the 4th Mom and I took the train up to New York for my appointments. I think I'm starting to get the hang of the subway system in New York finally. My CT appointment was uneventful and afterwords we got lamb and rice from the same street vendor that was there last time before heading off to the second appointment of the day.
At Dr. Schwartz's office we got more good news. My tumor has shrunk even more and is now about the size of one of those mini pickling cucumbers! It's looking like the Rapamune is going to take care of getting rid of the tumor without me having to have surgery. The doctor prescribed a sleep aid for me to help take care of my insomnia and told me that I don't need to worry about the frequency of my urination. It's just the fluid in my abdomen compressing my bladder so it can't hold as much as it is supposed to.
As far as the bloating, Dr. Schwarz says that it is being caused by my lymph glands. They have had to work extra hard for so long to pump fluid because of the tumor resting on the tubes that they are now pushing more fluid than necessary now that the tumor has shrunk and the fluid has no where to go but into my abdominal cavity. My body can't reabsorb it fast enough so they are going to have me come up to New York again sometime in the next week or so (I should be getting the date on Monday) to have a catheter placed in my abdomen that will allow me to drain the excess fluid as needed on my own at home.
It won't be like with the pic line I had coming out of my back where the bag is hooked up all the time. Pretty much I'll sit down to watch TV or do something that doesn't require me to get up and move a lot and have the bag hooked up for about and hour or two to drain off enough fluid to relieve the pressure.
I'll have to be in New York for two days since they will be keeping me overnight at the hospital there. The catheter will have to be in for several months, the doctor says that the bloating may continue for upwards of a year, but it won't cause any sort of interruption in my daily life.
Other than that life has been fairly uneventful. Mom and I finally went and saw Star Trek on Friday. I don't know how I made it through the whole movie with my bladder as small as it is currently! The movie was really good and while we both had minor nitpicks, overall we enjoyed it. I've been getting more into beading lately and have been getting more ideas since I received a catalog I requested from a bead company.
Hopefully I'll be in good enough shape to go to the bluegrass festival that Mom and I have tickets to. That's in the next week or so, so I'm hoping that the trip to New York for my catheter is sooner rather than later so that I'll be recovered in time for the festival. We told them that we had plans to be out of town that weekend so that they don't try to schedule the appointment on the same weekend, but until I find out tomorrow what the exact dates are it could be pretty close.
Besides doctor's appointments, beading, and reading I'm not up to too much most of the time. Anyone living nearby is welcome to stop in and hang out for a while. I enjoy the company and so does Taffy.
I was kept overnight due to the usual SNAFU status of that hospital and on Friday they drained 5 liters of fluid from my abdomen to relieve the pressure. My stomach went back to something resembling normal and I felt better than I had in over a week. After they made sure that I could eat and drink without issue they sent me home.
Over the next few days I started bloating again, but no where near as bad as before I went in to the ER. The only problem was I ended up with a short bout of UTI and was having to run to the bathroom to urinate far more frequently than before I went in to the ER. I wasn't too worried because I knew that my regularly scheduled appointment at Memorial Sloan Kettering was coming up on the 4th and if something new was wrong they would catch it and take care of it.
On the 4th Mom and I took the train up to New York for my appointments. I think I'm starting to get the hang of the subway system in New York finally. My CT appointment was uneventful and afterwords we got lamb and rice from the same street vendor that was there last time before heading off to the second appointment of the day.
At Dr. Schwartz's office we got more good news. My tumor has shrunk even more and is now about the size of one of those mini pickling cucumbers! It's looking like the Rapamune is going to take care of getting rid of the tumor without me having to have surgery. The doctor prescribed a sleep aid for me to help take care of my insomnia and told me that I don't need to worry about the frequency of my urination. It's just the fluid in my abdomen compressing my bladder so it can't hold as much as it is supposed to.
As far as the bloating, Dr. Schwarz says that it is being caused by my lymph glands. They have had to work extra hard for so long to pump fluid because of the tumor resting on the tubes that they are now pushing more fluid than necessary now that the tumor has shrunk and the fluid has no where to go but into my abdominal cavity. My body can't reabsorb it fast enough so they are going to have me come up to New York again sometime in the next week or so (I should be getting the date on Monday) to have a catheter placed in my abdomen that will allow me to drain the excess fluid as needed on my own at home.
It won't be like with the pic line I had coming out of my back where the bag is hooked up all the time. Pretty much I'll sit down to watch TV or do something that doesn't require me to get up and move a lot and have the bag hooked up for about and hour or two to drain off enough fluid to relieve the pressure.
I'll have to be in New York for two days since they will be keeping me overnight at the hospital there. The catheter will have to be in for several months, the doctor says that the bloating may continue for upwards of a year, but it won't cause any sort of interruption in my daily life.
Other than that life has been fairly uneventful. Mom and I finally went and saw Star Trek on Friday. I don't know how I made it through the whole movie with my bladder as small as it is currently! The movie was really good and while we both had minor nitpicks, overall we enjoyed it. I've been getting more into beading lately and have been getting more ideas since I received a catalog I requested from a bead company.
Hopefully I'll be in good enough shape to go to the bluegrass festival that Mom and I have tickets to. That's in the next week or so, so I'm hoping that the trip to New York for my catheter is sooner rather than later so that I'll be recovered in time for the festival. We told them that we had plans to be out of town that weekend so that they don't try to schedule the appointment on the same weekend, but until I find out tomorrow what the exact dates are it could be pretty close.
Besides doctor's appointments, beading, and reading I'm not up to too much most of the time. Anyone living nearby is welcome to stop in and hang out for a while. I enjoy the company and so does Taffy.