Crazy infection will not stop

But we are gettiing more info with a CT scan and they will tweak the plan based on what they find and all the other tests.  If they poke a hole where one shouldn't be, well, I'm just happy to have made it this far.  Love you Sheila!  And love to anyone out there reading this.  No fear.

Perforated Bowel

So, I have a LOT to catch up on (sorry folks), but I have to relate the latest that took place over the 4th of July weekend. So that Friday, I get a PET scan. We had been doing chemo and it was about time to take a look. So we did the normal procedure with little fanfare and I go home.

As is NOT her typical behavior, Sheila decided to NOT monitor the results. She just wants to have a normal 4th of July weekend like any other wife. If there was a problem, the docs would contact us. We expected nothing too dramatic and thought we'd review the scan Monday morning.

So, on Sunday morning, we are getting ready to go to brunch with the family. We're all dressed and about to hop into the car, but we have a couple minutes down time before actually hopping. So, I decide to check my voice mail on my cell. "Mr. Scarbrough, we have some serious results about your PET scan. Please call us immediately at this number". Shit! What's going on. I call the number and of course, because it's the weekend I get the answering service whom are next to useless. Sheila jumps into action and logs on. She checks the result. It appears that I have a potential bowel perforation. Damn. This is horrible news, but it is somewhat dulled by the fact that I feel just fine. Have been eating & drinking for the last 2 days without an issue. Hmmmm. So we have a number of problems here.

#1). How the hell did we end up with a "5 alarm" problem and a "1 alarm" response (message on voice mail.) Both Sheila and I were pretty livid about that. But the more important issue was:

#2). Do I have a bowel perforation or not?

I was afraid. We've talked in the past about how people eventually die with bowel cancer and the sentence usually goes like "Well he got a bowel perforation and then..." without the dead part being said. I was really scared.

Sheila jumps into action and makes some phone calls. Apparently some of the guys there had heard about my result and were open to the idea of my coming in to verify it. Hell yes, let's verify it. So we scuttle the brunch plans and head to the hospital. Again.

I'm telling folks now that I'm a professional patient, I've been in there so much. But back the the hospital. I arrive and everyone is amazed that a "bowel perf" patient looks so good. Thank you very much. They wheel me down to X-Ray and do a series of scans (both standing and prone) and then wheel me back up. Right now I'm NPO since IF there is a bowel perf, something will need to be done about it. Not to long after that, the doc comes back with the results. It appears that there is NOT an obvious bowel perf that needs immediate treatment. Yay, yay, yay. Now that we know it's not a full-blown bowel perf (pun intended), what the heck is it??? Theories get bounced back & forth (medicine is not an exact science) and we decide that perhaps this was a small bowel perf that spewed a very small amount of materiel before healing itself. Yeah, it sounds whack but it was the best we could think of. This might explain the recurrent infection I had been having and perhaps, based on the location, it might also explain the sciatic nerve pain I had been experiencing the last month. Well, well. Maybe it does make sense. Or not. Anyway, that's what we're going with now. Treat infection with antibiotics until gone, treat pain as needed and hope that the "bowel perf" never comes back.