Update on Vicki

Hi friends,

I've been completely out of it for a couple of days and just thought I'd let you know what's going on.

Sunday evening (11:30pm), I started feeling excruciating pain in my right side and my kids and husband decided I should go to the ER, which I did. Spent all of Sunday nite there, till they sprung me Monday afternoon. They did all the things you might expect. CT Scan, xrays, blood & urine tests, yada yada yada. They also pumped me full of lots of drugs that would not just take away the pain, but they took me out of consciensness. In LaLa land, you don't much give a crap about any pain your having, or much of anything else.

To make a long story short, they didn't find exactly what was hurting so much, but found a teeny little bladder infection for which they gave me some antibiotics. They also gave me dilaudin for pain. This cracks me up because the dilaudin is something that takes you to LaLa land, and doesn't really address the problem that the pain is coming from. grrrrrrrrr. This makes me very unhappy. Last nite, after I was home, my side was still hurting (much like a side ache you can get from running too much) and my only option was to take the dilaudin so I could at least go to sleep.

I went to see the surgeon today and he sees nothing that should be causing this kind of pain either. Fortunately, the pain is not as bad today, so I feel a little more willing to just wait and see. It still hurts when I take a deep breath, so I'm just trying not to go like that too much. He also offered me percoset, which I hope will take away pain without drugging me so I can't function.

All in all, I still think I'm getting better from the surgery. I'm frustrated to not feel like a million bucks after getting rid of that nasty gall bladder. I'm a very impatient patient. I do much better at caring for other patients than I do with taking care of myself I guess.

Tomorrow, John will recieve his first chemotherapy treatment in Walnut Creek. He's been fighting these boards that tell him not to participate in a study under Dr Tempero at UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Care Center, but it looks like he's going to lose that fight, so we're trying to see it as a sign that it was probably not the best thing for him to do and we're just going ahead with the prescribed treatment of his oncologist at Kaiser. Time is too short to fight anymore. One thing they do know (and they don't know very many things at all about pancreatic cancer, lemme tell ya), is that patients who have been resected as John has, have a much better chance of survival if they get SOME kind of treatment within 60 days of the resection....before any stray cancer cells have a chance to get a foothold in some other organ. That deadline is coming up here in just a few days, so there's no more time to continue looking for other trials. So much for trying to contribute to future generations of pancreatic cancer patients. He gave it his best shot, now it's time to just concentrate on surviving. He's gained about 15 lbs and he's gained alot of strength since being out of the hospital, so the present is looking good. We are keeping our fingers crossed that things keep looking up for him and for me.

I look forward to getting out n about again SOONEST!

Love & peace