It's Time For Hospice

The past several weeks have been rough for Cheryl. As I posted earlier, we came home early from a visit with my family in Thomasville, GA because Cheryl was having intense headaches, nausea and double vision. Friday evening, we went straight to the emergency room in Savannah where they got her pain down to a tolerable level. On Saturday, the doctor called her in a prescription for steroids to reduce what they thought might be brain inflammation. Then on the Monday after Thanksgiving she was admitted to the hospital and was diagnosed with metastatic tumors in her brain and cancer cells in her spinal fluid. She took the first four of ten whole brain radiation treatments while in the hospital and then continued the remainder as an outpatient until December 12th.

During this whole time she has been on Dexamethasone (oral steroid) and various pain killers and endured their side effects. We have both noticed that she has been having increased difficulty in standing, her balance is poor and her muscle tone is poor. She's having to use a walker for support unless she is standing next to a piece of furniture or other stable object that she can hold onto. She's also been commenting that her double vision has been getting worse.

This past Friday, we took her in to the Low Country Cancer Center for a bag of IV fluids and that seemed to help the headache and double vision for a few hours but by Saturday afternoon, she was having trouble reading the scores on her football games.

As the week has progressed, she has gotten weaker and her vision has gotten worse. She is no longer able to read texts on her cell phone and she has trouble focusing well enough to send out texts or read medicine labels. Cheryl had an appointment scheduled for this Friday with the oncologist but I called in yesterday and described her condition and they told me to bring her in today at 2:30.

Dr. Negrea had a short talk with us, looked her over and reviewed her file and let us know that because she has carcinomatous meningitis (the cancer has spread into the lining of the brain and the central nervous system) that there is not much else they can do for her. They had talked earlier of doing spinal chemotherapy but he said that doing that or the alternative delivery of putting a port through her skull directly into her brain would not be effective for very long. At best, going through either of these procedures might add a few weeks of life and that both had a lot of potentially bad side effects.

Dr. Negrea told us that in his opinion, if it were himself or one of his family members with this condition that he would not opt for the treatment. He recommended that we get in contact with one of the local hospice organizations and make arrangements for Cheryl's decline. I mentioned that in my reading and research that I'd seen prognosis for survival at about three months and he agreed that based on his experience, that is about as good a guess as anyone could make.

Before we left, he hugged Cheryl with tears in his eyes and told us to hold on to our faith. Pray for grace for us in the days to come and also remember those that spend their lives caring for people that often don't have long-term survival.

As we figure out what we are doing we will continue to keep the blog updated. Cheryl is up to phone calls. Don't worry about disturbing her, if she is tired, she will let you know that she doesn't feel up to talking at the moment but most of the time she is really cheered up by contact with the outside world.