Family visiting

Again, lots of thanks to my loving wife for taking care of me and the blog. Times have been pretty tough lately but I am definitely doing better now. Appetite is improving though my weight is still under 70 kg and I need to focus on eating as often as I can. At the moment the biggest challenges are insomnia (just can fall asleep at night) and constipation that I'm getting from pain killers and anti-nausea medicine I'm taking. There is a medicine for that as well so at the moment there are lots of various drugs I keep taking. I also tend to get fever and chills during afternoons and evenings but it goes away after a few hours. I've felt quite well during the days though so that's something positive.

Today I grabbed the car and went for a hamburger lunch with a friend. I managed to eat half of it and brought the other half with me home to Marjo. Then I dropped by in some stores and did a little bit of shopping before returning home to rest on the couch.

My parents and my youngest sister visited for a few days this week. We kept the kids home from daycare and had a good time at home talking a lot of Norwegian. It was great to see them all again and equally sad when they left. I was luckily in quite a good shape and able to socialize. Well at least a bit I think.

I do admit I feel grumpier nowadays with all these issues going on for so long so you'll have to excuse me if I don't pick up the phone or return your messages. I still very much appreciate all you support and comforting messages and there's been so many of them.

A bit better

Dang this is turning into my blog soon... I hope Jan Arne will have energy for an update himself soon.

Yesterday we went to see a doc and she prescribed him a bit stronger pain medication, and cortisone to hopefully boost the appetite and give him some energy. The blood values were good, only hemoglobin slightly below normal, even liver values were normal except for "afos" which has been above normal the whole time. Doc said nausea can be caused by chemicals released by the tumours and the tumours in the liver, or general pressure in the stomach area caused by tumours and enlarged liver.

Not sure why but Jan Arne's appetite actually improved a bit yesterday, he even asked me to make a small (onion/tomato/cheese) omelet in the evening. Don't know if that was the reason but I woke up at night and he had really bad hiccups and generally slept really badly. Good luck he has all day to take naps and recover. He is still feeling so bad though that he is not currently considering to go for the second round in Docrates virus treatments, at least while feeling like this.

Not getting better

Just a quick note as I realised we haven't updated the blog since Jan Arne got home from the hospital. We were hoping that replacing the stent would normalise the liver values and he'd start feeling better and the appetite would return, but unfortunately not. It's been pretty much the same, no appetite, nausea, stomach and back pains. If he eats anything bigger than a cookie it doesn't seem to be too interested to stay in... And of course as he does not really eat he does not have much energy. He did take the Christmas tree out on Friday, needles and all. In the evenings we just watch TV, we're hooked on a Norwegian series called Hvaler, and Glee.

We are going to see a doctor on Tuesday, let's see what she thinks of this.

At home

Jan Arne is at home finally! The blood test in the morning showed the infection value was going down so the doctor said he can go home. I was at work so he took a taxi home and I met him when I had picked up the kids from daycare. Jan Arne had even had some energy to clean up a bit (to finish up what I didn't have energy to clean up at weekend...) but he is still tired, some nausea, stomach pains, no appetite, some fever at times... But at least he is at home.

Procedure done

Jan Arne has been feeling pretty well after Tuesday, not that much nausea anymore, nothing in his stomach of course either. But he has been very tired. The liver values in the blood test on Monday were pretty high but other values around normal limits, indicating that either there is a blockage somewhere in the bile ducts or that the tumours in the liver are obstructing the flow of bile in the liver (this is how I understood it).

The ERCP procedure was done this morning. It seems that there was "only" a regular gall stone in the bile duct stent! No blockages or tight spots caused by metastases elsewhere. The stent had also slightly moved, so they removed the stone and replaced the stent. What a relief if that would normalise the liver values and improve his appetite. The cancer is still there of course and we don't know if the virus treatment has affected its rabid advance, but if at least he'd feel better for a while, that's be great news at this point.

Jan Arne is still in hospital, they would have sent him home but he wasn't feeling exactly great after the anaesthetics and all that so I think he will stay at the hospital for the night. He was going to try to eat something today, must be weird after almost a week with no food really. Let's see how he feels tomorrow.

Hospital stay update

Seems they won't do the ERCP until Friday morning!! Jan Arne has to stay in hospital until then -- without food. They don't want him to eat anything in case there is a blockage somewhere, they will check for that in the ERCP. I asked the nurse from the palliative ward to see if there is anything they can do to speed up the ERCP but I guess many of the doctors are still on holidays and Thursday this week is a holiday too...

ARGH!

Hospital for a change

Jan Arne has been feeling quite bad for a couple of days, even less appetite and nauseous on Friday, and since yesterday throwing up. We agreed this morning he'd better go to the hospital for a checkup. I took him to the first aid unit and they said he should stay there and at least get some IV fluids and blood tests done. They told me to go home. Not much space in the hospital I guess...

I have not managed to talk to him much after that (bad reception etc.) but it seems they will at least replace the stent in the bile ducts tomorrow, it may be causing the nausea if the bile ducts are blocked and the liver values are off. The procedure is called ERCP and when they did it last June it was a pretty bad experience for Jan Arne so I told him to demand they'll do it under general anaesthetics. Let's hope they will agree to that and it'll go well, and that it will relieve the nausea. I'd be so happy to see him get his appetite back!

The rest of the day I have been transporting the kids to here and there, friends and friend's birthday party. The younger one is talking a lot about death recently, like "let's go to that good pasta restaurant again, I guess dad won't be able to join because he will be dead". The older one seems to be quite unhappy about the prospect of being a family of three only, it'll be boring to be just three he says. But other than that they are normal energetic happy kids... Let's hope we will be a family of four for quite a while longer.