Midsummer

Thank you wife for maintaining the blog in my (mental) absence!

Times have been pretty good since the last stent insertion where they used the ERCP technique. The blood values on Monday were also good so this may be a sustainable solution. I'm getting Vectibix every second week and had my second shot on Monday. The side-effects aren't bad. The main issues are rash in the face and upper-body. In future I can expect nail bed infections and (natural) eyelash extensions.

I've been on sick leave from work since the bile ducts problem started in April. I'll stay off from work throughout the year since the situation with the cancer is uncertain. The next CT scan (August?) will probably tell more what's happening.

I've had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with the kids recently. A week ago we took a day trip to visit Hakkaraisen talo in Vammala (House of Mr. Clutterbuck) and the spa in Ikaalinen. I think this was the first spa visit with the kids ever and they had great fun. The water slide was in particular a popular place and it was difficult to pull them out from there when we decided to leave.

Last weekend we celebrated midsummer (Juhannus) on in-laws summer cottage. The oldest kid fell in love with the tent that we brought along for the fun of it and decided to sleep all three nights there. He had no trouble falling asleep while I stayed awake for most of the night. Luckily, Marjo stepped in for the following two nights so I got to sleep inside the cottage in a proper bed.

In and out and in and out of hospital...

The wife of a lazy husband here again. Well, he hasn't had the easiest of weeks so maybe he's entitled to just lie down on the couch and watch football...

ERCP went well! Hehe, that's the wife perspective I bet. The patient himself said the procedure was awful and it sounded like that was an understatement. If you want to imagine the gory (??) details read more about ERCP here. It also sounded like the doctor managed to scratch his pancreas slightly during the procedure, this did not luckily end up into pancreatitis (which can be hellish or even lethal I understand) but did cause a lot of pain and nausea. So Monday was not a good day for Jan Arne.

But lo and behold, the following day they let out this man, weak but anyway, although 10 hours earlier I had asked the nurse if he would live throughout the night. Well, I must admit that was a bit sarcastic question to a nurse that was not being very friendly to me.

On Wednesday we visited an oncologist, just a regular visit that we have not made in several weeks. The oncologist (a new one, they still have ones we haven't met during these two years!) said Jan Arne's blood values were ok for chemo treatments and they got him an appointment for today (Friday). So in he went today for his first ever dose of Vectibix.

I say chemo but Vectibix is actually an anti-body medicine. We agree with the doctors it makes sense to go with a moderate approach after the difficult six weeks Jan Arne has had, but it does not mean that if all goes well for a few weeks we would not go pestering them about trying with one or another chemo one more time.

Other than that, Jan Arne has been tired after the ERCP but we even ventured a short trip to the local amusement park with the kids yesterday. So all in all, after Monday, a pretty ok week. Jan Arne can give his own perspective when he has energy.

Out and in of hospital

Wife here for a change as the patient himself is so busy. Jan Arne got out of the hospital a bit more than a week ago and has been slowly getting better. He's been tired because of the infection and the antibiotics but now finally the blood values are more or less ok, except a couple of the liver values. He's been well enough to even look after the kids while I have been at work, just regular father-sons action, going out for hamburgers and new water guns (or water bazookas more like). Now they have been visiting the grandparents here in Finland for two days.

The oncologists (cancer doctors) had discussed Jan Arne's case in their meeting last week and the conclusion seems to be that first of all the bile duct stent & drain solution needs to be changed to an internal stent without drain so that the risk of infections would be smaller. When that is done and if all goes well (and no new infections) they will try another treatment with another antibody medicine called Vectibix. It's a similar medicine than Erbitux which Jan Arne has been receiving for a year now, but somehow slightly different and can be used alone without a chemo. The cancer seems to be getting active again so the doctors apparently want to change the medication because they think that the previous treatment no longer works. So not really the best of news this time but let's see how the ERCP (method of installing the stent) goes on Monday and then keep all the thumbs up and fingers crossed or whatever method you want to use for wishing that they can start with Vectibix and that it will work.