Kev's Home

Kev was released this evening – my theory is that they have tired of me asking too many questions that they can’t answer and kicked him (me) out. He came home with a CVC (Central Venous Catheter) in his arm and a set of IV antibiotics along with calcium, potassium & phosphate supplements. Kev’s arms are a mess – he used to have large, blood-full veins, but after years of chemo his veins are small and hard to find. It takes multiple sticks each time they try to put in an IV and each blood draw leaves bruising. He has more track marks than a life-long drug user. Usually the nurses can not even put in the IV anymore and they have to call in the specialists from the IV team. But yesterday when they needed a new line for his platelets transfusion even the IV specialist needed help and pulled out his hip-mounted Venoscope – similar to the stud finder you use in your walls. This was a new gadget we hadn’t seen before.

Even though all the testing is complete, we don’t know what our next step is. Too many of the specialists we need to speak with were out this week so we won’t have much information until our follow up appts in the coming weeks. We did get results back from the brain MRI which showed progression of disease – this removes the option of staying with the Dasatinib & Valproic Acid treatment. And Targeted Therapy suspects that Kev will not be readmitted into the ANG1005 because of the progression also, but this remains to be confirmed with his Study Dr (out of country) and the pharmaceutical company. We have no results yet on the spine MRI. Kidney ultrasound showed no abnormalities. Chest x-rays were normal. No one seems to be able to explain why Kev’s blood chemistry is going so hay-wire and so fast. He feels great now, but of course he’s been topped off with two transfusions of red blood and platelets plus supplements of calcium, phosphates & potassium.