Update on Brooks: It has been almost 4 weeks since my last post updating Brooks condition. Honestly, there have been no significant changes since the last post. Things are moving at a snails pace here. He is 6 weeks post whole brain radiation now, and we had expected him to be improving at this point. He continues to be very weak and the fatigue is so severe he spends most of his days in bed. He will force himself to get up and move around, but he cant stay up for very long. He has this constant head fog, but after a nap it is usually a little better, and then when he has been up for a while again, it progresses to the point that he must lie down again. He has nausea almost all the time, not to the point of vomiting, but he feels like he has been on a roller coaster...it sounds like severe motion sickness. His taste aversion has increased, and it is more and more difficult to find foods that he can even choke down. Nothing tastes right to him. We are trying our best to keep his weight up and are supplementing with Boost and Ensure and anything else he can manage to swallow. He has gone from 177 to 169 over the past couple of months. We saw the oncologist yesterday, and you can tell he is concerned. He is considering getting another brain MRI at 2 months post radiation instead of 3 months, like the normal regimen, just to see if there are changes. Brooks and I both think that is pointless for now, because Brooks says there is no way he will agree to any further brain radiation. Dr. Limbaugh started him on a round of steroids to see if that helps. The symptoms could be due to swelling and inflammation in the brain due to the radiation. Brooks is very concerned about how they will effect his reflux. He has severe reflux and a precancerous condition in his esophagus, but has had to come off his reflux meds due to the oral cancer treatment. The treatment isnt absorbed as well if the stomach acid is reduced. On the advice of his oncologist, I made an appointment with his GI doctor next week to see if Brooks could possibly have a surgical procedure to prevent the backwash of acid from his stomach. The oncologist also said we could stop the cancer treatment for a week to see if Brooks symptoms improved. We are reluctant to do that at this point, and are going to try the steroids first. Anyway, this is where we are. Brooks cant go on like this every day. There has got to be some relief or he will stop all treatment. I am having a very difficult time seeing him suffer like this.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 11:06:44 +0000
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