He's Free

1/08/2012, 1:19am.

No more chemo, no more tumor pain, no more hospitals, no more nasty drugs.

Another Update

Not a large update in words, but a large one in other ways.

Ryan had several more CTs this morning. Two radiation oncologists as well as a medical oncologist came by to see us after looking at the scans. The cancer is taking over his organs, and while there are technically things that they could do, nothing will give the result that any of us want.. they'll only lead to more time in the hospital, and more pain.

So I signed paperwork again to have hospice take over his medical care. It was scary the second time, too. I'm not ready for this, but I know that he is. Soon he will be free.

Florida

The past few days have been a whirlwind. Sunday, I called to book transport for Ryan to get to Florida. We decided to go with ACC Medlink, an air and ground transportation service out of Florida. When I called on Sunday afternoon, I was told that they could pick us up that night! Of course, that was far sooner than I'd expected, so we opted for pick up at 7 the next morning.

Ken, my brother, had flown up to help me with things around the house the day that Erin, my sister, flew back to Florida. I'm so thankful he was there, because he helped me scramble around and get everything together for our trip in the morning. He also stayed at the house to organize packing what's left, load it all onto a moving van, and get it to Florida. I honestly don't know what we'd do without family and friends....

The trip down to Florida was stressful on Ryan's body, and the nurse on the van supported me in the decision to take him to the ER at Shands rather than straight to our rooms at a wonderful friend's house in Newberry. His electrolyte balance was way out of whack, and there is a possibility that he also has an infection. Both of these things could be responsible for the change in personality, confusion, and loss of coordination that Ryan had been experiencing. So, the past few days he's been on broad-spectrum antibiotics as well as IV fluids. He's looking better, but his spirits are down. I think he's ready to be done with all of this.

The oncologists here at Shands want to do a few more CTs to check things out and see if there's anything else they can do to relieve his pain. Then hopefully we'll be able to get him home and comfortable.