Could There Be More Problems? Day +40



A pot of greenbeans I tipped and
canned this past week.

It has been a busy couple of weeks since my last post. I have been trying to get the house back in order, the garden under control and the animals sorted out. My garden had three foot high grass that I have had to mow and weed eat it to get to my tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, and okra. It has taken some long hours harvesting, cleaning and canning pickles, stewed tomatoes, salsa, green beans, and purple hull peas (the two latter ones given to me by my grandfather and mother-in-law). 


My 2nd picking of tomatoes and the
first picking canned.

It’s been so hot during the daytime, that we haven’t been doing much until after 8pm. We then have broken out the watermelon and enjoyed sitting out on the porch. This is about the only time Stevan can get outside without sweating and getting his port infected, which leads me into what happened yesterday at Stevan’s appointment.

We went to see Dr Jeremy White, Stevan's Orthopedic Oncologist. He is in charge of Stevans' left humerus bone that broke last summer and the infection in the upper part of the same bone, due to him not having an immune system after the SCT.

We discussed some of the changes in Stevan’s behaviors. He’s been sleeping a lot more than he was after he got out of the hospital. He's basically sick of being sick. Stevan has been getting an upset stomach after eating. He gets out of breath when he exerts himself, not that he can do much. Dr White said that is common in a lot of patients who have been sick for as long as he has and can't really do anything either.

We have questioned whether Stevan’s double lumen Quinton was causing the left side of his neck to hurt and have muscle cramps ever since his high fever in the hospital. At his last appt on June 20 with Dr Holter, in charge of his SCT, we we mentioned that the home health care nurse had not been able to draw blood from it and it seems to be collapsing when they tried. She ordered stronger Heparin to be used to pack it after his antibiotic is run and then his line flushed. She thought that this would keep it from clotting up. We mentioned all of this to Dr White today. He decided to let his nurse, Sarah, come in and "play" with his port and see if she could get some cultures drawn from it. It was a no go. After a closer look she said that is appeared to be slightly swollen above where the line was inserted into his chest.

Even though the hospital did an ultrasound on his chest and collarbone area before he left the hospital, thinking there was a problem with the line, Dr White wants another one done on specifically his neck to check for a blood clot that could be causing the trouble. He also wants to pull the line and put in a picc line to be use to finish his antibiotics. They would then test the tip of his Quinton line to see if there is bacteria on it.

Dr White needed  to talk to Dr Holter and discuss what they should do, before anything is done. Today a nurse from the BMT unit called to talk to Stevan to see what was going on. She told him they were scheduling him an appointment to get the line pulled and to put in a picc line. With the Fourth being tomorrow, she would get back with us and let us know. We figure it will be either Friday or the first of next week.

We did get to see the bone scan that was done. It show a dark spot at the top of his left humerus where everywhere else was gray in color. It was a pretty poor visual but you could tell something was different there. We also saw a few x-rays that was taken during the bone biopsy. They really didn't show anything other than where they took the biopsy at from the bone.

We will be hanging out here at the house tomorrow, trying to stay cool. Happy Fourth of July!

One of the watermelons we did damage to.
Yes it was good and sweet!