We tried to beat the odds but didn't quite make it. I had to leave Doug in the hospital tonight. It's a good thing because they will be able to manage pain in his esophagus better than I can. His counts are at their lowest and he was finding it more and more difficult to swallow his medications in tablet form. He also wasn't eating.
We had been warned that this might happen as it is "normal". The good cells were killed off with the cancer cells and are not able to regenerate until the white counts come up. The next couple of days it will be best for the team to treat him 24 hours/day to keep him as comfortable as possible rather than the 4 hours/day we've been in the clinic. Then the counts will jump back up and those tissues will heal rapidly--or so they say. Since everything else they've told us has come true I believe them on this one also.
~Carole
