Sat night update

Today has been a bad day for John. He has not been able to eat anything but some potato soup that Debbie and Gary brought today. It is bland and John thought it was good. He ate maybe a half cup. He has run fever over 100 degrees and has surrendered himself to the bed. The good thing is, he is sleeping a lot.

Dr. Bill Williams called tonight just to check on things and this is what has been decided from that conversation. Tomorrow I will call the oncologist that I have talked to the past two days. I will ask him to take over John's case. He is from West Texas and he speaks english!! On top of all of that, he is actually in town. He was very helpful to me today trying to decipher all of the medications and what to take for what and when since the labels were unclear. We will ask that John be put on IV at home since he is not getting the nutrition that he needs. Bill made a good point when he said that he couldn't fight the cancer without good nutrition. Since he can't hold it down, we will give it in his veins. That will happen at home. It is so comforting to have John's doctor, Bill check in on us just because and go out of his way to make sure everything that can be done, is done.

Kay and George Buchannan came by tonight. Kay has been John's nurse all of these years. George works in the blood lab at Covenant hospital. He drew blood from John and we will have a count tomorrow. We will also do this on Monday. If all is well and John is strong enough, he will have a colonoscopy on Tuesday to see what is going on in the colon. The prep for the colonoscopy will be oral meds and he has to be able to keep it down.

Dr. Williams and I talked more about the surgery and he is encouraging me to consider Scott and White in Temple. There is an excellent surgeon there and he says that the patient care is absolutely top notch. Scott and White is affiliated with the Mayo Clinics. I will talk to John about this when he is feeling better. We know that Mayo has a wonderful reputation but, all I know about the doctors is what is on their website. We have not run into a doctor here yet that knows a specific surgeon at Mayo or M.D. Anderson. We have been told by two doctors how experienced and wonderful the doctor is at Scott and White.

That's what I know today.