The past two days were not much better than Wednesday. The only way to alleviate the achiness in his shoulders and the headache was to lay flat. He could only get up to use the bathroom, and every time he did that he would get sick. Since the headache was positional (had it when he sat up, went away when he laid down), they determined it was a post lumbar spinal headache. On the positive side, it is unrelated to the chemo. On the negative side, it is completely debilitating and the worse kind of headache you can have.
On Thursday, they increased his IV fluids, gave him blood, and started him on caffeine pills. None of these worked. Yesterday they gave him an IV caffeine drip and changed his nausea medicine because the nausea medicine he was taking can also cause headaches and the doctors didn’t want anything else factoring in. He was able to sit up a little more yesterday and could go to the bathroom without getting sick. He was able to get on the computer a little and ate a little. However, it did not completely alleviate the symptoms. He didn’t sleep well last night and switched from the chair to the bed halfway through the night.
So far today they have given him another IV caffeine drip as well as Gabapentin and Tramadol. The doctors are hopeful that this will work. If it does not, they will send him for an MRI tomorrow to see if he is leaking spinal fluid where they did the lumbar puncture. If he is leaking spinal fluid they will highly consider doing what is known as an epidural blood patch. These are very effective but doctors are hesitant to do them with leukemia patients because there is a risk of introducing cancerous cells into the spinal fluid. On the brighter side, the doctor did remove the finger sticks since his sugar levels returned to normal. His platelet level is also increasing every day. His were at 113 today. The doctor said that since most of the cancer has been wiped out, his bone marrow is able to produce these cells again. Thank you for all of the prayers and support. Although he is having some difficulties, God is listening and working in his body. Please pray that the medications today will work and will alleviate his headache.
On Thursday, they increased his IV fluids, gave him blood, and started him on caffeine pills. None of these worked. Yesterday they gave him an IV caffeine drip and changed his nausea medicine because the nausea medicine he was taking can also cause headaches and the doctors didn’t want anything else factoring in. He was able to sit up a little more yesterday and could go to the bathroom without getting sick. He was able to get on the computer a little and ate a little. However, it did not completely alleviate the symptoms. He didn’t sleep well last night and switched from the chair to the bed halfway through the night.
So far today they have given him another IV caffeine drip as well as Gabapentin and Tramadol. The doctors are hopeful that this will work. If it does not, they will send him for an MRI tomorrow to see if he is leaking spinal fluid where they did the lumbar puncture. If he is leaking spinal fluid they will highly consider doing what is known as an epidural blood patch. These are very effective but doctors are hesitant to do them with leukemia patients because there is a risk of introducing cancerous cells into the spinal fluid. On the brighter side, the doctor did remove the finger sticks since his sugar levels returned to normal. His platelet level is also increasing every day. His were at 113 today. The doctor said that since most of the cancer has been wiped out, his bone marrow is able to produce these cells again. Thank you for all of the prayers and support. Although he is having some difficulties, God is listening and working in his body. Please pray that the medications today will work and will alleviate his headache.
