One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Well, after the great afternoon on Sunday, things have gone downhill. Maybe it's because the doctor mentioned that we may be able to leave the hospital Friday. Abby has once again been pretty fussy. She also started having trouble eating on Monday. She would cough any time she tried to eat and we could see a white film on the back of her throat. The doctors thought it was just a thickening of the mucous membrane and an increase in drainage that was causing the coughing.

Then yesterday, we saw it. It's hard to describe - it looked like a chewed up piece of food stuck in the back of her throat. We had five doctors look at it and the conclusion was that it's tumor that had pushed its way through the area where she had her tonsil removed. We were scheduled for emergency surgery today because they were very worried about her airway. Thankfully, today's snow caused many people to reschedule their surgeries that were scheduled for today and allowed us to get into the operating before noon. The plan was to debulk the tumor, which means to remove anything they could see in her throat without having to make an incision. After seeing the pictures that the ENT took of her airway, it's a miracle she didn't choke to death or suffocate. Her airway was almost completely closed off. They have sent off this piece of tumor to pathology because, almost two weeks after her original biopsy, we are STILL waiting for an official diagnosis.

So, here we sit in PICU. Abby is on a ventilator. She's on large amounts of drugs to keep her sedated. She is quite the fighter and did not want to sleep. She kept shaking her head no long after she should have been out. She has a nurse that is dedicated solely to her and stays in the room at all times. She also had to have a blood transfusion because she lost a decent amount of blood during surgery. The hope is that she will be extubated and we will be back on the Hem/Onc floor tomorrow.

One upside to sedation is that I was able to comb her hair and brush her teeth without any complaint. I took advantage of the time I had to just comb her hair and play with it one last time before she loses it.

We can use more prayers, especially if the part of tumor in her throat is new growth. That would mean that it is still growing quickly and that the radiation and chemo might not be doing the trick.

And now for some pictures. These first two were taken three days before Abby ended up in the hospital.