Things were moving along as smoothly as they could until June when Mike got very sick. We knew that the chemo meds would cause Mike to have a suppressed immune system, making him more susceptible to illness. He remained fairly strong and we praised God for his ability to fight off colds and flus.
On June 14, the afternoon of our church picnic, Mike began having mild pains in his mid-chest area. They worsened slowly throughout the day and affected his sleep at night. The next morning he was still very sore. He thought that he had maybe slept wrong or gotten too much sun the day before. This was our anniversary and we had planned to get some work done at home, and then go out for a movie date in the evening.
By the time we got to the hospital, he was in so much pain that every step caused a moan or a groan. The nurses noticed immediately that something was wrong. They consulted Dr. Woelk, who examined him. We had taken the girls along, but since this was taking longer than expected, I brought them to my brother and sister-in-law’s place. Dr. Woelk ordered a chest x-ray and did some bloodwork. His blood counts were fairly high, but that was good. The x-ray showed unexpected positive news - the tumour had shrunk drastically since the treatments! We rejoiced, and then waited for the bad news. After further examination, Dr. Woelk guessed that Mike’s pain was from severe constipation, something Mike dealt with regularly due to all the medications. After some rather embarrassing and painful procedures, the pain reduced slightly. When they were satisfied with his level of pain, they sent us home.
At home, Mike was very exhausted. He lay down to rest right away, but couldn’t get comfortable. He tried to get up, but found himself in unbearable pain and became nauseous, dry-heaving several times. I called the cancer care nurses for some direction, and Dr. Woelk recommended an immediate trip to the ER.
My mom came to stay with the girls. We got to the ER around 3:00 and received very quick care. The ER doctor concluded that it must be one of 2 things: either his PICC line was infected internally, or the sac around the heart was inflamed. They also checked his heart, which looked good. They did another blood count. In the morning the count had been 14, which is excellent, much higher than the week before. This could have been due to the Neupogen injection that I had given him that morning, but not likely. It wouldn’t have worked that quickly. But when they checked his blood count later in the afternoon, it was up to 30! That meant that there was indeed some sort of infection that his body was trying to fight. But since he hadn’t had fever or other symptoms, this was a mystery to the docs.
In the end they decided to admit Mike overnight to keep an eye on him. They were concerned about fevers, chills, or other changes. Mike’s mom brought the girls to the hospital for a bit so they could say good night. Alicia was very sad and wanted to understand what was going on. She was complaining about not feeling good, and on the way home, she threw up. Needless to say, our anniversary was very memorable. Our romantic dinner for two took place in the ER. I had taken a quick trip to pick up some fast food while we waited for test results.
He was in the hospital for three days. Every day we were hoping he could come home, but you don’t mess around with chest pain and cancer. I’m glad now in hindsight that they took it so seriously. He had an MRI done during this time, and finally Wednesday he came home. The girls had missed him so much! The results of the MRI showed that he had Pericarditis, inflammation of the sac-like membrane surrounding the heart. The cause of this most likely came from a common virus, which many of us are exposed to and can fight off easily. But, because of his suppressed immune system, his body was unable to fight it. He was prescribed anti-inflammatories, just another drug to add to the growing list.
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