The Saga Continues . .

Who is the patient here anyway??

After doing well during the holidays Marc had a minor but troublesome setback. On Saturday night he became very confused, agitated and couldn't speak. Steve was in Kansas deer hunting and Julie was home with the three grandchildren so I called Marc's good friend Ricky who graciously got out of bed and came right over to the house and helped me take Marc to the emergency room. Julie, bless her soul, called a friend to stay with the kids and came right up to the ER to be with us.

They immediately did another CT scan, which showed no changes and lab work which returned normal except for a sub-therapeutic dilantin level (the antiseizure medicine). Because Marc's confusion and agitation had abated with the exception of some mild expressive aphasia the ER doc had come in to tell us that everything looked good and we could go home. Just after that Marc started getting agitated, had some mild facial twitching, became very confused again and the aphasia worsened. At that time the ER Dr. contacted our Dr. for admission. That was all fine and well but the hospital was full. With no beds available, we spent 25 hours in the emergency room before finally being admitted to a room. While in the ER Marc was given IV dilantin to help bring his level up to the therapeutic range.

The next morning Marc had another MRI which also showed no changes from the last one. Because the symptoms were very similar to his initial symptoms we were very concerned that the tumor had regrowth and we were very relieved to find that this was not the case. His labs again looked good with the exception of the dilantin level, which was still low. He received more IV dilantin and the neurologist felt that the issue was probably related to seizures and ordered an EEG to be done this morning.

The preliminary report from our hospitalist, a wonderful Dr. that has cared for Marc during each admission, indicated some frontal lobe activity. In layman's terms, this means that the problem that Marc most likely has is seizures related to the GBM removal. We were initially told that Marc would need to be on anti-seizure medications for the rest of his life but the reality didn't really set in until we learned this. Now we have to concentrate on getting the levels of the medication to a therapeutic level and keeping them there. We still have not spoken to the neurologist as he comes in late in the day for rounds, so now we are waiting for the official report from him. He did indicate last night that Marc would possibly need to have another anti-seizure medication added to his daily meds. So now we sit and wait again. Marc and I both were disappointed that he wasn't able to go home tonight but understand the need to have the medications properly adjusted so that we do not continue to have problems. We are now hoping to go home tomorrow and have rescheduled the radiation therapy to start tomorrow.

As a side note, Steve did get back late last night and brought home a trophy buck and a doe. He spent most of the day at the hospital with us and cheered Marc up with a bacon cheeseburger and fries for lunch. What a blessing it is to have such wonderful family and friends!

More later . . .