I’ve put off writing this post because it’s been a pretty rough week. It’s a balance between wanting to keep people informed, while also trying not to share Kendall’s every little personal medical detail for the whole world to read.
Kendall did get admitted Wednesday of last week for his next course of chemo and he’s still in the hospital. His body did not respond well to one of the chemo drugs (methotrexate), which particularly affected his kidney function. They had to administer an antidote and are now trying to flush the drug out of his system. The doctors are still monitoring his kidneys carefully.
Thankfully the anti-fungal medicine they administered did NOT cause hallucinations or severe night terrors as is does for 6% of patients who take it (kind of worrying when your doctor tells you, “Now if you start to hear voices it’s probably just the medicine…..”), and we’re grateful for the eye drops they gave him so that a different chemo drug didn’t make him blind. Yet another chemo drug has given him a bright red rash that is incredibly hot to the touch (registering nearly 104 degrees on the thermometer but he doesn’t even feel like he has a fever – really, Kendall, did even your fevers have to be rare and unusual?).
Kendall has also had a number of other concerning and very uncomfortable side effects, and hasn’t been able to really eat in a few days, so this hasn’t been a fun hospitalization for him. We’re not sure yet when they’ll let him come home. Infectious disease doctors are trying to figure out why he keeps fevering constantly and what’s causing his other symptoms. Just today he also had MRIs, an X-ray, ultrasounds looking for blood clots, and a blood transfusion because of low hemoglobin. Poor guy.
On a more positive note, it does look like the mass that was in his hip has disappeared. And Kendall’s mother will be flying out here from Virginia on Wednesday. We’re excited to get to see her and have her actually INSIDE OUR HOUSE (after she quarantines for two weeks). What a novel concept!
(And I don’t have any new hospital pictures to include with this post, so enjoy a much nicer one of swimming in sunny St. George!)
