Wow, '2021 has been a year, a year of adventure and challenges. When my husband was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, everything stopped, halted and was re evaluated. I decided today, that I will journal the moments, days, weeks, months of our cancer journey and my thoughts as a care giver of a cancer patient who treatments are not working,
As I stated, when my husband was diagnosed, I was in Amsterdam, he was in Atlanta. So off to Atlanta I went to start his treatment, with the plan of coming back to Amsterdam. We started with one Dr and ended up with another. We went to see three to four different oncologist who told us the same...Chemo is the way to go and we only have approximately 1 year.
We settled on one Dr. and started treatments. This Dr. gave him no more than 6 months, back in April. But even with that prognosis we moved forward. We did a total of 4 treatments, But After his 3rd treatments he had a bowl obstruction, which had him in the hospital for 10 days and a hole in his stomach to release any bile that is in his body. I thought at that point that I was going to have to make a few phone calls, but Eric prevailed to the surprise of his Drs.
He was put on liquid nutrients, which I had to administer at home, just call me nurse Deb...and we stopped chemotherapy for 6 weeks. Then we started an new chemo drug, for one treatment and then flew back to Amsterdam to continue his treatment. I know what everyone is thinking and we got the same question from the Drs. in Amsterdam as well, Why? I know now that Eric did it for me. He did it because of the travel plans we had that would be so much easier for us to do while in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He did this 8K mile, 8 hours travel across the pond away from our family...for me. That's sobering. Did I accelerate my husbands disease? I ask that question every day.
So we finally start treatment in Amsterdam. We did one, and only one treatment. After that treatment, Eric was in the hospital for another 5 days in the VuMC in Amsterdam. They nurses were great, but I think the Drs. are not hopeful....that's another blog. So, after 5 days in the hospital, we decided no more chemotherapy. We don't need the disease and the treatment of the disease trying to kill him. Now he's home, doing home care or home hospice. They haven't given us a prognosis, days, weeks; months, but to them he's getting close to the end.
But we are Believers and Fighters. We will do holistic medicines to help fight the disease. Now we're looking for holistic, herbal ways to fight the disease and give Eric as much time with us as we can. We are also letting God do His miracles and watch in awe Gods work. We have a testimony every day that Eric is till here. He was released from the hospital on August 9th and to the Drs. are surprised he's still here. We're going into to the third week of him being home and he's getting stronger and stronger everyday.
His upper body is really thin, and we're working to get him stronger and gain some weight. We are confident that Eric will be with us for our 16th wedding anniversary on September 17th. And then on November 15th for his 59th birthday, then for Thanksgiving, Christmas and into the New Year '2022.
What we are going to do in the next few weeks is get him strong enough to travel back to Atlanta to spend the holidays. The good thing is my Mom is here to help. And I've been giving here tours of Amsterdam. She's been helping me move and clean the new apartment, which is bigger, and make the place as comfortable as possible. We're both happy she's here. His sisters are supposed to come but we're waiting on passports, so it's just mom for now. I'll do a separate blog on her visit here in Amsterdam. I will be doing a blog every day on his progress and my sanity. It's a way to testify how God and our family is doing during this journey.
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