STILL at HUP...

On Friday, Rich had the bronchoscopy so that his doctors could see if they could find what is going on with this slightly enlarged lymph node next to his bronchial tube. Unfortunately, the biopsy was inconclusive. However, none of the results are consistent with cancer. There are several things they mentioned that would lead them to believe it's not cancer, one being that the doctors have never seen new cancer grow while someone is getting treatment. What they have found so far is not consistent with cancer at all.

His cough remains and he has had slight fevers on and off for the past couple days. Friday night he had a very high fever along with a reaction to a lot of medication. For about 2 hours, he was hallucinating and saying many things that didn't make any sense...it was quite a show. About 2 hours later, he was feeling fine and had a bowl of Aunt Paula's beef stew. This is such a roller coaster! He doesn't feel sick, which is frustrating for him because he feels like he's sitting around wasting time. Holiday weekends at hospitals are not very eventful.

Today (or possibly tomorrow if the OR is too booked), they want to do a mediastinoscopy, a minor surgical procedure where they will remove the lymph node. This will not fix the problem, but it will give them more information about the lymph node itself to determine the problem. The doctors seem to think it may be some type of bacterial mold that he breathed in at some point, maybe even a long time ago. He even added that these types of airborne bacteria and molds are common in agricultural areas...good old Lancaster County. Now, with his immune system compromised, it started to cause a problem. Once they take it out for a biopsy, they will (hopefully) have a better idea what it is (infection, bacteria, mold, etc.) so they can treat it with antibiotics or antifungal medication.

The doctors also think he should be able to start chemo. tomorrow if he has the surgery today since it isn't a very invasive procedure. However, so far now, they told us chemo. would start Friday evening...then it was pushed to Sunday morning because he had fevers...we're not counting on anything at this point. At the very earliest, he'll come home on Saturday. It looks like we'll be spending most evenings in Phila. this week again. This is treatment 5 of 8 (if we can ever get it started)...still counting down. I just keep in my mind that the biggest problem, the cancer, is gone! We're still celebrating! We keep teasing him - he got rid of cancer, now he has a mold...if it's not one thing it's another. However, I think molds are better than cancer! Please keep praying that they can diagnose this problem and we can move on!