I didn’t sleep well. I had nausea all night. My back pain was really bad. I couldn’t get comfortable. Eventually around sunrise I was upside down in a chair sucking on a Tums trying to get some sort of relief from the back pain and the upset stomach that kept me up all night. Amy called Nebraska Cancer Specialist. I was to have my first appointment with them Tuesday morning. Doctor Schwarz recommended I get to Methodist Hospital and be admitted.
I was very sick. At some point I had to vomit but didn’t produce anything since I didn’t eat much the night before. Eventually we decided to call the rescue squad to transport me to the hospital. I wasn’t sure I could get up and make it to the car if I tried.
Arrived at the hospital and from there my recollection on what happened and when it happened is very smeared about in my mind. We did try getting another set of MRI and CT scans done. I was in the ICU, they were checking my blood sugar every hour, I was on an insulin drip. Taking labs every 6 hours. After things settled down the attending visited with me. I had ketoacidosis, but my blood sugar was not high or extremely high. I had acidic blood.
After about 3 or 4 days in the ICU I was moved to a regular room. Things were better but the acid in the blood was beginning to get higher. After a few days I met with the attending and he wasn’t sure what was going on since my blood sugar wasn’t high. He suspected the Jardiance I was taking caused a process to spiral out of control and cause the acidic blood, also he thought the metabolism of the cancer may be contributing to the situation.
Some time during the first or second day I had a port installed into my chest and a biopsy of a spot on my liver. The result of the biopsy was an adenocarcinoma of the pancreas. A diagnosis of Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. The most deadly cancer. Not curable since it has spread to other organs and areas within the body. They also found a few very small spot in the brain from the MRI images. Dr. Schwarz paid a visit early one morning to explain the situation. The care plan is to do chemotherapy to try and shrink or control the tumors. To sustain a quality of life best we can.
After 6 days I was release from the hospital. I had a bunch of new pills, most of my diabetic medications were discontinued and replaced by other medications. I finally had medications to help with the back pain.
