A Sharp Turn of Events

Wednesday began like any other day. He went to the clinic in the morning to get two units of platelets. He was in a lot of pain, and his heart rate and blood pressure was high though, so they took his blood and sent it to the hospital lab. The results came back saying that his calcium levels were higher than they should be. The doctor said that he should go to the hospital, but T wanted to go watch a volleyball game on Thursday night so he asked if he could go to the hospital right after the game. The doctor said that should be fine, so my mom took him home.

That afternoon, Jason Chapman called my dad to check up on Matthew, and asked if we wanted his mom to come over to see what she can do to make T more comfortable. His mom is a hospice nurse. She came over that night around 9, and he was pretty loopy and running a fever. Jason's mom said that with his calcium levels as high as they were and with his other symptoms, he was showing all the signs of calcium toxicity.

Calcium toxicity is very bad news. I found a really good article about it titled, "What is Calcium Toxicity and Hypercalcemia?" In the article it says,

"Hypercalcemia is a condition that is defined by having too high of calcium levels in the blood. Hypercalcemia can have original from several sources. It is certainly possible to experience hypercalcemia by consuming too many calcium supplements, and certain diseases can also lead to high calcium levels in the blood, but the vast majority of the time, hypercalcemia the result of thyroid dysfunction, a condition known as parathyroidism. The thyroid gland produces the hormones that regulate calcium in the body. If those hormone levels are out of whack, calcium can be released from the bones into the blood. This will weaken bon structure and can cause other problems too. Symptoms of hypercalcemia include lethargy, mental imbalance, weakness, dehydration, constipation, nausea, diarrhea, and even heart arrhythmia...Hypercalcemia is a factor in 10% to 20% of cases of advanced cancer and considered, at that point, to be an emergency. Symptoms include intestinal problems symptoms including nausea, vomiting, and constipation. These symptoms can be tricky to diagnose, as they are also common side effects of chemotherapy. If left untreated, coma and death can result, according to the Department of Solid Tumor Oncology at the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute."

(The article can be found at: http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/what-is-calcium-toxicity-and-hypercalcemia/)

Jason's mom suggested that we get him to the hospital before his calcium levels got too high for the doctors to be able to treat him, so Jason and dad gave him a blessing, and dad took him to the hospital. They got there around 10:00PM. Matthew received a lot of fluid through the night, and they got his levels back to normal. If we hadn't gotten him to the hospital when we did, who knows how high his calcium levels would have gotten. It was a blessing that Jason called and brought his mom to see Matthew. It was really good that the doctors were able to get his calcium back to normal, but with that good news came some bad news.

We have been waiting for the pathology reports to come back since last week regarding Matthew's bone marrow and bone biopsy.  Yesterday, the 25th, my mom finally got the results. Matthew has now been diagnosed with Leukemia AML M7.  From what I've read, this type of Leukemia is pretty serious. It's treatable though, and he's going to get through it to remission.

The transplant he was supposed to get this week is off because of this new diagnosis. He got an MRI last night at 7:00 PM to check on his brain because he is so loopy.  We're praying that his loopy condition is just from the drugs, and not from lesions.

Last night, Adam Tieman and his wife came in to see Matthew, and they brought our family dinner. He has been so amazing through Matthew's journey by visiting him several times and making sure our family is taken care of.

There is a different plan of attack for this new experience we get to partake in. Today at 10:00AM, he had a surgery to remove his port and have a broviac tube put into his chest. He will also have a lumbar puncture (aka: spinal tap) to check to see if the cancer has seeped into his spinal fluid.  They will also shoot some chemo in there to keep the cancer out.

T going in for surgery today:

 He started a very hard chemo today that will last a total of 8 days, and then it is just a matter of waiting for his counts to come back up. That will be a 4-6 week wait.  Once they come up, he will be able to go home for one week, and then he has to go back in to do it all over again. After the first chemo, they will check his blood to see how it attacked the cancer.  If they didn't get the results they want, which is a significant amount of dead cancer cells, then he will be a transplant kid. However, this time he will not able to use his own stem cells and will need a donor. This is a total bummer because that means that all of the time we spent on collecting his stem cells, and all of those extremely painful shots he had to get were for nothing.

If he needs a donor for the transplant, then me and Hannah will be the first to be tested. If we aren't a match, then they will test Chad. The doctors said that they can test him in Spain and ship his blood sample home. For now though, it is just all about this really hard chemo and hoping that it will do what needs to be done. We are praying for the chemo route, but we will do the transplant if he needs it. This new path means that Matthew will not be able to start his senior year.

This was a really hard blow for us, and life is going to get a lot harder, but we're staying positive. He is suffering a lot right now, and I fear that this is the easy part. Please keep Matthew in your prayers and stay positive with us.