Saturday, 1st October, 2016
We are counting the hours now. That is the amount of time that Dr SD has given N to live. This follows blood reports coming in that show N's WBC counts exceeding 99.28 billion cells per Litre, a creatinine level of 2.43 and potassium level of 7.6 mMol/L. She has no infection, the blood culture report was clean. The leukocyte count is purely the cytokine response due to metastasis.
Anyway, we have put N on a 5% dextrose drip with 10 units of insulin to control the potassium levels. The creatinine is not that worrisome. N does show signs of kidney failure, though, which was probably brought on due to dehydration.
There is nothing we can do for the inflammatory response, that I can think of. It has not been caused due to an infection, or we could use antibiotics. Corticosteroids is an option, but hasn't been used much in end of life treatment from what I have read. Neither did any of the doctors suggest it. I re-read parts of my old immunology textbook to find it very lacking. It limits itself to infection, not to the pathway as such, so was not of much use to me.
It is sad that the awareness about the inflammatory response in cancer is lacking amongst medical practitioners in India. Perhaps targeting that pathway could have helped N. I regret not using the ayurvedic medicines now. Many were targeting that pathway.
However, I can see much headway being made in cancer medicine, which should help millions fighting against this terrible disease in the near future. It is sad that N will not be there to make any use of it.
I can see N's temperature going down steadily. It is now 96 F.
It is a waiting game now.
We are counting the hours now. That is the amount of time that Dr SD has given N to live. This follows blood reports coming in that show N's WBC counts exceeding 99.28 billion cells per Litre, a creatinine level of 2.43 and potassium level of 7.6 mMol/L. She has no infection, the blood culture report was clean. The leukocyte count is purely the cytokine response due to metastasis.
Anyway, we have put N on a 5% dextrose drip with 10 units of insulin to control the potassium levels. The creatinine is not that worrisome. N does show signs of kidney failure, though, which was probably brought on due to dehydration.
There is nothing we can do for the inflammatory response, that I can think of. It has not been caused due to an infection, or we could use antibiotics. Corticosteroids is an option, but hasn't been used much in end of life treatment from what I have read. Neither did any of the doctors suggest it. I re-read parts of my old immunology textbook to find it very lacking. It limits itself to infection, not to the pathway as such, so was not of much use to me.
It is sad that the awareness about the inflammatory response in cancer is lacking amongst medical practitioners in India. Perhaps targeting that pathway could have helped N. I regret not using the ayurvedic medicines now. Many were targeting that pathway.
However, I can see much headway being made in cancer medicine, which should help millions fighting against this terrible disease in the near future. It is sad that N will not be there to make any use of it.
I can see N's temperature going down steadily. It is now 96 F.
It is a waiting game now.
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