Saturday, February 11, 2012, Houston

Saturday, February 11, 2012, Select Specialty Hospital, Houston

I am starting this blog as a way to let friends know what is happening with Richard Sobol.  I have been having a hard time keeping in touch with all of our friends.  I get lots of emails asking what is going on, and it is hard for me to respond to each one personally and separately because my involvement with Richard's daily life takes so much time.  In addition, there are friends who don't know what has happened who would want to know.  So I'm going to let people know how to read this blog instead (that is when I figure it out!)

I'm going to give a little background for people who are first inquiring; those of you who tuned in earlier may want to skip this part.

Basic time line: 

• 12/19 Richard began what was supposed to be six weeks of out-patient radiation treatments at M.D. Anderson in Houston (MDA);
• Richard's diagnosis was squamous cell carcinoma metastasized to a lymph node in his neck, with an "unknown primary;"
• in plain English, he had a lump in his neck;
• they biopsied the lump and found squamous cell carcinoma, i.e., cancer originating in the mucous membrane of his body somewhere, most likely his throat given the location of the lymph node to which it had metastasized;
• they biopsied his throat, found nothing; he had every radiological test known to man, no primary shown;
• there were thought to be two possibilities: one, his body was healthy enough to process out the primary cancer, unfortunately leaving behind a few cancer cells in the lymph node -- our bodies are filled with cancer cells, and when we are healthy, our immune system takes care of these cells -- or, two, the primary was so small it was undetectable;
• there was no way of knowing which was the case and downside of failing to treat existing, but undetectable, tumor bad, so radiation treatments were selected as the best way to proceed;
• radiation treatments to the neck and head have very difficult side effects because essentially what is happening is the neck and head are being burned;
• in 4th week of treatments (wk beginning 1/9), Richard got sick and then sicker.  At first we did not realize something more serious than difficult side effects of treatment was a problem
• 1/11 taken by ambulance to MDA ER, and from there admitted to ICU;
• very, very sick, infection in lungs principal problem, other problems among them septic shock; put on oxygen, first one mask, then another more closely fitting mask I guess then attached to ventilator;
• 1/13 breathing tube inserted and heavily sedated to tolerate tube;
• 1/24 trach inserted;
• 1/25 taken off ventilator, receives oxygen with trach collar;
• 1/27 Gpeg stomach tube inserted;
• 1/28 out of ICU, moved to regular part of hospital;
• in the 17 days Richard was in ICU, he became extremely debilitated, when he was transferred to the regular part of the hospital, he had very limited use of arms and legs; the positive side is that every day he has regained some increased ability to move arms, hands, feet and legs.