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Jeffs journey over the past few month has been the epitome of a roller coaster ride. He's been tossed around and turned upside down. Since Jeff found out about the new lesion on his brain scan, he was put through a plethora of test trying to look for cancer markers or metastasis. An MRI of his spine, a CT of his chest abdomen and pelvis, a spinal tap and another MRI of his brain all showed no sign of metastasis, no cancer markers and the repeat brain MRI showed the lesion had actually shrink. It was a good day with celebration when we heard the good news but in the back of our heads we knew something else was going on. Jeff's speech was the first thing we noticed. His speech has been regressing in his ability to speak loud and get certain sounds out. Next we noticed his balance, he has been unsteady on his feet with some days being worse than others. Jeffs memory and comprehension seemed to be impacted as well. He has always had a more difficult time with memory since he was diagnosed with a brain tumour so changes are often difficult to spot. I mentioned concern to Jeffs oncologist in the middle of April and he stated he needed to collaborate with other specialists. About a week later, Jeffs symptoms progressed to diarrhea and vomiting. I suspected an infection since the oncologist did mention they may have seen aspiration on the chest CT but he didn't seem too concerned. I decided to take Jeff into the hospital to be sure we weren't missing something easily treatable. They did a chest x-ray and blood work but were unable to find anything conclusive. Jeff continued to be unsteady, increasing confusion, and speech became more of a problem. There were days when Jeff stayed in bed until 5pm and would only get up to get a drink, go to the bathroom and then back to bed. On Sunday April 28th I went to work leaving the boys with Jeff. He was able to get them up and ready for church but I heard report from friends that Jeff seemed very unsteady on his feet to the point of needing help to walk to the car. Friends of ours were so great to take Jeff home with them to keep and eye on him and the boys were able to spend the day with their cousins at Jeffs sisters house. Things sounded particularly bad and I asked Jeff to get a ride to Bonnyville where I was and I would take him to the emergency room. We were incredible blessed to have some of my favourite nurses working that day and Jeff had a room before he even arrived at the hospital. It was quickly determined Jeffs heart rate was alarmingly low and he was moved to a trauma room where they put him on a monitor and pushed the first dose of atropine to try and get his heart rate back up. The atropine worked for a few minuted but his heart rate quickly dropped again. The next steps were an urgent CT in cold lake and then a plane ride to Edmonton. The drs weren't sure what was causing these symptoms and the specialists wanted to see him right away. It was a long night with several specialists stopping by to see Jeff. He was seen by the emergency room dr, the internal medicine team, the cardiology team, and then the neurologist. Jeff was started on a broad spectrum antibiotic, magnesium, and was given hydrocortisone. Jeff was unable to maintain his own body temperature and was 29 degrees when he arrived at the hospital in Edmonton. They put him under a bear hugger to help maintain his body temp and started him on warm fluids. He stayed stable for the night and Monday afternoon, Jeffs mom and dad came. The drs were still unable to determine the cause of Jeffs symptoms. I took off that night to go to my last few days of school and Jeffs mom and dad stayed with him. Monday night, Jeff experienced a pause in his heart rate when they sat him up to  give him his medications. This was quickly reversed but Tuesday morning saw the progression of new challenges when Jeff had a seizure. He continues to recover from the seizure which could take a few days. Drs are continuing to run tests but have still been unable to determine anything conclusive.