A Tough Week

Kristi had a bit of a rough week this week. Monday when I got home from work and I walked in the house I immediately noticed that her face and lips were almost white. DJ was also there and had mentioned that she was looking pale. She also was feeling a little bit dizzy and hadn’t mentioned it until I got home.

We immediately took her blood pressure and it registered 85/55 — way too low. After some consultation with the Stanford triage nurse via phone and then also getting in touch with Dr. Ganjoo, We decided to let her lay down and monitor her and only go to the emergency room if other symptoms developed.  They did not. 

The reason for this low blood pressure is likely adrenal insufficiency, which unfortunately is caused by some of the medication that she has been taking. That means she gets to take more medication to counteract that and Dr. Ganjoo immediately prescribed yet another medicine that should get her blood pressure back up to a more correct level.  Unfortunately, that medication takes several days to kick in and so for the rest of the week, we were monitoring her pretty closely and she felt pretty crappy… She spent most of the week in bed.

Now for the good news… This morning it seems like the medicine must be ramping-up its effectiveness as she is feeling noticeably better as evident by her cookie baking with Amari this morning.


We are all glad that she’s feeling a little bit better and she is extremely happy because she was worried about having to postpone the surgery that is scheduled for October 6 to get those skin tumors removed. She really wants them out. If today’s any indication I think we are on track for that to happen

Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 27, 2025 at 9:49 AM

    She’s such a trooper and awesome grandma!! Love that Garfield shirt friend!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 27, 2025 at 9:50 AM

    Oh thank goodness! Sending love and prayers. Breathing in the grace that surrounds us each moment. Thank you for the update. We love you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousSeptember 27, 2025 at 9:55 AM

    Kristi, what a trouper!!!!!!! You go girl!! Prayers from Corvallis for all!!❤️❤️❤️

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousSeptember 27, 2025 at 9:56 AM

    Glad you're feeling better Kristi🩷if you like black licorice, it's great for low blood pressure. Love you, Aunt Mary ❤️

    ReplyDelete
  5. Karen HatfieldSeptember 27, 2025 at 10:18 AM

    Oh goodness. Adrenal Insufficiency now? I’m so sorry. What a pain to deal with! Luckily the meds do help. Hopefully hers will be easily controlled like Isaac’s. He has the biggest issues when he gets sick or injured. That can send him into crisis. She may need to double her meds when she is sick (ask about that if they didn’t tell you). Also, if they did not give you the emergency injection, ask about that as well. It’s called Solu-Cortef. It is an IM injection. If she goes into crisis at home (basically the blood pressure drops a bit more and she passes out), you give the shot and call the ambulance. Ambulances do not carry this injection (Madera County doesn’t anyway). And they will not give the shot either. But the shot gives the steroid and gives her time to get to the hospital. We have thankfully only had to use it once. Make sure the anesthesiologist knows before surgery too. She may need iv meds of the steroid during surgery. Anyway, I’m glad Kristi is feeling better!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Janet ZadinaSeptember 27, 2025 at 10:22 AM

    Glad you are feeling better

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousSeptember 27, 2025 at 10:37 AM

    You guys are both amazing in this journey that not one person asked to be on! Your resilience is incredible. Prayers for all of you!❤️

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousSeptember 27, 2025 at 10:57 AM

    Really good news, hope she recovers shortly. Prayers for Kristi. Tell her that we love her.
    Uncle Jack

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousSeptember 27, 2025 at 10:58 AM

    You are all so amazing.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Merrick BartlettSeptember 27, 2025 at 11:57 AM

    So happy she's feeling better! And I just adore this picture

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousSeptember 27, 2025 at 12:51 PM

    Praising God🙏🙏🌹🌹

    ReplyDelete
  12. Kathleen LandonSeptember 27, 2025 at 1:22 PM

    So glad she’s feeling better. Making cookies!! Yay!!!

    ReplyDelete
  13. AnonymousSeptember 27, 2025 at 1:32 PM

    ❤️

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Quick ER Trip

We promised no update unless there was an update … so … Kristi developed a very severe headache and her doctor advised us to go to the ER yesterday morning. We went to Stanford where she received IV pain meds, steroids, and electrolytes.  Doc is going to have her take a one week break from the daily pill she takes as part of her current treatment regime — that was our request. We want to know if that is the cause.  Good news: she’s a new women again today.  We hope we can continue to dial things in for best treatment and least side effects. 
Read more

Recent Scan Results

Kristi had both head and full body scans on Monday.  There isn’t much to wax philosophical about.  The doctors called it fairly stable and want her to continue with the immunotherapy treatments.  At this point there isn’t much other choice.  Unfortunately, headaches have taken over as the most prominent problem. Some good news is her back pain has become less of a problem in recent weeks.  We shan’t even try to venture a guess as to why.  She saw her pain management PA today who thoroughly discussed the headaches, prescribed a new drug to try, and will reach out to Dr Ganjoo to fill her in on the problem. Although it may not seem like it from the tone of this post, we were pretty happy about seeing some shrinkage of tumors, especially in the lungs.   Having cancer is one thing, suffering from side effects of it or the treatment is quite another.  She does have days without any headaches — which we relish.  As usual now, we ran the results thr...
Read more

Good Times

Image
Kristi and I took the grandkids for three days to Santa Cruz this week. We had a fun time and it was exhausting. Kristi did pretty well. Took a nap on the beach the first day and powered through the second full day. She was tired and had a headache on the way home. For the most part, she kept up with the busy few days — and we had fun.  We did some research on the way home and decided to change the timing of her daily meds. Since being home and the change she hasn’t had too bad of a headache. Fatigue is always an issue, but at least one that has a simple remedy, sleep. It’s to be expected — mostly side effects of the treatments and probably some from the cancer itself.  The immunotherapy treatments will continue — the doctor called it maintenance —a shot every four weeks and the daily pill. She’ll have scans again in three months. Until then, we expect and hope for no news. So, we won’t likely post unless there are any changes.  As usual we take things one day at a time, ...
Read more