My Wife Had Pain That Originated From Thorasic 8 With

My wife had pain that originated from thorasic 8 with metasticised pancreatic cancer. She was first prescribed percoset which put her on a roller coaster when taken when last pill wore off and pain (med/pain cycle) returned. It made her want to sleep etc. I learned of oral morphine extended release and wrote her oncologist whom then prescribed oral tab morphine 30mg/12hours. Essentially she experienced no resultant constipation with excellent steady pain control for months at low dose and no side effects. I asked for every best med and procedure through the 13 months off the stage 4 P. C., the aggressive pan. cancer, to minimize opioids and their monster of constipation. I wrote for a nerve block which was done about the 11th month, but only after I plotted the referral pain on her back and identified the source and need. I plotted the pain a week or so later after the block and her back was almost and dramatically clear of the referral pain (liver and pancreas). What remained was pain from the twice radiated (I asked for that too) thorasic 8 vertebra. We were scheduled for an epidural for that bone pain, but one day the hospice nurse slapped that powerful pain drug ????? patch on her while I stepped out on errands. That drug disabled her as far as returning to San Francisco for an epidural. I recommend that if one can, stay away from hospice as long as you can...as they are on a fixed blind track heavy on opioids for pain!

Our efforts gave her a relatively good quality of life through most of our 13 months. Hospice and their fix on opioids (I could not get them to cooperate in a controlled, monitored, measured withdrawl of opioids) which caused my wife great discomfort and pain from constipation at the levels administered. They also gave her lactulose, where there is milk intolerance in her family. The side effects were vivid. They did not ask! I missed that one! The hospice doctor in our opinion a Dr Ava Lee, we tried to get rid of! Her biography found is as thin as an eggshell and without patient opinions, 0!

HOW DID WE DO? She was given 3 to 6 months and I believe strongly that would have happened had we not received the treatments, medications that we had to ask for. Of course we also avoided aggressive chemo as we later learned she experienced the side effects. The first chemo (abraxine) was mild and effective (CA19-9). We missed limiting the second chemo to one, the mildest, of three and ended up with the cocktail of three which made her sick and took her down! I missed there too!

I have learned you cannot, cannot always rely on the "experts", mechanics or doctors, alone. I also had to be proactive to get my heart block condition diagnosed (I later plotted my blood pressure of 5 years where the degredation trend of the nodes function over that time, the trend, was vividly evident) and the pacemaker expedited.... Pressure reached as high as 180 with pulse fixed as low as 39bpm. Systolic trended up, diastolic down along with my pulse! There was a misdiagnosis of simple HBP!

I believe there is a need to use collected health data as best entered into a program that will analyse and flag the doctor of important trends. Save lives, save expense, optimize a doctors patient time!

Forgive the spelling etc. please... Thank You
G. John Galvan