Brody is Sleeping Peacefully Finally After a Very Difficult and Painful Day

Brody started having belly pains late last night and was unable to eat or drink since last night.   He did manage to sleep for a few hours between about 4am until 6:30am and then again from 7:30am until about noon.   He kept having belly pain that would come and go.   It wasn't real severe at first but by late afternoon it was extremely painful and accompanied by lots of nausea and vomiting.   

Brody has been admitted to Toledo Hospital for tonight.   They are trying to keep him comfortable.   He had an Xray of his abdomen.  It appears that he may have a colonic ileus again and/or a partial bowel obstruction (his tumor is mechanically blocking the normal peristalsis of his GI tract and he may also have nerve damage that is limiting normal gut motility.   Brody previously had success with using dicyclomine (Bentyl) to help this condition.   Bentyl is a GI antispasmodic.   It is an anticholinergic agent which generally could actually aggravate and worsen an ileus since it slows gut motility.   For some reason it helped Brody before though.   It calmed the spasms and his gut was able to be more effective although maybe slower.   Brody is getting Bentyl by IM injection tonight to see if it helps this time too.   The pain he has been in has been awful and I do not know how he has been able to bear it.   He would rank it as 10+ on a 1 to 10 scale.   The suffering was just too much.   His physician ordered morphine for him to give him some instant relief and help him get through the night.   Morphine can worsen an ileus too (slows the gut) so the plan is to only use it if he is in severe pain again.   At least,  it works very quickly.   He has no pain after his doses of morphine so far.   Thank goodness!  

As stated previously,  Brody's tumor has been growing rapidly again the last 2 weeks.   It grew 1cm in just 2 weeks in the area near his kidney.   This area was injected with the HSV virus on Friday.   I am hoping this injection soon stops the growth in this area.   I am not sure if the tumor growing in this area is what has caused Brody's belly problems today.   Certainly is a possibility.   It's a possibility the tumor may be growing elsewhere.   Or,  maybe there is swelling from the injection that brought this on.   Maybe the tumor is growing in the spinal column again and causing more nerve damage resulting in the ileus.   Maybe a side effect from the HSV virus is gastrointestinal irritation and inflammation causing an ileus.   There was a report of a previous recipient having a GI perforation that may have been caused or related to the HSV virus injection.   We really don't have answers right now.   I am unsure of what tomorrow will bring and very nervous and worried about many of the possibilities.   For now,  I am very thankful Brody is sleeping peacefully though.  

Please keep us in your prayers and keep your fingers crossed!