Eating

In the continuing myeloma story, I'm up now to January 2006. Richard's eating problems had been ongoing which was unexpected, since his appetite had quickly returned to normal after his first transplant. By mid January, he had lost about 30 pounds, and when his renal functions started to improve, he lost more fluid weight for a total loss of about 40 pounds. He took Compazine,lorazepam, Kytrel, and metoproclamide (not all at once!) to try to control his nausea. He vomited about once a day. He tried and rejected all the supplements... Ensure, Boost etc. Have you tasted Ensure? Yuck.

He was surviving on hot chocolate made with whole milk, yogurt, instant breakfast, and vanilla shakes from McDonald's. Before the transplant he was not a big fan of dairy. Wondering about his marrow donor.....

His doctor speculated that this could be GVHD of the gut, although the typical presentation starts with diarrhea. Because of his previous CMV infection, it was important to rule out CMV in the gut, since the treatments are different.

GVHD and CMV of the gut are diagnosed with endoscopy and biopsy of the gastric mucosa.


Endoscopy is a diagnostic procedure that inspects the esophagus, stomach and duodenum with a small fiberoptic camera inserted through the patient's mouth, The patient gets conscious sedation, so it sounds a lot worse that it is.


So on January 20, Richard had an endoscopy.