Now in ICU

I felt so hopeful this morning when I blogged. Shortly afterwards, Linda called and told me they planned on putting Julia on dialysis temporarily for about two weeks until they could get her kidneys to functioning again, of course this was a concern. I went up around noon and Jan joined me around 1:00 or so. Shortly after arriving the gastro specialist came in to discuss the feeding tube. Unfortunately he was concerned that the feeding tube may not be effective since sometimes in pancreatic cancer patients that are force fed their bodies cannot tolerate it and it comes back up. They decided to consider putting in the tube through her nose which is less invasive and see if she could then keep the food down over the weekend. If it was a sucess they would insert a peg tube in her stomach on Monday. A little later the hospitalist came in and said he was concerned about her blood pressure and that they may not be able to put the tube in if they didn't get her pressure up but because her kidneys were not functioning properly he could not give her more fluids to help raise her blood pressure. He said he was wanted her blood pressure taken again and he would decide what they would do. A little later he came down and talked to Linda, Jan and I out in the hall and said, "You know she is going to die from the cancer and we usually think in terms of 6-8 mos. and since we are having all the issues with her bodily functions it will be considerably less." He said, "She is very young and such a sweet lady and right now we are trying to make her comfortable and give her a little more time" (which I think he meant with more quality than she is currently experiencing). He then told us they had decided to move her to ICU so that she could be monitored more closely especially since her blood pressure remained so low (it was 74/54) and that way if something happened during the night etc. someone would be right there to help her and also he could treat her more effectively. Julia was ok with the move and frankly I think she feels so bad all she wants is to do whatever it takes to feel better. Linda, Mike and Sandra were there for the first visit after ICU and Linda felt alot better about her care and said she even looked better (they had put in a port so that she would not have all the tubes etc in her arms). Her breathing is very shallow and she is on oxygen. Of course right now her visitors are very limited. Unless she is worse I am going to stay away tomorrow so that she can rest and her family can take the visits...I think. I may not be able to stay away, when I am with her it makes me feel better and when I'm away I can't get her off my mind but I'm going to try to do what is best for her and the family, after all, I always tell her it's about her only and not about me or anyone else. I guess I need to practice what I preach. I appreciate your continued prayers more than anyone will ever know and I will keep you informed as quickly as possible.