Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.
Many dear friends and acquaintances of Joe have asked about his condition. As many of you know, Joe was diagnosed with Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma at the end of May. This lymphoma is both very aggressive and highly treatable, even curable. It also had the effect of releasing large amounts of calcium into Joe's bloodstream,, which had compromised his kidneys, and his compromised kidneys were a concern as he considered chemo treatments, which put a further burden on the kidneys. Nonetheless, he decided to go ahead with treatment in the third week of June, and he responded very well in that he experienced no nausea or other debilitating side effects. Unfortunately, one week after his first chemo treatment, Joe developed sepsis and went into septic shock, with a high fever, delirium, and plummeting blood pressure. He was rushed to the ICU at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, where the doctors immediately implemented their protocol for sepsis: massive amounts of antibiotics to control the infection and blood pressure medications to raise and stabilize Joe's blood pressure. He was sedated and, when he developed problems breathing a day later, intubated and put on a ventilator. Joe's infection now appears to be gone; his blood pressure has stabilized, and his temperature is normal. He is still on the ventilator and in an induced coma to enable him to rest comfortably. In addition, the doctors have also now introduced intermittent dialysis to assist Joe's kidneys in removing fluids from his body.
We appreciate that many of you would like to visit Joe, but at this point we are limiting visitors to family members and very close friends so that Joe can get the rest his body needs. My brother Paul and I will keep you updated on his condition on this website. We invite you to share it with other friends of Joe and to write to him on this site.
Thank you for your love and concern for Joe. We deeply appreciate it.
