Walker’s Story

Site created on July 8, 2016

Welcome to our CaringBridge site. We've created it to keep friends and family updated. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement during this time when it matters most.

Newest Update

Journal entry by Toni Vreeland

Hi all.  I felt I needed to write one more update on Walker and Taylor just so you all know what the latest new is, and it's all GOOD!!  Walker flew out to Pittsburgh on Wednesday for a check up.  He got there in the mid morning for his 12:15 appointment.  His labs were excellent, the lowest that they can be, his blood pressure was normal.   Dr. "Smiley" and the resident said he looked great in person and on paper.  Yay!  Also, he had his very last drain, a biliary drain, removed.  So NO MORE DRAINS!!  They said that should improve the pain a lot.  Apparently, at this stage, the drain can loosen and irritate the surrounding tissue.  He is also cutting the dose of one of the anti rejection drugs in half, and he'll start oral chemo this week, which he'll have to be on for 5 months.  Fortunately, he won't need radiation because that's when microscopic tumor cells are along the margins of the liver, and that was not the case.  He flew back home that evening, and he will have a follow-up appointment in one month.  I had been concerned about Taylor since he has been experiencing quite a bit of pain at night.  After my hounding him, he finally called Pittsburgh, and they ordered an X-Ray, which showed nothing.  When he continued to have pain, I was really nagging him to call again to request that they order an MRI, but he refused and announced that he was going to stop talking to me about it since I was nagging too much!!  But the good news is that Elizabeth told me on Friday that he had not had any pain for 4 days in a row, that I guess he has turned the corner too.  I supposed it was just normal healing pain.  After all, he had a huge incision all the way up his stomach, and the doctor had been messing around in there for 6-7 hours, so I guess it just takes a long time to really recover.  So that's the latest report.  We're still feeling so grateful.  We're enjoying being in Florida, and if I could only solve all my joint aches and pains so I could go back to playing golf, I'd be a lot happier!!  
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