Gammon Strong
Donation protected
Hello All,
First and foremost we want to thank everyone who had been sending kind words, prayers and donations over the last few weeks. It has really helped us get through this tough time. Due to the overwhelming amount of people asking to help our family people suggested I set up this page. As some of you know Jeremy will be out of work for at least 9 weeks for his treatments. Below is our story for those who are not familair with what has been going on. Thank you!
~Jeremy was diagnosed with testicular cancer in April. He had a emergency surgery 2 days after they found it to have it removed. At that time the Dr's felt like observation was the better option as far as any other treatment. What that ment is that he would have blood drawn every 2 months to check his tumor markers. In August he went and his levels were higher then previous time but still in normal range. So his next appointment was in October and his tumor makers were no longer in normal range. He was already scheduled to have a CT scan for that month for his observation and it showed that he had cancer in a lymph node in his back and 2 suspicious ones in his chest. Jeremy initially felt fine with his original oncologist but since they were now talking about chemotherapy we all felt a second opinion would be best, so we met with a new Dr @ University of Maryland St Josephs medical center. His treatment plan was the same but we just had a better feeling with his approach. Jeremys mom and I brought him on 11/19 to have his port put in and it was supposed to be general anesthesia and outpatient surgery which turned into full sedation with a breathing tube. The anesthesiologist said jeremy started coughing and vomiting so they had to suction out his stomach and then fully sedate him with a breathing tube. Once he started to wake up he was having difficulties breathing on his own so they had him on oxygen and every time they would try to lower the dose he would get extremely sleepy, cough and have difficulty breathing. The chest x-ray that they do to check the port showed that was in a good position but his lungs were little cloudy. His white blood cell counts were up also so they decided to keep him for observation. He was put on 3 IV antibiotics. They took jeremy for a CT scan friday morning 11/20 which confirmed there original thoughts of pneumonia. The final diagnosis was aspiration pneumonia, which was caused from the aspiration that happened during his surgery. They also noticed in the CT scan what looked like fluid around the kidneys so he went for a ultrasound. That showed mild hydronephrosis- excess fluid in the kidney due to a back up in urine which can be caused from kidney stone, infection, etc. Weird thing is that jeremy has had pain in his abdomen and back for several weeks but when he went to urgent care they never saw anything. So anyhow....they kept us until sunday 11/22 so they can continue to give him 3 IV antibiotics to get him better. He had blood work done sunday morning and his WBC count was back into normal range.
Jeremy started chemotherapy today 11/30 and will continue for the next 9 weeks to hopefully kick this cancers butt!!
First and foremost we want to thank everyone who had been sending kind words, prayers and donations over the last few weeks. It has really helped us get through this tough time. Due to the overwhelming amount of people asking to help our family people suggested I set up this page. As some of you know Jeremy will be out of work for at least 9 weeks for his treatments. Below is our story for those who are not familair with what has been going on. Thank you!
~Jeremy was diagnosed with testicular cancer in April. He had a emergency surgery 2 days after they found it to have it removed. At that time the Dr's felt like observation was the better option as far as any other treatment. What that ment is that he would have blood drawn every 2 months to check his tumor markers. In August he went and his levels were higher then previous time but still in normal range. So his next appointment was in October and his tumor makers were no longer in normal range. He was already scheduled to have a CT scan for that month for his observation and it showed that he had cancer in a lymph node in his back and 2 suspicious ones in his chest. Jeremy initially felt fine with his original oncologist but since they were now talking about chemotherapy we all felt a second opinion would be best, so we met with a new Dr @ University of Maryland St Josephs medical center. His treatment plan was the same but we just had a better feeling with his approach. Jeremys mom and I brought him on 11/19 to have his port put in and it was supposed to be general anesthesia and outpatient surgery which turned into full sedation with a breathing tube. The anesthesiologist said jeremy started coughing and vomiting so they had to suction out his stomach and then fully sedate him with a breathing tube. Once he started to wake up he was having difficulties breathing on his own so they had him on oxygen and every time they would try to lower the dose he would get extremely sleepy, cough and have difficulty breathing. The chest x-ray that they do to check the port showed that was in a good position but his lungs were little cloudy. His white blood cell counts were up also so they decided to keep him for observation. He was put on 3 IV antibiotics. They took jeremy for a CT scan friday morning 11/20 which confirmed there original thoughts of pneumonia. The final diagnosis was aspiration pneumonia, which was caused from the aspiration that happened during his surgery. They also noticed in the CT scan what looked like fluid around the kidneys so he went for a ultrasound. That showed mild hydronephrosis- excess fluid in the kidney due to a back up in urine which can be caused from kidney stone, infection, etc. Weird thing is that jeremy has had pain in his abdomen and back for several weeks but when he went to urgent care they never saw anything. So anyhow....they kept us until sunday 11/22 so they can continue to give him 3 IV antibiotics to get him better. He had blood work done sunday morning and his WBC count was back into normal range.
Jeremy started chemotherapy today 11/30 and will continue for the next 9 weeks to hopefully kick this cancers butt!!
Organizer
Brandy Kellis Gammon
Organizer
Eldersburg, MD