Backstory on Daddy

As most everyone knows Matt has had Crohn's Disease since 1990. In August of 2008 we moved out of our home in Angwin to go for my first real RN job in Merced, CA.
Matt's health began to deteriorate as we were getting ready to move. Tired all the time etc. still he did the move almost single-handedly. Before we left the Napa Valley Matt requested a consult with a GI specialist at UCSF. In October 2008 we met with Dr. "T". After a colonoscopy in November in which the doctor discovered active Crohn's, Matt was recommended to try a drug called Humera. It is concidered a great treatment that might make him feel a great deal better. After fighting with insurance (it costs 8K for just 2 treatments!) I gave him the first treatment at home on 1/23/09. The next day he began spiking 103 fevers and having really bloody stools. After fighting with him for 2 days I finally took him to the ER at my hospital in Merced. The docs there were sure that it was a severe Crohn's flare. As it turns out the Humera causes a drop in the patients white blood count. After a week of increasingly strong antibiotics (that didn't work) he was still spiking the fevers and was sent to UCSF for possible bowel surgery. After being admitted to UCSF Mt. Zion hospital on 2/3/09, a really good accident happened, one of the doctors accidentally ordered a chest CT in addition to the abdominal we were expecting. The chest CT showed nodules in his lungs, liver and spleen so he was transferred to the "big" UCSF hospital for a bronchcoscopy. At that time, seeing how the antibiotics weren't working, they figured it to be a fungal infection and after a 3-day stint in isolation for possible TB (stupid!), the bronch showed nothing. A fine needle biopsy was done on a lymph node that had been slightly swollen in his grion near the suspected Crohn's flare area just to look at it. 2 days later we were given the news that the biopsy results showed cancer. More specifically Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. The lymph node was removed and cut up into a billion tiny pieces and a bone marrow biopsy was done as well. Looking back now so many signs of lymphoma were there....the swollen lymph node, the bed soaking night sweats, exhaustion not fixed by iron/blood infusions.

Thanks for the prayers and good thoughts!
Jennifer