Les Fountain's Cancer Experience

Tuesday, 9/28/04 Les’ MRI is still clear, Praise God!!! Our oncology clinic appointment was uneventful. He’s doing so well that there’s not much to talk about with the doctors. They can’t answer the only questions I have (i.e.: what is the future going to be like?) so the visits are pretty short. We had Les’ nutrition clinic appointment yesterday and came to the conclusion that we will continue his tube feeding of one can a day. This was based on the fact that he has lost some weight in the last month, but he’s also grown in the last month. Now his height to weight ratio is skewed a bit low and he needs to gain some weight for everyone (including mom) to be comfortable with discontinuing his tube feeding. Our next nutrition appointment is the day before Thanksgiving, so we have a couple months to put some weight on him. I’m praying that his appetite continues to increase and then this task would be much easier. 

Friday, 9/17/04 OK, I’m back. Sorry to keep you hanging for over a month. We’ve been busy doing “normal” things and there wasn’t much medical information to update. Current Medical Highlights: Les has his next MRI and Oncology Clinic appt. on Monday 9/20/04. His nutrition appt. is on Monday 9/27/04. Since July, Les’ appetite has improved and his taste buds are starting to work again. We have cut back on his tube feedings significantly. He was getting 4-6 cans (8oz ea.) of Kindercal each day and now he only gets one. At first it was difficult to find things to feed him. The nacho chips and cheese dip from Taco Bell along with chocolate whole milk from a local dairy sustained him for a couple weeks. Then he branched out into eating sour cream and onion dip and potato chips. Hot spicy Cheetos were on the list of favorites also. I wasn’t thrilled with all the junk food, but I couldn’t do much about it. Les was having difficulty with the mechanical function of eating. Basically he ha