Test Results

On the 27th I reviewed my PET CT scan results with my Oncologist and found that there was no signs of the disease. I got the blood test results back today and found that my Tumor markers are .5 (normal less than .7) and 3.4 (normal range 0-6), so I am officially cancer-free!! I could not have done it with out the support of my friends and families (I belong to a few). The Lord has truly blessed me during this difficult time and helped me to touch many people's lives.

My wife and I plan to start writing as many Thank You cards as it takes for the people who have donated so generously. I know it doesn't seem like much, but all that we can offer is to thank those people from the bottom of our hearts and to pay it forward when others need it.

Although I am cancer free I still have a lot ahead of me. I will be monitored for 3-5 years. I will be doing blood tests and/or check ups every 3-6 months until that "danger period" is up. This means I will still have need for donations to help with doctor's visits, except this time they'll be more spread out than 3-4 times a week! My church is helping with this aspect and a benefit concert and spaghetti dinner are in the works for such funds. That way you can enjoy more than just a warm feeling for generosity. :) Those of you that aren't in town are welcome to donate however you see fit. Once again, anything that is done in support of my wife and I is more than appreciated. We love all of our friends and families that have kept us in their thoughts and prayers during this journey.

I will post more details as they come available to me in the next few months.

As far as everything else the Oncologist said that I would take a while to get to feeling like myself again. She explained that the chemo that i went through is very hard on the body. It takes a while to rebound from something like that, and can take as long as a year before things will start returning to normal. I can also have other side effects: getting all my hair back and then having my eyelashes fall out, that kind of thing. Although, my eyebrows and eyelashes have been thinning out lately, so that will probably happen before my hair comes back.

I have an appointment with my Urologist to determine the wellness of my glands and to have him pass me off at my stage of post-op post-chemo. Then they will remove my port! I imagine after that, i will start to feel back to normal. What they'll do is give me some local pain killing injections near the incision, then the doctor will reopen the incision and just pull the port out. I'll be completely conscious and they'll do it right there in the doctor's office. They have a sterile O.R. in the doctor's office. That is where Dr. Quaid sutured up my incision when it was having trouble closing. It's finally healed now, which i have to laugh about. It healed just in time for it to be reopened and have to heal again haha.

Then in the end of January i have a follow up with Doctor Brown, the Oncologist. She is a really good doctor, is very likable and fun.

I will try to keep up with more updates as they come but as of now i am in the recovery phase of my journey. I can't begin to express how glad i am for that, it has been a long time coming and the past 4 months have been pretty brutal, but i had a lot of support from the people i love. That gave me a lot of strength, for sure!

Another Update

Well, two barf bags later, i finished my Hell Week (which is a term i coined from the Navy Seals and use to describe the week i have chemotherapy every day for 5 days). Now all that is left is a Bleo on Saturday and a Bleo on next saturday and That should be it! I am getting really excited to put all this in my rear view mirror, so i am hoping that it works out well for me. I'm trying to keep a positive attitude. I believe that all the prayers and support from my friends and family are really helping me to do that!

I don't have much to say for these past two weeks. Except that it has been exceptionally difficult. It's a lot harder to break an anticipatory habit than i... anticipated. So i just gave in to it. Rhiannon brought up the point today that i am very blessed that i didn't start feeling nauseous and vomiting at the beginning of all my treatments. I completely agree with her. I can tell the Lord has had a hand in this gruesome treatment. It helps to hear positive things from friends and family too. So i really appreciate everyone's support, donations and prayers! I just cant properly express it enough.

In retrospect it really has been a bad week for me, but i don't have the weight on my shoulders of it being a "bad week." which is something I am very grateful for. It's been a trip so far, now i am just looking towards what the Oncologist will say after my treatments are over!

Update

The past few treatments have been rather difficult. The 7th, 8th, 9th and 12th were all very, very hard days for me. I had a lot of nausea and dry heaving. In fact, on the 8th before I even got into the hospital (just thinking about Chemo) made me gag into the grass but have nothing that came of it, except a more sick feeling and a feeling of wanting to turn around and walk back to the car.

But you can't do that with cancer. You can't hand it off to someone else until you get your strength up. You can't ask the chemo to stop pummeling you for one second while you live a normal day. There's no one to yell at, no one to blame, no proxy stand-in to tag team it with you. I am realizing it's one of the most absolute commitments that i'll make during this life (with no clause) until i'm in recovery. (note: I don't mean it to sound that my faith, or my wife are not absolute commitments in my life, it's just with cancer there is no letting up even for a minute. You are literally forced to keep going, there is only one morbid alternative. There isn't anything else that i have been able to think of that compares to that in life.)

I don't mean to be a downer. It's just when it comes to nausea I just want to curl into the fetal position and let it pass, quitting everything that i am doing. It's also to the point where i am jealous of healthy people. I know, it seems really silly! It's just getting harder to straight-cope with everything.

Luckily I have good Doctors that care about how i am feeling. I had an appointment yesterday with my Oncologists PA and she told me the Infusion Center told her all the days i was feeling nauseous. She begged me to call her when I get that way. There are still options we haven't explored. She prescribed me a patch that goes behind my ear for nausea, a pill for indigestion and another fail-safe for indigestion: Mylanta. Which by the way, tastes like one of my chemos, it's nooooott pleasant, but it works really well. I am hoping that these things will work, even though as I look inside myself to see how my body feels right now, I think by the 26th (the start of my last cycle) I don't think my gag reflex will be settled.

I can compare it to this: Have you ever overeaten to where you're physically uncomfortable? You just want to sit and rest and let it pass. After a couple hours the feeling of uncomfortably full passes. So you eat maybe... a banana -- immediately you're back where you started, at the threshold you were 2 long hours ago.

Only for me it has to do with feeling sick. I go through the chemo cycle and at the end I want to sit and let the feeling pass. After a week of feeling sick, it passes. Then a week later is when I "eat the banana" only at the beginning of my treatment I was digressing like honey coming out of the bottle on a cold day. Now it seems like a bullet train.

I mentioned before I don't want to be a downer. I really do have a silver lining to this post. I had talked to my wife for a couple of hours about my treatments and I told her about all these internal conflicts I was having about the treatments. After we finished our talk I felt so much more energized and happy.

I realized that these prescriptions and the doctors that I have are here to help me. They've helped people through this many, many times. Some times I am just too much of a trooper when it comes to medical care, because I am not used to being sick. Also I get the stubbornness (in a good way) from my Mom. It's hard for us to let other people take care of us, we'd rather save the world, while we're sick so the spotlight doesn't get shown on us too long.

There is something to be said for submission though. I believe it is in those times that we are able to grow the most because we know we aren't in control. That is what has driven me crazy about this whole process, I haven't been in control of anything! It's a hard pill to swallow, but i think we all have to give up the reigns to not stay on a narrow path. That's what i'm going to start doing -- I'm a late bloomer. heh

Wednesday or Thursday I am going to start wearing the patch to prepare for my bleo session on Friday. They also suggested I take a nausea pill on the ride there and on the ride home. That seems very reasonable and it also seems like it will help a lot. We'll see how it goes on friday. I'm also wondering if chemo on a half-full stomach would be my best bet too, or if i should eat several hours before my appointment. I can't imagine an empty stomach would be a good idea and i've already found what happens with a full one. So its going to be a little bit of trial and error this week.

I get better at keeping everyone updated. Once again, I don't mean to complain, but the down parts of the this past week were necessary to bring me to where i am at now.

Hair Loss and Head Shave

Saturday, October 30th, 2010

I haven't updated the blog in a while and I forgot to put this in when I was going through and updating today, so forgive it being out of order. I'll post some captions too. My sister Jen shaved my head while Amanda showed my Mom baby pictures and Rhiannon helped change the water. So everyone had a part, so-to-speak.

My sister Jen with the clippers.

My brother Randy was in the bathroom so we had to use a trash bag instead of a sheet.

I was sooo happy to get this hair off of my head by this point. It was coming out in clumps and in doing so all over my clothes and my bed too. I was happy to finally get it shaved off.

Jen Preparing to bic the hair off of my head.

I was touching up some spots she had missed. We're both perfectionists so she wasn't offended.

The finished product! No more hair on my pillow or the shower.

Day 24

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

I don't know if i am counting the days right. I figure the count goes on even when I don't get treated.

Today I took my sister Amanda to Chemo with me. When they tapped my port it took them one time. Then they drew blood. Amanda and I joked and talked as the blood was being analyzed.

When finally the blood came back. My overall white blood count had gone from 300 on monday to 500 today. So that's optimistic. However, they want it at 1000. So no chemo today either. They decided to give me a shot of Neupogen. Neupogen is a drug that stimulates the growth of white blood cells in bone marrow. It affects the flat bones: scapula, pelvis, sternum, etc. They suggested that I get some Claritin for the aches that it will cause.

I think Amanda was a little stunned by the whole situation, it made it less of a blog at that point and more of a reality. Though i'm sure it would do that for anyone.

Tuesday - November 2, 2010

I went in to see Doctor Quaid again today. He took out the remaining two stitches. I mentioned that my white blood counts were too low for treatment the day before. He said that my incision was taking longer to heal due to less than ideal conditions. I took this to mean that I didn't have the immune system to make my wounds heal as quickly as he'd like -- heck, as quickly as I would like!

After that he sent me on my way with a Band-Aide and a extra one to use. I was optimistic about the incision healing.

I mentioned to Rhiannon that Doctor Quaid is the only doctor that I really like to see. He's just got a very mild-mannered demeanor. He's cool.

Day 22

Monday - November 1, 2010

I went with my Mom to get chemo today at 6:30 in the morning for a 7 am appointment. She had the day off because of some procedures she had to get done.

The nurse that was supposed to be tapping my port was having an off-day I think. Although, that is not the person you want to have an off-day.

The first time she tried it hurt really bad. I didn't want to taste the salene so i held my breath. I thought i was just being a wuss and hadnt had my port tapped in a while. So when she asked if it was in i said "yes." and she started flushing with salene. When she did that it started to come out of my incision, which i didn't particularly like. I expressed that concern and she mentioned that the salene is sterile and it shouldn't affect my healing. She explained that when she tried to tap it the port must have moved on her.

The second time she tried it felt like she got in, but she must have got just in the edge cuz there was no blood return and no push, the salene wasn't going anywhere.

The third attempt they tried another nurse. It is this Chinese nurse that works there. She's been there a long time. She held the port firmly in place as another nurse sprayed Freezy stuff on my port to numb the location. She plunged the needle in and vola, it was finally tapped. They took a blood sample and i fell asleep.

When I woke up the nurse came up to me shaking her head. She said that my white blood count was too low for treatment today. She said we'd try again Wednesday.

When they untapped the port it bled a lot due to the target practice from earlier.