We Have Such a Dim View

Scott Hodge, the man who married us, once told me that we as humans have such a dim view of heaven. Otherwise no one would say something like "I just want to see/do ____ before I die". If we truly understood what heaven was like there is no way we would ever wait for something on this Earth. Tonight just before 6:30 Stephanie was able to find out exactly heaven is like. She lost her battle with cancer, her body had just been through too much. The tumor in her left lung had grown to nearly replace the lung, pain was not subsiding in her arm from the growth in the chest wall, and her right lung was full of fluid. She fought hard, and she fought long, but it was just too much.Today marks eight months from the official diagnosis of her recurrence. Your thoughts and prayers for all of her family and friends is greatly appreciated. I will post the details about the services once they are finalized.

They Ought to Name a Room After Her

...Or maybe an entire wing. Stephanie has been re-admitted to the hospital. She started Radiation on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then on Wednesday night we drove to Waco for Thanksgiving and her grandmother's birthday party. The trip seemed to really wipe Stephanie out, she was in a lot of pain, sleeping most of the time, could barely walk, and was pretty confused. After seeing everyone and enjoying the party on Thursday we packed up and headed back to Gonzales so Stephanie could get her next two treatments on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday evening she started getting even more confused and weaker. When we went to the doctor on Monday he immeadiately suggested the hospital because her calcium was so high. Hypercalcemia is relatively common in people with solid tumors in the lungs, and causes most of the problems she was having. On Tuesday, after recieving some anti calcium drugs she was still pretty loopy, so the doctor decided to scan her brain just in case. The scan was thankfully clear, but it was still a scary few days. Today she is mostly lucid as the effects of the calcium are wearing off finally. Hopefully she will be discharged early next week.

Update: One Month Later

It's been a while since I've updated, even longer than the month it's been since Stephanie did. And what a month it has been. After her last update Steph started complaining about the Taxol and significant numbness in her hands and feet (a common side effect of the chemo). The third week of her three week cycle her blood counts were down and she didn't recieve the Taxol, only the Erbitux and later two units of blood. The next week was an off week, towards the end of the week she began complaining about a sharp pain in her left arm and hand. On Monday when she saw the doctor we discussed this and he determined he would like to scan her and see if there was a reason for her pain. She had treatment that day as well since we were in the bulding. At the end of the week we traveled to O'Fallon IL to visit my family, surprise my sister as she was in a play, and celebrate my mom's 56th birthday. Unfortunately there was a reason for the pain that showed up on the scan. The Taxol/Erbitux combination was not being effective and the large tumor in her left lung (the only one that showed any activity a month before) was growing somewhat significantly. It has begun eroding the chest wall and is pressing on nerves in the let shoulder blade area, which is causing the pain in the arm and hand. He switched her to another new drug to see if it would be effective. She felt good in the beginning of the week, but again towards the end the pain became unbearable. When we saw the medical oncologist on Monday and told him about the pain he suggested we consult with the radiation oncologist and determine if the tumor could be radiated to more quickly relieve the pain in the shoulder. The RO decided that he could and Stephanie started her second round of radiation on Tuesday before Thanksgiving. She recieved two treatments before Thanksgiving and then we headed out to Texas for Stephanie's grandmother's 80th birthday. It was good to see her extended family and celebrate such a long life. Stephanie was of course the second center of attention at the party. Unfortunately all the traveling has pretty well done her in. She slept the entire day Thursday, except while we were actually at the party. We had to return to Gonzales on Friday so she could receive her next two radiation treatments today and tomorrow. She has slept all day today as well, she even missed the Razorback game and slept through all my hollering. Hopefully tomorrow she will get some energy back.

We are still planning on moving back to Tulsa. The date is currently set for traveling on December 18th, and staying in our house for Christmas. The MO is researching cancer centers for us and will make a recommendation, probably sending Stephanie to an academic center in order to participate in a clinical trial.

Grace and Peace

Can't A Girl Just Get One Step Ahead?

Can't I just have a normal life for a day? I mean seriously I'd settle or an hour if that would be possible. On the 19th (Monday - when I had my treatment I was feeling pretty good, tired though. So I had my chemo, and got that shot to boost my red blood cell count again - yeh the one that hurts unless they push it in fast enough and not all of them do that. Everything was all hunky - dory. Well, at some point during the afternoon I did something to the mid - left section of my back and as the night went on it got worse and worse. Yesterday I barely got out of bed and it was killing me to even breathe because of the pain. Today was a little better, but not as much mostly kicking me in the - it just . I can drink a few small sips at a time - like 2 - and I haven't even attempted to eat so we are using the feeling tube. I've mainly been sleeping the day away with the drugs. Does anyone have any back /injury fixes?

Okay, so I wrote that over period of a few days and I'm getting a little better I think. I'm drinking more by mouth now and I think that is from the antibiotics because I coughed up some nasty nasty stuff that had been stuck in my throat. We still don't have a date in December for when we are moving back. Things are just always changing out there - so we are still just playing it by ear! Okay, I'm stopping now, before I make even less sense than I have been.

Have You Forgotten About Me Yet?

Long time no post! Well, I guess it's been a week or two, which isn't toooo bad. I finally have some news to post about - see, good things Last week I had the week off from chemo and had my PET/CT scan. It was definitely nice not having to get up early for chemo on Monday. Today we got the scan results and they were definitely positive. The only scans he had readily available to compare them with were the scans from April and I've had several other scans since then during my hospital stays.

So, the scan results:

There were originally two main tumors, one in each lung. The one in the right lung is near the middle of my chest. The tumor in my left lung (where they originally took the biopsy) is near the outside wall of my lung.

According to the scans from last week my tumor in my right lung is not there anymore. The tumor in my left lung is still similar in size (compared to April) but it is responding to the chemo. It's hard to explain. The tumor area is about the same size but the active part of the tumor that is lit up on the PET scan is smaller.

So. My Oncologist thinks it's the Erbitux that is having such a good response so we are continuing with it. I am stopping the Cisplatin and starting Taxol - which means I think I may end up losing my hair again, but I haven't read up enough on Taxol to know for sure.

Well, this is all the updating I'm going to do tonight - I think I've fallen asleep 7 or 8 times while writing this - Warner keeps poking me to wake me up. Goodnight!

Somebody Listen To Me!

Story Time!

So, my parents and brother came up to the apartment yesterday to visit for a little while. Well, I was feeling kind of run down all day so I hadn't eaten really at all so I decided to make some cheese toast because it usually goes down well. Well, rewind to Saturday night - per Warner's request - I made an apple cake from a recipe on The Pioneer Woman (it was actually a really good cake). Well, you cook the apples in a skillet and pop it in the oven once you put on the cake mix. The problem is that there is twenty pounds of butter in the recipe and apparently during the entire cooking time, butter had been dripping over the sides of the skillet on to the oven floor - which I noticed when I took the cake out but there wasn't anything I could do at that time while the oven was still hot. Okay, back to Sunday night and my cheese toast. I forgot all about the butter being in the bottom of the oven so I turned the oven on 400 and popped my toast in there (I'm not one to preheat the oven unless I'm baking bread or a cake or something like that). Well, the whole time it was cooking I was thinking it smelled like something was smoking or whatever - it wasn't too strong though so I ignored it. Well, I went to get my bread out and when I opened the door there was a small fire on the bottom of my oven - to which I exclaimed - "There is a fire in the bottom of my oven." AND NOBODY MOVED OR DID ANYTHING. My dad had been standing right next to me and he just walked away and sat on the couch. Then I said, "Umm...Warner there's a fire..." Nothing...then I slightly yelled "Somebody listen to me! The oven is on fire." And then my dad and Warner responded and dad blew out the fire and my mom and brother stared at me like I was crazy. Apparently I didn't have enough of a reaction to the fire for anyone to think anything of it. Maybe I'll just have to be overly-dramatic next time.

Fatigue At It's Finest

For the past week I have been fighting some extreme fatigue - which can always be quite entertaining since there is no telling what I will say or do - I can' recall any funny stories right now, but I know we've had our share the past few days. On Monday night I was running a high fever (101.8-102.3) so we called MBP because that's what you do at times like that. The on-call doctor wrote me a prescription for some antibiotics - because that is usually the problem, and it was - my tube that is still in my belly was all red a super painful and draining some. So, we got that fixed. On Tuesday I was still feeling pretty blah, just run down and out of it and I threw up once, so I had Warner take me in to MBP for some IV fluids and meds and whatever other magic potions they wanted to throw my way. Well, I didn't get any magic potions, instead I was the proud recipient of two bags of blood. Turns out I was quite anemic. So, I spent my day getting my transfusion. The transfusion did help for a while, I felt really good Tuesday and even on Wednesday. The problem, though, was that I was on the antibiotics and I'm also on blood thinner. Apparently the antibiotics can increase the effects of the blood thinner, and I'm guessing this is why I'm back to feeling run down. I do not have anymore antibiotics to take and I go into the doctor on Monday, so hopefully my body will work on straightening itself back out in the mean time.

Here are a few pictures from the house in Tulsa - we painted the study and the kitchen while we were there over Labor Day.

The kitchen nook area.

The wall on the right needs some art work or something to fill the space. We got the plates above the windows from Hobby Lobby and I'm debating about going and buying the larger one but I'm really not sure what to do....

The study

And again

New artwork above the fireplace. One of our Washington pictures.

My stomach with the tubes still in but my bruises from the Lovanox shots were mostly gone at this point.

Oh well, I'm going to head off to bed here soon! Goodnight!