Just rolling along

It's been a few weeks since our last update here, so I figured I would dust off the old blog and give the latest.  Well, there really isn't a whole lot.  Denise continues to be on the mend from her chemo.  The biggest problem is still with her legs.  The water is beginning to shed itself off and her feet are returning to normal, but her legs still get sore from time to time leading to discomfort.  The afib is easing as well.  Her cardiologist gave her some different meds and that seems to be having a positive effect on her.  She's been back to work more regularly too the past couple weeks and as she loves her job, that has done a lot for her spirits.   She's also using a technique a former coworker of mine shared with me.  She too had a battle with cancer over this past year and had returned to work before I left.  Her advice to Denise was to nap at lunch.  There's a meeting room where Denise works that is normally not in use so she's been ducking away in there and catching some sleep over lunch.  She's saying it REALLY helps.  Thanks for that tip, Diane!
(Truly, if you need great vet care, drop me a line and I can give you a referral.) 

So with things on the mend and her getting back to life that's the new normal, we can start concentrating on the important things.  Like our sons wedding in July, hopefully the trip to Ireland to follow that and the birth of our grandson in September.  Still seems weird to me to say, "our grandson".  

Our hero seen here baby clothes shopping!

Not that I am opposed to the birth mind you, not one bit, just the fact of I've now gotten old enough to be a grandparent.  When did I get old?  She, of course, is ecstatic over the fact of being a grandmother and wanted to go clothes shopping for him this past weekend. 

Anyways, we are still on track for the June 6th appointment for another scan and follow-up appointment and hopefully then we can start moving past this stage completely and on to the future. 

So that's it for now.  Hopefully will have some good news to share in a couple weeks, but for now we'll just keep rolling along. 

6 Weeks

Denise had her follow-up CAT scan and results meeting with the doctor today.  The nice thing about this visit was that we were able to do both things the same day!  We had to get up at stupid o'clock and head out the door to make it there for her 7:30 AM appointment.  Driving into Cleveland is a crap shoot during rush hour and we didn't want to take any chances.  We got there plenty early enough and they took her right back and got her prepped.  The scan went well and then we had a couple hours to kill before her other appointment.  

When it was time for the appointment, the doctor came in and right away told us the results.  

Nothing new on the scans!  

Everything was just as it has been on the last couple scans, no changes, nothing new.  But, he wants to play it safe and do another scan in 6 weeks rather than 3 months.  There's a few areas he wants to keep his eyes on just to make sure there's nothing to be worried about and he seems confident there isn't anything to worry about, but he wants to be sure.  Also, her blood numbers are getting back into shape properly, so that is a good sign!  Her white blood counts have been rising faster than gas prices, but they are on the way back down.

So for now we are playing it optimistically happy, but, have to wait until the next round to know for sure.  At least for now he said that she no longer has to go through any more chemo, we are done! Hopefully for good!  The only ongoing concern is the amount of water she is still retaining which is a known side effect of the chemo.  Hopefully that will go down because it's causing her a lot of uncomfortableness when she walks around.  Her muscles feel pretty beat up from it all.  

So with that news, we headed out the door and went to enjoy a lunch to celebrate our wedding anniversary today.  Hopefully between now and June 6th her life will start getting back to normal.  For now, we'll just take it one day at a time.

Editors note: The Cleveland Clinic has a REALLY good cafeteria.  Pancakes, good ones too, only .69 cents each!  A steal!  That's how we passed some of the time between appointments. 

It's all uphill from here. Hopefully.

We had that gut feeling again.  

This week was our visit with our old pal Taxotere.  To be honest, I don't think that Denise had really even fully recovered yet from her last Taxotere treatment a couple of weeks ago.  But we went ahead and had the treatment as scheduled and like I stated in the last post, Doctor M said that 5 treatment cycles is what he really wanted.  So all week I worked from home because she was really dragging badly and needed someone to keep an eye on her.  No energy what so ever, dizzy, lightheaded, heart racing like she ran up three flights of stairs and all she did was walk across the room. Basically a mess.  As our history has gone with post-Taxotere weeks, Thursdays are the days when things start to happen.  This week was no different.  I was working in the office and Denise had me put the pup in the kennel so should could go take a nap.  She wasn't asleep too long when she got up and said that she could feel the afib coming on.  As her cardiologist Doctor G had said last time this had occurred, she needed to take her "pill in the pocket" Rythmol.  Two when it first occurs and then two more an hour later.  We took the first two and waited.  Her heart was still acting like Napoleon Dynamite dancing at the talent show. The next hour, the other two. Things started to calm down a bit so we thought that might be that.  So she had a sandwich for dinner.  Then it started up again.  It was time to head down to the hospital again.  By the time we got there however, the heart had gotten itself back into regular rhythm.  The ER staff wanted to play it safe because anytime she got up to move, she was getting super dizzy and very light-headed.  They also drew a bunch of blood and took a urine sample with his history of UTI's that occur these weeks.  After a while they came back with the results.  Major UTI forming and her white blood cell count was really high.  The afib might have been a blessing in disguise actually because she was having none of the normal symptoms that were the "tells" that the infection was coming on.  They started her up with an antibiotic drip and admitted her.  We were both relieved with that.  Last time they sent us home and we didn't want another innocent of having to come back in an ambulance a couple of hours later.  It was after 11 PM at this point and she was settled into her room for the night so I headed home.  

On Friday morning she sent me a text

Her morning blood tests had shown that her hemoglobin level had dropped pretty low.  With her constant fatigue, the afib and the UTI, they felt it was time to do a blood transfusion.   So this afternoon they brought in a bag of packed red blood cells to help to her levels up.

I checked in with the oncology team up at the Clinic and they were cool with the procedure.  It's not uncommon for chemo patients to have to do it.  Only took about two hours for the bag to be drained. Hopefully this will help get her numbers moving in the right direction, but we won't know until tomorrow after her morning blood draw.  

So where does that leave us?  For now, she's where she needs to be.  In the hospital under observation.  If something else goes wonky, she can get someone to help her out and they can address it right then and there.  I'm planning on getting up tomorrow morning and heading down to stay with her.  She at least has a really nice room this time.  Used to be the hospice room but since a local hospice house had opened they never use it anymore except for patients.  It's like a hotel suite in there, except it's in a hospital.

The real silver lining tonight was Molly's friends Noah, Justin, Caitlin and Austin.  They made us a huge rigatoni, garlic bread, salad and cookie feast and brought it down to us.  Those kids are awesome.  Well, they are band kids after all, so, that alone makes them awesome.

I'm hoping that now that the Taxotere is in the rear view mirror, she can start the healing process.  We still have the option of doing just the Gemcitabine treatments, but right now that's not looking too enticing.  Hopefully this is the last of the bumps in the road.  Hopefully the rest of our journey will be all uphill from here.

Hopefully.

The End?

The last Taxotere?

Well, we got some interesting news today.  We're up here in Cleveland at the clinic for her treatment, the big week with two treatments, and Doctor M is confident that this, the 5th round of chemo should be sufficient to combat the cancer!  So, we could:
1.  Be done
2.  Just do the first week of the 6th cycle and get the normal 1 Gencitabine treatment
3.  Do the 6th cycle with two weeks of Gencitabine and no Taxotere
We talked about it for a while with the doctor and we landed on this action plan. As I stated above he feels very confident that 5 rounds of chemo is enough to kill off this cancer.  He doesn't have any data that suggested we must complete 6, but 5 should be good enough.  We however figure if we can do at least the 1st week of cycle 6, we would feel better and he frankly has not problems with that and supports that approach.  BUT, since this is week 2 of the cycles, this is historically when things go wonky for Denise.  Already these past couple of weeks the water retention has gotten pretty bad and she is up about 25lbs in weight just from the water. The plan for now we are going to wait and see.  If she makes it through this week without incidents of dehydration, UTI's or a frantic heart, then we are going to go with one more Gencitabine treatment.  If, however, we run into problems, then we may hold off or cancel all together.
We know we're not out of the woods yet.  There is still a lot of road ahead of us but at least there is a feeling in our hearts that there is even more road behind us.  She's got a new round of prescriptions called into the pharmacy so on our way home tonight we'll stop and get those.  Hopefully we can get rid of all this excess water in her system because that's the big stress on her system now.  If that can get regulated, then hopefully other things can get working and her healing from this can begin.
For now, we celebrate!

The second to last round has begun

As with most Monday's since the start of the new year, Denise and I ventured north to the Cleveland Clinic this morning.  Today officially started the second to last round of chemo for her.  The difference today is that our daughter Molly came along for the ride.  As with most 11th graders, she's not sure what career path to follow in life, so she wanted to come along to see what it's like at a world renowned institution like the Cleveland Clinic since nursing is beginning to become appealing to her.   She also wanted to see what it's been like for her Mom since the start of all of this.  I'm glad she did join us because the nurses there spent time talking with her and telling her some stories.  I think that might have cemented her desire to take up a noble career as that.  I don't know if I've said it on here, but I know I've said it aloud to others; nurses are the true heroes of medicine.  I saw that first hand when I  was in the hospital for my back surgery 11 years ago and then with Denise's recent visits.

Aside from watching Molly's wide-eye enthusiasm, we met with Doctor M today.  He's been kept aware by us on Denise's recent issues and wanted to make sure everything was okay.  The plan right now is to continue on with 6 rounds of chemo.  If however next weeks Taxotere round takes her out again and causes her more hospital time, he may cancel the last Taxotere treatment and just finish up after this round.  We will see.  Of course Denise and I are hoping to do all 6 to make sure this cancer is beat, but at the cost of her overall health, it's a slippery slope.  The good news also today was that with Denise starting to take iron supplements regularly now, we saw a marked increase for the better with her blood numbers.  So that is a good thing.

Before her normal chemo appointment though, Denise got to have what every women, (and even some men), get to go through regularly.  A mammogram.   Now I'm not going to go into detail, but let's just say that took longer then it normally does and she was in a very foul mood afterwards.  I'm sure you can fill in the blanks 

Now, we wait.  Hopefully this weeks single treatment will go easy on her like normal.  And with all of the things we've learned over the past several weeks, hopefully we can do enough prep for next weeks visit and not have it take as hard of a toll on her as the previous ones have.  We can hope.

Revenge of the Taxotere.....

Another round of chemo behind us.  Only two more cycles to go.  But with every cycle of chemo, the second is always been the one that we worry the most about because that's the one with Taxotere.  This week was no exception.  On Monday we spent another very long day up at the Cleveland Clinic.  Denise got all settled in for treatment and I settled in to try and get what work done I could for the day job from there.  Things went like normal and there weren't any problems.  The only thing different at the start of this week was the fact that Denise had put on a lot of weight from water, over 15 pounds.  They gave her a water pill to take so we hoped that would help get things back in order.  The rest of the week went like normal, just really run down and feeling kinda blah.  The extra water weight really made her tired easily and walking even around the house was becoming more and more of a chore.  Thursday, it started to get worse.  Denise put a call into her cardiologist because of it and also because the clinic team was a little worried that the water pill may have been putting too much stress on her vascular system.  I had already planned on taking Friday off in hopes we could get Denise into a doctor and I'm glad I planned ahead.  I think I am getting a sixth sense and/or jedi premonition about things with her health.  Unfortunately, I was right again.  3:30 in the morning Friday, Denise woke me up.  She had gotten up to use the bathroom and she could feel her heart racing like it did when she had afib when she was in the hospital for her infection in January.  We waited a little bit to see if it cleared up on it's own, it didn't.  We got dressed and rushed down to the hospital.  They took her right in and hooked her up to monitors.  It was a full on afib attack.  Her heart was beating fast and irregular.  Watching her monitor, I could see it.  Her blood pressure was okay, just the heart had gotten itself out of rhythm again.  The likely culprit was all the extra water weight in her system.  They put her on IV and started giving her a drip of medicine, ( I can't recall the name), to help get things back in order.  After a couple of hours, it started to and then suddenly it was just fine.  They then gave her 4 pills of another medicine called rythmol.  They were ready to send us on our way, but I asked if we could just hang out and have her monitored.  They agreed and after another hour, things were still good so they sent us on our way.  I asked before we left if it was okay if she could take all her normal BP and diabetes meds and they said that shouldn't be a problem.  My spidey senses went off, but thought that they knew better then me, so we went home.  We got home about 10:30 and we took it easy in the living room.  She had taken her meds just before and quickly passed out asleep.  After a few hours she woke up and said she wasn't feeling good at all, really nauseous.  She got out of the chair and was making her way to the bathroom.  She stopped and sat down in another chair and began to get upset.  I came over and tried to talk her down, but I could tell something was going on.  She got up and I got behind her to help her to the bathroom.  I had a firm grip under her armpits and she started to stumble and then start to fall.  I guided her down to the floor gently and had to snap her out of it.  She passed out for a quick moment and her lips were turning a little blue.  I got her up and back to a chair and that's when I called the ambulance.  I wasn't going to risk trying to get her to the car and to the hospital this time.  Called 911 and within minutes a truck pulled up out front.  A few firemen were up the street from us when the call came in and came over to start the pre-work of checking her out.  

They checked her heart right away and everything was beating just fine.  It seems like the mix of medicines she had in her system once again started to play hell with her and caused her to pass out.  Moments later, the ambulance pulled up our front and they brought the stretcher in.
Back at the hospital, Denise got hooked back up to the heart monitors and everything was good there.  Her BP wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either.  After some more blood tests and consulting with the ER doctor and the cardiologist, they decided to keep her overnight for observation.  Which was a good thing. Not that anything happened because it didn't, but just to keep her on the monitors all night and make sure her heart doesn't freak out again.  
Today, Saturday, I headed back down to the hospital to see her and hopefully get her.  Her cardiologist came in and we all talked.  He said that it's likely all the water weight is to blame for this latest afib episode and then the passing out came from the cocktail of medicines she got to combat it. He also pointed out that her red blood cells are getting pretty low, thanks to the chemo, so anything that hits her, hits her hard.  The doctor recommended that she start taking iron and that can help combat that.  He also gave her a prescription of rythmol to have on hand in case her heart starts playing crazy again.  A "pill in the pocket" is what he called it.  I guess that's like Barney of Mayberry carrying around a bullet in his pocket. In case of emergency, it's there.So with that, we were on our way back home.

The beagles were of course happy to see that she had returned home, so we settled into another Saturday.  But, as luck would have it, another urinary tract infection began to make it's presence known.  Of course.  It seems like anytime she gets a taxotere treatment, one of those pops up as well. Ugh.  She made a call up to the clinic and they called her in some more antibiotics.  So now our kitchen is beginning to look like a pharmacy.  Hopefully now she will get on the mend and things can get back to a little normal, just in time for the next cycle to begin and we can start all over again.
Taxotere is a predator.  It looks for the bodies biggest weakness and goes after it with a vengeance.  It's been successful at taking her down, hard the past couple of times.  There are two more rounds to go, so I am hoping that we can make it through that without any further visits to the local ER.  I'm just going to stay hopeful about that.
I'm wondering if just next time she's going to spontaneously combust.  I think that's the only thing we have yet to have happen.

The day we got good news.

We got good news today.  We are officially half way through treatments!  Denise had her CAT scan imaging last Monday on our "off" week so we had to wait until today to get the results.  That has made for a VERY long week.  As per our normal procedures, we got to the Clinic early and made our way up to the 8th floor.  We got called back and she got her vitals checked.  Her blood pressure is back to normal as well!  Getting off those extra meds this past week has made a world of difference.  She's been much more active and doesn't get as tired as easily.  Such a good thing to have her "back".  Just seemed like she was in a fog when she was on all those meds.  We had to wait for a little bit for Doctor M to come into the room.  He came in, sat down, looked right at her and said, "Your scans were perfect".  I was in tears.  She was in shock.  I think we both spent the past week waiting to hear the worst and we got exactly what we had hoped and prayed for.  So the plan for now is to complete three more cycles.  Two weeks of chemo, week off, repeat.  That means that our last treatment should be on our wedding/first date anniversary.  I think we also know, but won't admit at least now, that we know there is still a lot of road ahead and will probably have some bumps along the way.  But at least for now, there is light at the end of the tunnel.  I cannot wait for that last day to get here.

I'll keep updating the site along the way.  Thanks to all of you who follow along and for your positive thoughts/prayers/positive light and energy/karma/encouraging words/most importantly LOVE.  That has meant the most to us through this.

Onward.

Now if I can wrangle the remote control away from her as she's sleeping, I can change the channel from Friends. Ack.

Remember that time we went out to eat a couple days before your CAT scan?

Denise 2/24/2016

Well, the third cycle is now officially behind us.  That of course doesn't mean there weren't any problems.  We thought we made it out of the woods with this one.  Made sure that she had plenty of fluids and kept up with her meds.  But the weeks where she has her Gencitabine and Taxotere are the hells weeks.  She held up pretty good at the start of the week, but Thursday she started feeling a pretty crummy.  By Saturday, she was feeling up to getting out of the house and go grocery shopping with me as well as a bite to eat.  So we headed into town and stopped for lunch at El Pappa's, (local Mexican restaurant).  We were enjoying the chips and salsa and it started to happen.  Right after our food arrived.  It came out of nowhere like a freight train.  I could tell something was going on because she just stopped eating and was looking weird.  I asked her what was wrong and she told me that she was feeling woosy.  Then she started having a panic attack.  I jumped out of my seat and moved the table out of the way.  The wait staff and owners rushed over ready to call 911, she told them no and then she just passed out, unresponsive for what seemed like an eternity, but was only probably 10 - 20 seconds.  The weird thing is how quickly she bounced back.  She immediately became responsive and started getting color.  One of the fun side effects of this whole journey is what it's doing to her blood pressure.  It keeps dropping out of nowhere.  And that's what happened at the restaurant and tack on the panic attack, well, let's just say it sucked.  Badly.  But with another visit to the cardiologist today, we all figured it out together that her constant low blood pressure is due to the increased blood pressure meds she's been on since she landed in the hospital and had the afib episode.  At least now the cardiologist is taking the approach that, to paraphrase, "he was treating something that happened once, hadn't happened again, then why continue to take such a high dose of medicine?"  So with that, he told her to cut back on what meds she is taking to the levels she was taking before things went wonky and we'll go from there.  Hopefully this will get her back on her feet.
Yesterday was a big day, the follow up CAT scan.  The original plan was to have three cycles of chemo then scan.  Yesterday was that scan.  We won't know the official word until we see the doctor next Monday, but, we did hear back today that there's nothing new.  Of course Nurse Practitioner "J" doesn't want or can give everything away over the phone, but Denise said she sounded positive in her voice, so we'll take it as "good news".  We know we have more chemo in front of us, at least 3 cycles, but hopefully this is the beginning of the end of it.  So at least we don't have to go through until next Monday thinking the worst.
With Doctor M's help though we should be able to get through this.