What a relief! I had to call my family doctor because I have had a rash / hives since the CT scan on Wednesday. The oncology nurse practitioner felt it was unlikely related to the CT scan dye but I wasn't so sure and I still have the rash today so I called my family doctor. She waited to hear the story of the rash and then said by the way I know I am not supposed to tell you this until you see oncology next Thursday but your CT scan was all clear again! She read me parts of the report to make sure I really believed her. :-)
Praise God. I was so nervous about this scan this time! I am so thankful not to have to wait till next week for the results.
I do have to be careful now about a possible allergy to the CT scan dye but we will deal with that in 3 months when I get my next scan.
Thank you all for praying me along this winding road.
Karen
Friday, January 11, 2008
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Done Round Four
Thank you for STILL reading my blog, and more importantly, for PRAYING for me! I took 2 days off before Christmas to "lighten up" this round of chemo as my feet were hurting pretty badly in the first 11 days or so. That helped a LOT. Still by yesterday when I finished this round I was dragging, mouth weird, hands and feet hurting a little - but not too bad. My body has definitely adjusted to it somewhat and it is tolerable although not a breeze. Worth it if it saves my life, that's for sure. I read recently that some people stay on this med for years! RATS. I was really counting on stopping after 12 months..... I guess we will cross that bridge when we get there. :-(
Had my labs today, and will have my every 3 month CT scan on Wednesday. I admit I have been dreading this one too much, really struggling with fear that something will be found on the CT this time. I will not have the results until January 17th when I see my oncologist at Penn. Please pray that I can turn this worrying around in the future. I don't want to live with this black cloud hanging over me for the rest of my life. It will still always be there. I have to learn to ignore it, or live with it, or look at it's silver lining... or somethin' !!! Otherwise I am going to drive my poor husband bonkers with my worrying! My daughter gave me a great book on living in cancer's shadow and it has already started to change my outlook a bit. I do think it's understandable that occasionally I feel "down" but I can't let it consume me. Pray I don't have these "slumps" too often. Thank you so much!
Ethan's wrist surgery is on January 15th. Please pray they can use a bone graft from his radius (arm) and will not have to use his hip bone, and for a successful surgery, fast healing, little pain. Ethan has been great through the CT scan, MRI, 2nd opinion MD and 3 visits with the surgeon stuff. He took all the surgical news well, even studied the surgical photos I printed off about the procedure and kept comforting ME about it all! He didn't react negatively to ANYTHING about this until they told him he wouldn't be able to eat or drink after midnight the night before surgery! HAHA! That's a 14 yr old boy for ya! :-)
Our Christmas was really nice, in spite of our current "troubles". So many people reached out to us! We even had "secret santas" from another state who we didn't even know, send gifts to us all!!!!!! We were overwhelmed! In addition some Kohl's and Target and Visa gift cards showed up - some anonymously... and many cards and notes of encouragement kept our hopes up and allowed us to enjoy the season. It was hard for me at times as that dumb worry monster kept creeping in, but most hours of most days my mind was on my family and caring for them, which is right were I love to be. :-)
We are back to homeschool now after the Christmas break, still catching up on all the business bookkeeping and so on too. As Evan said today, "It's never a dull moment here is it Mommy?" Thank you all so much for sticking by us for the long haul. Please keep praying for the insurance case - it DRAGS on.... I am too tired of that to even write about it.....
Love,
Karen
Had my labs today, and will have my every 3 month CT scan on Wednesday. I admit I have been dreading this one too much, really struggling with fear that something will be found on the CT this time. I will not have the results until January 17th when I see my oncologist at Penn. Please pray that I can turn this worrying around in the future. I don't want to live with this black cloud hanging over me for the rest of my life. It will still always be there. I have to learn to ignore it, or live with it, or look at it's silver lining... or somethin' !!! Otherwise I am going to drive my poor husband bonkers with my worrying! My daughter gave me a great book on living in cancer's shadow and it has already started to change my outlook a bit. I do think it's understandable that occasionally I feel "down" but I can't let it consume me. Pray I don't have these "slumps" too often. Thank you so much!
Ethan's wrist surgery is on January 15th. Please pray they can use a bone graft from his radius (arm) and will not have to use his hip bone, and for a successful surgery, fast healing, little pain. Ethan has been great through the CT scan, MRI, 2nd opinion MD and 3 visits with the surgeon stuff. He took all the surgical news well, even studied the surgical photos I printed off about the procedure and kept comforting ME about it all! He didn't react negatively to ANYTHING about this until they told him he wouldn't be able to eat or drink after midnight the night before surgery! HAHA! That's a 14 yr old boy for ya! :-)
Our Christmas was really nice, in spite of our current "troubles". So many people reached out to us! We even had "secret santas" from another state who we didn't even know, send gifts to us all!!!!!! We were overwhelmed! In addition some Kohl's and Target and Visa gift cards showed up - some anonymously... and many cards and notes of encouragement kept our hopes up and allowed us to enjoy the season. It was hard for me at times as that dumb worry monster kept creeping in, but most hours of most days my mind was on my family and caring for them, which is right were I love to be. :-)
We are back to homeschool now after the Christmas break, still catching up on all the business bookkeeping and so on too. As Evan said today, "It's never a dull moment here is it Mommy?" Thank you all so much for sticking by us for the long haul. Please keep praying for the insurance case - it DRAGS on.... I am too tired of that to even write about it.....
Love,
Karen
Friday, December 21, 2007
Midway again..
Just a quick update in the midst of the Christmas rush! I am almost 1/2 way through the fourth cycle of Sutent. Midway of the last round my feet were starting to get sore and then suddenly improved. This time they are getting worse yesterday and today. I am having a hard time walking and it is painful even when I am not walking. Please pray that this side effect would not last too long this cycle! I still have a LOT of finishing up to do before Christmas and it's a bit discouraging to be doing everything with such sore feet! I have been burning the candle at both ends and not getting enough sleep which is catching up to me and I was completely exhausted by bedtime last night. So, please pray I will be able to prioritize all the things that need to be done and get enough rest. I have had some waves of fear "what if this is my last Christmas with my family?" which I need to overcome. Thank you so much for praying for me in my weakness. I want to face each day with JOY. If God gives me 30 more years on earth, I don't want to regret having sulked around now for no reason!!! :-)
We spoke to our attorney this week and our insurance company has replied to his letter. They said NOTHING. Just sent back a copy of the exact same low offer that they had given at least 2 months ago. Basically they are stonewalling us, and not only that, with ATTITUDE! ARGH! And as for our appeal on the trucking case, the judge has acknowledged our filing the appeal, but now has some number of weeks (months?) to reply with her reasons for denying our request to overturn the unfair settlement. So, we are in limbo on both aspects of the truck accident. We are so TIRED of this. And I am anxious about how we will make it through the lean winter months of our business year... All we have is the LORD. I suppose that is what He wants us to learn.
Charles' back injury is improving via physical therapy and for that we are both very grateful. He is still uncomfortable and his leg has a lot of numbness and weakness. But the pain is much decreased, so that is a relief. He is able to do more to help around the house and concentrate better at work, thankfully. Please pray that the ibuprofen does not give him a lot of GI trouble as has happened in the past when he took it for his various arm injuries over the years.
Ethan is a trooper! He has been to the hand specialist twice, had a CT scan and now an MRI to evaluate his wrist fracture. We will be taking him for a second opinion at the Phila Hand Center on Jan 3rd. (wow are we thankful for our medical insurance!) Then, more than likely he will have a very extensive 2-3 hour surgery to repair his wrist in mid January. There is some concern about ligament damage, and the small, soft bone graft may not be enough so they might have to take a small portion of bone from his hip instead :-( We will know more after the MRI results come back. He will be in a splint then a cast for a total of at least 6-8 weeks post-op. He has a great attitude even though he has to drop out of archery, can't be on the volleyball team this winter, etc. I bet he thinks he won't have to do his schoolwork but he is wrong on that one! :-)
We have been blessed by so much tender loving CARE these last few weeks from so many people. THANK YOU all for carrying us through each step of this journey. I cannot IMAGINE doing this ALONE! God is our ever present helpin time of trouble, but HE has sent so many people to be His hands and feet - and that tangible care is what gets us through each day.
MERRY CHRISTMAS! May you all know the JOY and PEACE that comes only from God, through His precious son, born in that manger to die for our sins.
Love,
Karen
We spoke to our attorney this week and our insurance company has replied to his letter. They said NOTHING. Just sent back a copy of the exact same low offer that they had given at least 2 months ago. Basically they are stonewalling us, and not only that, with ATTITUDE! ARGH! And as for our appeal on the trucking case, the judge has acknowledged our filing the appeal, but now has some number of weeks (months?) to reply with her reasons for denying our request to overturn the unfair settlement. So, we are in limbo on both aspects of the truck accident. We are so TIRED of this. And I am anxious about how we will make it through the lean winter months of our business year... All we have is the LORD. I suppose that is what He wants us to learn.
Charles' back injury is improving via physical therapy and for that we are both very grateful. He is still uncomfortable and his leg has a lot of numbness and weakness. But the pain is much decreased, so that is a relief. He is able to do more to help around the house and concentrate better at work, thankfully. Please pray that the ibuprofen does not give him a lot of GI trouble as has happened in the past when he took it for his various arm injuries over the years.
Ethan is a trooper! He has been to the hand specialist twice, had a CT scan and now an MRI to evaluate his wrist fracture. We will be taking him for a second opinion at the Phila Hand Center on Jan 3rd. (wow are we thankful for our medical insurance!) Then, more than likely he will have a very extensive 2-3 hour surgery to repair his wrist in mid January. There is some concern about ligament damage, and the small, soft bone graft may not be enough so they might have to take a small portion of bone from his hip instead :-( We will know more after the MRI results come back. He will be in a splint then a cast for a total of at least 6-8 weeks post-op. He has a great attitude even though he has to drop out of archery, can't be on the volleyball team this winter, etc. I bet he thinks he won't have to do his schoolwork but he is wrong on that one! :-)
We have been blessed by so much tender loving CARE these last few weeks from so many people. THANK YOU all for carrying us through each step of this journey. I cannot IMAGINE doing this ALONE! God is our ever present helpin time of trouble, but HE has sent so many people to be His hands and feet - and that tangible care is what gets us through each day.
MERRY CHRISTMAS! May you all know the JOY and PEACE that comes only from God, through His precious son, born in that manger to die for our sins.
Love,
Karen
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Wrist Trouble
Sorry I might not have replied to some emails and maybe even calls - I am a bit snowed under lately with so much to do....started chemo Monday and was making hay while the sun shined with every minute booked for the last 2 weeks.
Took Ethan to a hand specialist today for a nagging sore wrist. He fell on it in late August and about every 3 weeks or so he would mention that it bothered him. In all the hubbub around here I finally realized it wasn't getting better and went to the pediatrician who said it was probably a sprain, then hand doc was out of town for a few weeks, and now we finally went to our appt and ...
IT IS BROKEN!!!! ARGGHHHHHH!!!!!!
And since we didn't catch it early when a cast might have worked he is likely now going to need a bone graft / screw / and pins. ARGH ARGH ARGH. In my defense the doc said they see this a LOT with this type of fracture as they are barely noticable sometimes, and then they do not heal right, etc. I looked up lots of articles on line (scaphoid nonunion fracture) and the surgery suggested, etc, is right down the line exactly what the doc said. We might get a second opinion but this doc is highly recommended and all that he said makes perfect sense. He was not pushy, offered that we get a second opinion from a pediatric hand specialist and such. But the xray shows clearly even to my inexperienced eye that the break is not healing and the edges are calcifying without knitting together. The danger in "letting it go" is that the detached bone could die off from lack of blood flow or the fracture could displace and so on.
Ethan has a CAT scan of the wrist tomorrow to evaluate the damage to the blood flow to the broken piece, etc. Not sure if we can get the surgery in before Christmas but I sure would like him healed up as soon as possible - and recovery sounds like 2-3 months at least. :-( He will have a screw and probably two pins. A splint and then a cast post-op and a short surgery to remove the pins after the cast is off. He was to join a homeschool volleyball team in January and that is shot for this year, and he will have to stop archery too. :-(
Thanks all, for listening to my tale of woe...... I feel SO BAD about my son needing surgery for something possibly because I didn't act on it for him sooner. There is a chance that even with casting it might not have healed, but I still feel bad.
I am dreading Christmas on chemo and pushing myself hard to get ahead of it all so if you could pray for me on that too I would really appreciate it. Charles' back is slowly improving and boy do we need him better asap so please pray for him too. He is in PT three times a week.
Thank you!
Karen
ps - Bet every family doesn't have their own personal hand / arm surgery specialist like we do... this is our FOURTH kid - if you count Charles as a kid..... to use this doctor in the last 5 years or so... ?????? What is THAT about ????
Took Ethan to a hand specialist today for a nagging sore wrist. He fell on it in late August and about every 3 weeks or so he would mention that it bothered him. In all the hubbub around here I finally realized it wasn't getting better and went to the pediatrician who said it was probably a sprain, then hand doc was out of town for a few weeks, and now we finally went to our appt and ...
IT IS BROKEN!!!! ARGGHHHHHH!!!!!!
And since we didn't catch it early when a cast might have worked he is likely now going to need a bone graft / screw / and pins. ARGH ARGH ARGH. In my defense the doc said they see this a LOT with this type of fracture as they are barely noticable sometimes, and then they do not heal right, etc. I looked up lots of articles on line (scaphoid nonunion fracture) and the surgery suggested, etc, is right down the line exactly what the doc said. We might get a second opinion but this doc is highly recommended and all that he said makes perfect sense. He was not pushy, offered that we get a second opinion from a pediatric hand specialist and such. But the xray shows clearly even to my inexperienced eye that the break is not healing and the edges are calcifying without knitting together. The danger in "letting it go" is that the detached bone could die off from lack of blood flow or the fracture could displace and so on.
Ethan has a CAT scan of the wrist tomorrow to evaluate the damage to the blood flow to the broken piece, etc. Not sure if we can get the surgery in before Christmas but I sure would like him healed up as soon as possible - and recovery sounds like 2-3 months at least. :-( He will have a screw and probably two pins. A splint and then a cast post-op and a short surgery to remove the pins after the cast is off. He was to join a homeschool volleyball team in January and that is shot for this year, and he will have to stop archery too. :-(
Thanks all, for listening to my tale of woe...... I feel SO BAD about my son needing surgery for something possibly because I didn't act on it for him sooner. There is a chance that even with casting it might not have healed, but I still feel bad.
I am dreading Christmas on chemo and pushing myself hard to get ahead of it all so if you could pray for me on that too I would really appreciate it. Charles' back is slowly improving and boy do we need him better asap so please pray for him too. He is in PT three times a week.
Thank you!
Karen
ps - Bet every family doesn't have their own personal hand / arm surgery specialist like we do... this is our FOURTH kid - if you count Charles as a kid..... to use this doctor in the last 5 years or so... ?????? What is THAT about ????
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Not too bad
Ok I finished round 3 of chemo. It was better than the prior round but still not a walk in the park! The last post to the blog I had shared that I was feeling remarkably well at the end of wk 2. It did start backsliding again for wk 3 and 4 but definitely did not get as bad as the prior month. Saw Dr Flaherty at Penn and he said to expect that this is now the level of side effects that will remain, he doubts it will improve much. He was surprised at that mid-cycle improvement. I told him it must have been the yummy, healthy birthday meal that my kids made for me, from a "chemotherapy foods" cookbook. The carrot ginger soup was delicious as was everything else. I had carrot soup leftovers for several days - my theory is that is was "healing food!" But, by the end of wk 4 I was exhausted by 7 pm each evening and my feet were calloused and peeling in several spots but not painful like they had been the prior cycle. So I consider that an improvement! My joints ached a bit but were not as incapacitating as the prior cycle - I was able to drive the kids to activities, cook, etc till the very end.
As the chemo ended I was thrust into high gear because Charles injured his lower back pretty badly and began to have a lot of pain down his leg and in this thigh and hip, numbness down his leg, difficulty walking etc. He has not had a good night sleep in about 2 weeks as he is up and down all night, trying to walk, sit, toss or turn. He has seen the doctor twice now and tried 2 different courses of meds - the first round last week did nothing and he just got worse. This round seems to be helping a little and he starts Physical Therapy this evening.
Our attorney sent a new letter to our insurance company with all the clarifications of the policy and basically TOLD them they don't have a leg to stand on. We are waiting for a reply which I am SURE will be at least 30 days away as they always stall as long as they possibly can. We also appealed the trucking company verdict as we feel it is totally unfair but mostly because this is the only way to get the judge to put her reasons in writing so that we know how to proceed. Please pray that we soon see action on both this issues.
We are entering this Christmas season trying to keep our "chins up". Please pray with us that we could continue to do and be all that God would want of us in spite of the ongoing trials of life. We are so so TIRED. Our kids need us and we have to keep going no matter how we feel. We are trying to prep for Christmas as much as we can in advance. We got the tree up last weekend - maybe the earliest ever!
I start my next round of chemo on Dec 10th and so will be in the "lousy" weeks for Christmas Week and New Years Week, when we have to do our store inventory and the fiscal year bookkeeping corrections and balancing which is always an exhausting process. Please pray I will manage my time well and protect my health by getting enough rest etc during this very busy time. I am feeling pretty pressured right now with Charles not feeling well and so much to do before the chemo hits me over the head again!
My rib area which I injured in mid November is finally getting a lot better. I can move and breath deeply again without pain, although the area is still tender. My oncologist was not concerned but I will still be relieved to get the "all clear" on my next CAT scan, which will be around January 8th or 9th. I still do have waves of fear that the cancer is coming back and that is why I had the rib pain... or that I might not be here for next Christmas..... :-( Please pray that I can allow myself to trust the Lord completely with my life. After all, my worrying isn't going to change anything!
Thank you all so much,
Karen
As the chemo ended I was thrust into high gear because Charles injured his lower back pretty badly and began to have a lot of pain down his leg and in this thigh and hip, numbness down his leg, difficulty walking etc. He has not had a good night sleep in about 2 weeks as he is up and down all night, trying to walk, sit, toss or turn. He has seen the doctor twice now and tried 2 different courses of meds - the first round last week did nothing and he just got worse. This round seems to be helping a little and he starts Physical Therapy this evening.
Our attorney sent a new letter to our insurance company with all the clarifications of the policy and basically TOLD them they don't have a leg to stand on. We are waiting for a reply which I am SURE will be at least 30 days away as they always stall as long as they possibly can. We also appealed the trucking company verdict as we feel it is totally unfair but mostly because this is the only way to get the judge to put her reasons in writing so that we know how to proceed. Please pray that we soon see action on both this issues.
We are entering this Christmas season trying to keep our "chins up". Please pray with us that we could continue to do and be all that God would want of us in spite of the ongoing trials of life. We are so so TIRED. Our kids need us and we have to keep going no matter how we feel. We are trying to prep for Christmas as much as we can in advance. We got the tree up last weekend - maybe the earliest ever!
I start my next round of chemo on Dec 10th and so will be in the "lousy" weeks for Christmas Week and New Years Week, when we have to do our store inventory and the fiscal year bookkeeping corrections and balancing which is always an exhausting process. Please pray I will manage my time well and protect my health by getting enough rest etc during this very busy time. I am feeling pretty pressured right now with Charles not feeling well and so much to do before the chemo hits me over the head again!
My rib area which I injured in mid November is finally getting a lot better. I can move and breath deeply again without pain, although the area is still tender. My oncologist was not concerned but I will still be relieved to get the "all clear" on my next CAT scan, which will be around January 8th or 9th. I still do have waves of fear that the cancer is coming back and that is why I had the rib pain... or that I might not be here for next Christmas..... :-( Please pray that I can allow myself to trust the Lord completely with my life. After all, my worrying isn't going to change anything!
Thank you all so much,
Karen
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