Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Almost 2 months

Sorry for the delay in my posts. I decided that I would update after dr appointments and I have only seen nurse practitioner lately. And until seeing some people that read my blog I was reminded I haven't updated so here goes.
My cat scan on July 5 showed growth of old tumors and quite a few new tumors in my lungs. The liver was stable. Because of the growth in lungs I needed to change to a new infusion chemo and also change from herceptin that I've take since 2007 to tykerb. Both drugs block the cells from dividing. But the change was needed because my body became immune to the herceptin thus the growth. The bad news is tykerb is an oral pill taken at home. 5 horse pills to put it nicely. 5 horse pills that give me diarrhea something awful.  Well you can't function in life like that so they lessened the dosage by one pill with no difference in outcome. I then told them I would be on vacation so I stopped taking them while we were in charlevoix . Started back up and had the same side effects so the had me take 2 in am and 2 pm. Well before I could start that dosage my lab work for my liver was raised so they halted the tykerb believing that was the cause. It's been three weeks with out taking it. Good for the bathroom purposes bad that I haven't been taking something that helps the tumors not multiply.
So instill go in for a treatment once a week on Monday's for two weeks the one week off. I'll have a doctors appointment in 3 weeks and will probably get a cat scan scheduled then. As of yesterday's labs my liver counts are coming down but still too high to take meds.
Rachel is cheering freshmen football games and enjoying it along with high school. Emily is loving middle school and all of her classes. She also made the volleyball team. James is enjoying .6th grade and enjoying being the king class of elementary school. He decided to take the year off from football. But found himself being the ball boy at the freshmen football games since we are there watching Rachel.
The pool was closed this past Sunday just in time for this weather change.
As far as take them a meal goes we have decided to keep it disabled since its been going fine with out it. We wanted to try to get back to some normalcy as much as we can. Yes cancer is a normal part of our life. But let's try to do some things without cancer in it. Does that make sense. A few people want to bring a meal and that is awesome thank you.  I will message you or call you soon. Thanks for the surprise gift cards to order something for dinner. All so thoughtful.
Paul is working 10 hour shifts still but now no more weekends. He either works m-th or t- fri. He is teaching for Grand rapids cc  on Monday and Wednesday nights and for Ferris
s in big rapids on Fridays . Just a tad busy.