For Today

So the weekend was pretty much non-eventful. Hung out at the house - Ric mostly slept especially through the football games :) He had a doctors appt Monday morning - blood work and review of where his electrolytes are at after the weekend. Labs were improved especially white blood cell count and electrolytes not quite where they wanted them but the diarrhea was still an issue. Plenty of Gatorade and a prescription for something a bit stronger than Imodium was what was in the works. So at this time it seems that the diarrhea is gone - yeah! We had a nice low key birthday dinner last night at The Spaghetti Factory for Ric. He received lots of birthday wishes although I know that he would have loved to be celebrating his birthday much differently! This afternoon he's just sitting in his chair next to the window soaking in the sunshine. This Thursday he will be getting the CT scan & MRI to see where things are at. The bummer is that we have to wait till next Thursday to see the doc to review the results and what's next on the agenda. Guess we will have to keep ourselves busy over the next week so we aren't going crazy waiting.......right now it's just one day at a time. :)

Going Home Today

Doc says Ric will be going home from the hospital today - don't know exactly what time yet. Ric is very happy about that. The diarrhea is still here but slowed down a tiny bit. Imodium will be our friend until we can get that stopped. He will have to take potassium orally and focus on keeping himself hydrated. Blood work on Monday (his birthday) to make sure things are still where they need to be. Then figuring out when the scans will be done. Looks like I'm going to have to cancel/reschedule the New York trip. Not sure when and not looking forward to traveling there in November or December. We'll have to talk to Dr. Issacs tomorrow or Monday to see what we should do. So prayers please for Ric's continued healing. Holly's perspective on this delay before the scans is that God needed a little more healing time for Ric before we see what's going on. Please continue praying for my brother Alan & his family - he's got colon cancer - been through surgery and chemo. He's a much bigger guy than Ric but apparently has lost like 80 lbs. My sister Becky is having surgery tomorrow to remove a cancerous polyp in her lower colon so please pray for her, hubby Frank and her doctors. Pray for my parents - that they would be at peace with all this chaos going on around them in their family. And last but not least keep little Hannah, Frank, Octaviano,Vermalinda & Janelle in your prayers that they would be healed from their cancer.

Not Today

So Ric will not be going home today as his electrolytes are still not where they need to be so the IV is back flowing with 3 different bags of fluids. He looks better and feels better but need to get things back in line before they can send him home. He took a shower this morning and is eating a good breakfast. Need to also get the diarrhea to stop as that is what is throwing him off. But as I said yesterday this is all the results of the chemo. What's interesting is he had a very low dose of chemo and it was a low toxicity chemo. Hate to see what he would have had for side effects if it was a longer stint of chemo with a higher toxicity. ugggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg! He is not very happy about this but as the doctors told him it would not be good to send him home like this as there are too many things that could happen - all of which are really bad. Believe me I would like to get him home too so I could sleep in my own bed - this recliner chair is not at all comfortable and hospitals are not a good place to try to get some sleep. They will not be doing the CT scan nor MRI here at the hospital due to what the insurance will/will not pay. So he will not be getting them until next week which also means our New York trip will probably have to be rescheduled. Trying to keep the spirits up but it's really getting difficult when everything just seems to be a roadblock. My job at work is to help remove roadblocks but these are not roadblocks I can remove for Ric. So here we are waiting again - guess this weeks lesson is in learning patience :)

Better

Ric's sodium levels are back up above where they were on the 3rd. Now they are working on getting his potassium levels up. Tomorrow he will get the CT scan and the MRI so we will know what's next. If his blood work comes back good then after the scans they will let him go home. So big day tomorrow. Could really use some good news. It's been more than difficult and never had a clue what people fighting cancer go through. So we would really appreciate prayer for a good report tomorrow. Lately been having a lot of time to think about what's really important and what's not. I also ponder every day what to put on the blog. Many times I don't always say what goes through my mind. But I think it's important to tell you all that you need to focus on what's really important in your life - hopefully what's really important is the relationships in your life. We are bombarded every day about all the things that are supposed to make us happy and it's mostly "stuff" that's supposed to make us happy. If more people would focus on their relationships rather than the "rat race" and "keeping up with the Jones" our world would not be so messed up. The problems that are going on in your families, communities, etc is because we have been told that we need to be selfish and make sure that we personally are happy and that we can only be happy if we have this thing or that. It's never about developing our relationships with each other - focusing on those other people - our spouses, our children, our parents - focusing on doing things to make them happy. These days it's about what will you do for me - to make me happy. Apparently it's NOT working because relationships are failing everywhere whether it's a marriage, friendship, child/parent relationship which makes those hurting turn to other things not good for us to fulfill that empty hole that is supposed to be filled with love. Why do we treat those we love worse than the people we work with or hang with? It's not right. FOCUS on what's important - those you love should get the best of you - not the leftovers! Please DO NOT wait until some life threatening event forces you to re-evaluate what's truly important in your life. None of us knows what tomorrow will bring. You know what you need to take care of today!

Refocus

So just when I'm feeling sorry for me, God helps me to get refocused. This is not about me - this is about Ric. Yes it totally affects me but what is important is that we focus on what he needs to beat this horrible disease. He has not been feeling so hot the last couple days - not eating nor drinking so I was getting concerned about his hydration level. This morning he still was not wanting to get out of bed to eat and was only taking small sips of water every few hours - not enough to keep someone fully hydrated especially when everything just runs right thru him. So I finally convinced him to get up around 11am to eat something so he could take his steroid pill - this was after threatening to call the doctor or take him to the hospital. He started eating a banana and drinking a cup of tea but then started feeling sick to his stomach. Unfortunately he was unable to keep the little bit he ate down. So that convinced me that it was time to call the doctor. Of course on the weekend you get the doc on call but he agreed with me that Ric was probably dehydrated and to take him to Swedish Issaquah ER to at least get him hydrated. So off we went to the ER. Got him hydrated and they ran a bunch of tests (more blood draws). They found out that his sodium levels (which had been pretty consistent since all this has been going on) had dropped a bit since his last blood work on the 3rd. This was a concern to the Doc at ER so they wanted to hospitalize him to find out why this was going on. Also his white blood cell count had dropped. So he was transported from Swedish Issaquah to First Hill since the Issaquah hospital is not open - only the ER. Now we are at First Hill waiting to see the doctor who should be here anytime now. (It's nearly 10pm) He is feeling better now that he's rehydrated but still very tired. Just hoping & praying that they will figure out what's going on now and get it resolved so he can get back home. Appreciate your prayers for this now I will do my best to post an update tomorrow after we find out more.

Pity Party

So I need to vent today! Sorry that you all get to be a part of it. Cancer sucks royally! It's a major rollercoaster so this blog name fits it for sure. It takes you up to the top then throws you back down quickly. I REALLY want my life to get back to normal again although it will never be normal again no matter what happens. My life was really awesome before this - was it too good maybe so? I never took it for granted. I knew how blessed we were and was so grateful for everything. This is all much more than anyone should have to deal with and I am not just talking about myself. I am a very optimistic person - always looking for the good and positive but this is just making me CRAZY! The last couple days have not been good days. Ric woke up Weds and freaked because his tongue and roof of his mouth was black. It ended up being thrush (due to the lovely chemo) and was black due to some of the medications he's on. I found a natural mouth rinse that oxygenates the mouth that immediately started working on it and then we were able to get an antibiotic from the doctor that he started the next day (since it was so late for them to get the prescription to the pharmacy). It is basically gone now but in the meantime he has not eaten much. He is achy all over. The last two days all he has wanted to do is stay laying down. He does not weigh much so he really needs to eat. Did you know that most cancer patients actually die from malnutrition? That's why getting good food in them is so important. The steroids were helping him keep an amazing appetite but that's been gone the past few days. It also makes your stomach bloat which is not fun and makes you feel like you are full all the time. The doctor said that the chemo side effects were going to get worse over the next few weeks. We were hoping and praying that they wouldn't as so far they hadn't been too bad. Ric has a CT scan & MRI of the brain on Tuesday the 18th and we meet with the doctor on the 19th to get the results and see where we go from here. What really sucks is that he was feeling sooooo good the last few weeks. We even went to Othello to visit family last weekend. We were supposed to got the UW/Colorado football game today but he's not feeling good enough to go. If Ric is missing a football game then you know he doesn't feel so great. So it boils down to us really needing prayer for Ric to have the side effects go away so he can get moving again and eating again, for good news on the CT scan & MRI and for me to restore my sanity so I can get back to being the caregiver that Ric deserves! Thanks so much for being our support group and for all your prayers and love.

Another Friday

Just sitting here while Ric is getting what we hope is his last treatment. This round anyway. Monday when we saw the Dr. his blood work came back really good - the Dr is quite amazed at how good he's been doing. His white blood count is good and his liver enzymes have dropped in half in the last 3 weeks. The swelling in his liver has gone way down. We of course are ecstatic but cautious. Once you've been slammed a couple times it's hard to get too optimistic but we are as much as possible. We KNOW that your prayers have helped so much and especially with the peace we feel. Ric says he feels really good and has been sleeping wonderfully. In fact the last couple days he says that he feels like he's slept too much :). This week has gone by so quickly! Next week is our "bye" week. No doctor appts or treatments - just chiro & massage. Then the following week is the "stressful" week as Ric will be having an MRI & CT Scan to see what's going on inside - that's on the 18th. We get the actual news on the 20th and where we go from here. So prayers please that the scans will show that Ric is doing as good as the blood work and how good he feels. Well we are done so gotta shut down. Looking forward to a great weekend!