The Final Week--- of the Year and Chemo

2010 is drawing to a close and Cheryl is in her final round of chemo. The nurse in the picture with Cheryl is her chemo nurse Cheryl. Cheryl first met Cheryl while she was on the oncology floor following her surgery. Cheryl,RN transitioned down to the Anderson Cancer Institute and has been administering Cheryl's chemo over the past several months. She has been a real encouragement and has provided a wealth of information. Our Cheryl is so thankful to have had Cheryl as her nurse through all of this. We truly feel that she has a special gift to be able to deal with such serious illnesses on a daily basis.

I've been able to take Cheryl to Savannah for her treatments this week since we are out of school for Christmas break. That is probably good since this week's chemo has been rougher than usual. Monday's IV Taxol produced the usual flush but the Tuesday IP Cisplatin was much harder on Cheryl than previous doses. She has had quite a bit of nausea and some vomiting which thankfully is subsiding a bit. She has gotten some of her appetite back but is still not moving very fast. She gets a day off from her fluids tomorrow since the ACI is closed for New Year's Eve.

We will be spending a quiet New Year's Eve at home--- no wild partying here. Cheryl has her last IV chemo session on Monday, January 3rd. One of our long-time friends will be taking her up for that final trip to ACI. What a way to start the new year.

Over the next several weeks, Cheryl should be having additional scans and tests to verify that the cancer is in remission. At some point they will remove her IP (lower) port since Dr. Burke does not plan any future sessions of abdominal chemotherapy.

Please pray that Cheryl's final session will go well and that we will soon get a report that she is in remission.

2010 Christmas Letter

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

If you've been following the blog, you know that 2010 has been a bit of a rough year for us. Things started off well. We are in our fourth year serving as Pastor at Westside Baptist in Hinesville,GA and I still have the privilege of being a Technology Specialist for Liberty County School System. Cheryl was able to go to North Carolina to visit her Mom and sisters and she also went to Kentucky to visit Michelle and her family.

In early summer Cheryl received her diagnosis of Stage 4 ovarian cancer and we weren't even sure that we would see Christmas together this year. She had major surgery to remove the extensive cancer in her abdomen. Complications stretched that stay out to 13 days. Just before she was supposed to start chemotherapy, she developed a large blood clot in her leg and two small clots in her lungs. This resulted in a four day hospital stay and getting started on Coumadin to regulate her blood's clotting factor.

Since then she has bounced back and has gone successfully through five eight-day rounds of chemotherapy. We've have had the great support of our family, church family, neighbors and friends. Both Michelle and Jason have traveled down several times during Cheryl's hospitalization and chemo sessions. The grandkids, Jonas, Susannah and Dylan have helped brighten Cheryl's spirits through all that's been going on.

During all of this, we got news that my father's health was failing due to advanced congestive heart failure. Jason and I both went to see him on the weekend before Veteran's Day and he passed away the following Wednesday. This saddened us all very much. He has been like Cheryl's second father all these years of our marriage since she lost her dad shortly after our first anniversary.

When we traveled to Thomasville, GA for the funeral, Cheryl ending up spending the night of Novemeber 11th in the emergency room experiencing shortness of breath. They gave her pain meds and performed a number of scans and tests, all of which were inconclusive. We made it safely back home and decided to hold off on any further travelling until chemo is over and the doctors declare her to be in remission.

We had a great Thanksgiving with both kids, their spouses and children all together. This was the first time we've been able to do this since Jason and Sharon's wedding.

We plan to spend a quite Christmas at home this year. I've already given Cheryl her new 3G Wi-Fi Kindle2 so she can get some use out of it during chemo and I've built a new computer to replace my eight year old dinosaur that I built during Jason's second year of college.

Our plans for 2011 are still up in the air. I plan to continue pastoring the church and working at the school system's Technology Department. I hope to get our garden underway this coming spring. Our prayer is that Cheryl will be declared in remission when this last round of chemo and the associated tests are over so that she will be able to return to a normal busy life helping take care of other people in their time of need.

Above all, we praise God for the salvation He gave us through Jesus Christ our Lord. We thank Him for our 31 years together and we ask that we can have many more years before we part.

Ding Dong, The Second Drain Is Gone

Cheryl had a good visit on Monday with Dr. Robertson, the oncologist that will be managing her last round of chemo and follow up. He did not see any reason to test her CA125 before her next session since it has dropped so well previously. He asked if she would like to take a break before doing the next round but said that there is no medical reason to delay if she is ready to go ahead and get things wrapped up. Her blood counts are relatively good with a slightly elevated white count and slightly low hemoglobin. Her INR from the Coumadin is within normal range at 2.7.

Today, she returned to the pulmonologist's office to have the PleurX drain removed from her left side. It took Randy, the PA almost an hour to get it loosened and out. They gave her a couple of shots of Lidocaine before they began the procedure and added a couple more while they were working. Even with the painkiller, Cheryl had a pretty rough time as they removed the nearly 24" long catheter from her chest cavity. She came home with a pressure dressing on the wound and a prescription for Lortab since they've stopped dispensing Darvocet.

Before the drain removal, Cheryl was feeling quite peppy and energetic but since we came home she is experiencing quite a bit of pain in her side. Please be praying that she bounces back quickly from this and that she will be able to enjoy Christmas with no medical surprises.

Next chemotherapy session will be December 27 - January 3.

Sunday Tidings

Cheryl finally got to feeling close to normal late Saturday afternoon. The nausea and exhaustion that she experiences really keeps her from doing much of anything. It seems that it takes her a bit longer each time to bounce back from her Tuesday round of Cisplatin but we are encouraged that she only has one more of these to go through the week after Christmas.

On Friday evening, I was wrapping gifts for our church Christmas party and she got a little teary eyed over having to miss out on gift shopping, doing special wrappings and all of the usual holiday festivities. We hope to have her back up to full speed for next Christmas.

We drained Cheryl's PleurX catheter this evening and only withdrew about 5cc of fluid. We hope that the pulmonologist will decide to go ahead and remove the catheter when she sees him this week. We also have to meet with a new oncologist this week since Dr. Burke will no longer be managing chemotherapy so he can focus on surgery and follow-up.

We are thankful for all of your prayers, calls and notes of encouragement. Please be in prayer this week that she will bounce back quickly from tomorrow's chemotherapy of IV Taxol and that she will be able to enjoy a quiet Christmas here with me.

Tuesday Blahs

Cheryl is two days into her fifth round of chemo. She is feeling a bit under the weather this evening due to her IP (abdominal port)dosing of Cisplatin. We hope that she will bounce back to her usual energy levels after a couple of days. She will have fluids each day for the rest of this week and then return Monday for Taxol in her IP port.

As we end the first week of December, we are encouraged that she will only have three more IP treatments and only one of them will be Cisplatin.

Cheryl should be through all six rounds of chemo by the first week of January. We are planning a quiet Christmas at home since she is scheduled to start her last round the week afer Christmas. Continue to pray for strength to make it through these final rounds and that the chemo will have its desired effect on the cancer.

How Do You Do- The Number Is 22

We had great news today at Cheryl's appointment with Dr. Burke. Her CA125 marker has dropped to 22. Anything below 35 is considered to be in the normal range, so this is really good to hear. He also told us that since her count dropped so quickly after the third round down to 28 (her previous check) that it is a good indicator that she will stay in remission longer after completing her chemo course.

We've been enjoying a visit from our long-time friend Cindy for the past couple of days. (We were next-door neighbors at Fort Hood back in the late 80's-early 90's.) She and Cheryl have spent hours chatting and catching up on old times and making future plans.

Today's exam went well and everything is on track for next week's chemo. All of her blood levels (CBC and metabolic panel) are in normal range and she will not need the Neulasta shot this round. Even though Cheryl's CA 125 is in normal range, she still has to finish the entire course to get the full effect.

At this point, Cheryl is really pumped up by the good news. When we were heading to the car after lunch, she told Cindy that she felt like skipping.(Neither of them did.) Please be praying that she will have an easier time than usual with the Tuesday treatment of Cisplatin in her IP port.

Thankful for Thanksgiving

We've had a great Thanksgiving with both kids, their spouses and grandkids filling the house for a couple of days. Nine people in a three bedroom, two bath house can be a challenge but we all survived. We ordered our turkey from a local deli but Michelle and Sharon did all the rest of the cooking. The meal was great with both young ladies preparing their specialties. We were all stuffed after the meal but somehow found room for Sharon's superb cheesecake and Michelle's mighty fine pecan pie.

Before we began the meal, Michelle made a touching toast to her Mom (with sparkling pear juice- we are Baptists after all). She reminided us that when Cheryl received her diagnosis back in June, we didn't know if we would even see Thanksgiving together this year or if we did we had no idea what to expect.

Our family time together went very well. We had a wonderful time with the adults and really appreciated them bringing the grandkids down for this holiday. Other than a bit of back ache and general tiredness (and a chemo scarf) you would have had a hard time figuring out that Cheryl is the one in the family that is 2/3 of the way through chemotherapy.

Cheryl is excited that our long-time friend Cindy (we were next door neighbors in the late 80's) will be coming down from Virginia to spend a few days. Along with her visit, Cheryl will also be doing blood work and going to her regular appointment with the oncologist on Friday to get ready for the next round of chemo that starts on December 6th.

We are thankful to have made it this far and pray that Cheryl's treatment will continue to be effective.