no chemo today

We met with Dr. Tauer this morning before what was supposed to be Mom's second round of chemo. Turns out her white blood count is really low - a side effect from the first treatment. This is probably why she's felt so bad lately. Dr. T could tell from her lab work that her white count is already starting to recover and said Mom should start to feel better in a couple days. Pray that he's right!

Because of the low white count, Mom's at a high risk for infection, so she's started a round of antibiotics today, just to be on the safe side. She'll continue getting fluids at hone for as long as she feels like she needs them.

We'll try again next week for chemo. For now we're going to try to keep Trish away from germs and feed her! Her appetite seems to have come back a little tonight. :)

a Trish update - 2/25

Sorry I haven't posted an update in a few days. Mom's in much better shape than she was this time last week, though she's still struggling. Praise God she has not thrown up since last Wednesday! She began eating again over the weekend . . . very small meals, of course. She was doing pretty well until this afternoon. Unfortunately, Trish learned the hard way today that she's not ready to come off her anti-nausea meds just yet. She spent most of the day feeling nauseated and has eaten very little. Pray for this to be better tomorrow!

Though she's hydrated again (thanks to 7 days of daily fluids), Mom is still very weak and has very little stamina. This, combined with the constant battle with nausea, is very discouraging for her. Pray God will strengthen her both physically and spiritually.

Trish isn't the only one feeling sick around here. Both Jamal and Tekia have been complaining of various cold/flu-like symptoms this week. Dad spent this morning at the doctor's office with Tekia; they left with antibiotics for a sinus infection. Jamal has yet to require a doctor's visit, but that may be coming soon. Of course getting sick (in the cold/flu sense) is the last thing Trish needs right now, so pray that God will protect her from all the germs floating around. And pray that the rest of us will remain healthy!

As far as we know, the plan is still to begin Mom's second round of chemo on Wednesday. At this point, I don't see how that will be possible. We'll meet with Dr. Tauer on Wednesday morning, so please be in prayer about that appointment. I'm confident God will lead Dr. T to the right decisions for Mom.

I'm off to bed for a few short hours before I have to go to work. Thanks for praying with us and for us. We appreciate it more than words can say!

a good news day

"It's a good news day", Dr. Tauer told us today.

Good news (GREAT news!): Mom's scan was unchanged! That means the cancer has not grown any (that we can see) and there is no blockage anywhere.

Other news: This is just a bad reaction to the chemo, and we have to wait it out. Mom will continue to get daily IV fluids via home health until she doesn't feel like she needs them anymore, and starting tomorrow they will also add a steroid to help with nausea. Mom's blood counts and electrolytes don't seem to have been affected by all this, which is also great news.

At this point, the plan is to see Dr. Tauer again next Wednesday and have Mom's second treatment afterward. That's Dr. T's plan anyway. He's going to have to do some convincing to get Trish to agree to do this chemo again! I think he will adjust her dose and we'll come up with a new plan to combat these nasty side effects.

As for this week, keep praying that God will give Mom the desire to eat and drink and the ability to keep it down. These days of sickness and dehydration have really taken a toll on her body and spirit. She's very weak and she's just sick of being sick. Those of you who know her know she has too much to do to be stuck in a recliner all day. ;) Pray God will strengthen her physically and spiritually. Pray these side effects will end soon. Pray for wisdom for Dr. Tauer and Mom as they decide how to proceed from here. Pray for the doors to surgery in Louisville to remain open and for that surgery to be an overwhelming success. Pray for healing and for God's glory to be revealed every step of the way.

We are so thankful for another completely exhausting, good news day. 

prayers needed . . . CT scan

1:45pm edit: West Clinic is going to get her in today. We're headed there as soon as we can get ready. I would think the scan will happen around 3ish. 

I have started a new post a couple of times this week, but things have been so crazy that i haven't had time to finish it. Today is no different, so this will be short and sweet.

Mom is in desperate need of God's healing. She has been so sick since last week's chemo treatment. Every time we think we have the nausea/vomiting under control with meds, it hits again. She's gotten very dehydrated and weak and is unable to eat or drink much of anything. She went to the clinic for fluids on Monday, and Dr. Tauer's team set up home health to do fluids at home until she's feeling better. The home health nurse came last night and will come again today and tomorrow. The fluids have helped Mom feel a little better, but she's still struggling with nausea/vomiting.

I emailed Dr. Tauer and his team last night, and the nurse practitioner would like for Mom to have a CT scan. He says that this chemo doesn't usually cause this level of nausea/vomiting and wants to check for any type of obstruction. He says it's too soon tell whether the chemo has been effective at this point, since Mom has only had one treatment, but of course we want to pray that the cancer will be no worse! And pray for healing from whatever is making Mom so sick!

We're waiting to hear from the clinic to find out when the scan will be.

the Saturday evening post

Well, Mom's first chemo treatment is officially over. Her 46-hour infusion ended yesterday afternoon, and I disconnected her from her new purse last night.

Trix with her newest accessory on Thursday night. If you look closely, you can see IV tubing.

Funny story about that purse. Mom's pump came with a not-so-cute fanny pack. So I'm lending her that green purse to use. The only thing is it's my purse. So when I saw it lying on the living room floor the other night, my brain automatically thought I'd left my purse lying on the floor. How irresponsible of me, I thought. So I picked it up on my way through the room and kept on walking. Mom immediately felt some tugging on the tubing coming out of her chest. A few yells of "Hey! Hey!" from Trish reminded me that my purse was actually attached to her and it was okay for it to be sitting in the floor. I gave it back and we all lived happily ever after. :)

Until yesterday morning, when the side effects of chemo decided to rear their ugly head (heads?). It's pretty typical for them to start on day 3 after chemo. Mom has struggled with various GI issues over the past two days. And she just doesn't feel good in general. She says it's kind of like having the flu; she just doesn't feel like doing anything besides laying around. When she does get up, she often feels lightedheaded, which is probably related to dehydration or iron-deficiency. (We learned last week that she's anemic and needs an iron infusion, but Dr. T didn't want to do that on the same day as chemo.) She has pretty much no appetite and when she does, she's scared to eat or drink for fear it will come right back up. The chemo also makes her extremely sensitive to cold stuff (eating it, breathing it, touching it), so no drinks with ice or anything very cold to eat . . . which of course is what she wants (when she wants anything). Her chemo nurse said the cold intolerance usually lasts 5-7 days; tomorrow is day 5!

I'm driving her crazy trying to keep her hydrated. West Clinic is closed until Monday, so if she ends up needing fluids, we'd have to go the ER - and we really don't want to do that! She's doing a little better tonight. Her sister and brother-in-law are in town, so she enjoyed visiting with them after dinner. Hopefully this is the worst of it and things will get better tomorrow. Usually the chemo side effects get bad on day 3 and get better by day 6 or 7.

I do have good news, though . . . Mom is virtually pain-free! She's had NO pain medicine since yesterday morning! That either means the nerve block is working or the chemo is. :-)

Thank you for your prayers. Tonight's prayer requests are specifically for better hydration and increased appetite.


"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak." -Isaiah 40:28-29

Louisville . . . said . . . YES!!!

Raise your hands and praise Jesus because we got a YES from Dr. Martin in Louisville today! And I think it's accurate to say that we didn't just get a "yes", we got a "heck yes."

Dr. Martin called Mom while she was getting her first chemo treatment today. He said she must be a pretty special person because he's already been contacted by two different doctors about her (Dr. Hays in Little Rock and Dr. Behrman in Memphis . . . have I mentioned how blessed we've been in the doctor department?). :-) He told her he thinks he can get this tumor with surgery and nanoknife and gave her some details about what to expect. We'll go to Louisville on a Sunday, have a CT scan and see Dr. Martin on Monday, do pre-op testing on Tuesday, and do surgery on Wednesday. She'll probably be in the hospital 5-6 days and should plan to stay in Louisville for about two weeks. Oh, Dr. Martin also said more than once that Mom was "very unusual." Ha!

Trish getting chemo today.

We talked to Dr. Tauer before chemo this morning (before we knew all this), and his plan is to do two rounds of chemo - one treatment today and another two weeks from today - and then do another scan in four weeks. Dr. Martin was cool with this plan. He even said he might could still do the surgery if the scan showed the chemo wasn't working. He wants her to be off chemo for two weeks before surgery, which wouldn't be a problem. So if all goes as planned, it looks like we could be headed to Louisville in 5 or 6 weeks! 

As far as the first treatment goes, it went okay. It was a very looong day at West Clinic - 9am to 5:30pm. After meeting with Dr. T, it took a while for insurance to approve Mom's chemo, and then the actual infusion takes 5.5 - 6 hours. She started chemo around noon and finished at 5:30. She's getting a treatment called Folfirinox, which is a combination of four different drugs - three chemos and one vitamin. She gets three of the meds and part of the fourth at the clinic, and the majority of the fourth is administered via a pump over the next 46 hours. What I'm trying to say is: Mom has a fanny pack. Pictures coming soon. On Friday, I'll disconnect her from her pump (one of the perks of having a nurse in the family) and then we'll go back in two weeks for the next round. She got sick once during the last half of her infusion today, so they immediately started a bag of phenergan, which took care of her nausea and knocked her out. She came home and slept two hours and feels much better now. Most of the side effects will probably hit her on day 3. The side effects can be pretty rough - pray she can tolerate them.

She had the nerve block yesterday and we think it's helping. They told her it probably wouldn't eliminate her need for pain meds, but it would hopefully cut it in half. She's still been hurting today, but not as badly as before. They also told her that it might take a couple of days for it to fully take effect.

Prayer requests for today . . .

• Give thanksgiving for good news from Louisville! There's nothing like a good dose of hope to get us through 6 hours in the chemo room!
• Pray that Mom will be able to tolerate this chemo and will be able to manage the side effects easily.
• Pray for a better scan in 4 weeks with no metastasis (i.e., spreading to other organs). We are so fortunate to have caught this cancer early (again); any metastasis would likely prevent her from having surgery. 
• Pray for our family, especially the all the kids who are very worried about their mom/Granna. 
• Pray that God will continue to give us (and everyone watching us) glimpses of His glory and that we will trust Him always.

We are exhausted but so full of hope and just overwhelmed with thankfulness tonight. Thank you for praying and hoping and rejoicing with us. 

"And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it." -John 14:13-14

The scavenger hunt continues...

Here's the latest. Prayer requests are in bold...including thank you's. ;)

Dr. Hays, the radiologist from Little Rock, called today. He does not think he can get to Mom's tumor without damaging something else. The procedure would involve sticking needles through her back and he would likely puncture something that doesn't need to punctured. Thus, he is referring Mom to Dr. Martin, a surgeon in Louisville, Kentucky. He hopes that surgery with nanoknife will be an option. In surgery, Dr. Martin could see exactly what he's working on (as opposed to being guided by CT scan) and possibly move important structures out of the way. So Dr. Hays in Little Rock has overnighted Mom's scans to Dr. Martin. 

Mom actually called and talked to Dr. Martin's assistant on Friday and has already received some information from them. We probably would've sent her scans there for a second (or fourth...whatever) opinion regardless of what we heard from Little Rock. We've really been struggling with this Little Rock vs. Louisville decision. We've been praying God would give us a clear answer and are thankful that He has. Now we're praying that Dr. Martin will give us a YES!

In the meantime . . . Mom is having the nerve block done tomorrow! Her pain is being much better controlled than it was a couple weeks ago, but she's tired of constantly feeling groggy from pain medicine. We hope and pray the nerve block will help with her pain so she can start to feel normal again. This is a pretty routine procedure; Mom should only be at the clinic a couple hours.  

She'll also be starting chemo (a drug called Folfirinox) on Wednesday. We already know that Dr. Martin recommends chemo before surgery for all of this patients, and Dr. Tauer is more comfortable with that anyway. The chemo regimen would be the same whether Mom is able to have nanoknife done or not, so there's really no reason not to start right away. We're just ready to do something!

I feel like we're on a scavenger hunt. Only we've found no fun prizes; we just keep getting clues at each stop with the hope of a prize at the next stop.

Praying God will reveal His glory to us this week and let us find our prize in Louisville! 

2/6 update

You know you're posting too many cancer updates when you start titling your posts with the date.

Anyway, here's what happened today . . . Mom talked to Dr. Behrman, who had talked to Dr. Tauer. Dr. T is fine with us pursuing nanoknife, and Dr. B contacted the people at Baptist in Little Rock to get the process started. By the end of the day, Mom had talked to another one of Dr. B's patients who just had the procedure done in Little Rock and also talked to someone from Baptist. The lady at Baptist said to send Mom's scans ASAP; so after a trip to West Clinic and Fed Ex, the scans are now on their way to Little Rock and should be there in the morning. The doctor will review Mom's scans and decide if she is a candidate for nanoknife treatment. We hope to hear something by the end of the week.

What happened to Louisville, you ask? Well, Little Rock seems like the logical choice for us since we have family and friends there, and it's obviously closer. The doctor in Louisville is very well-known for this procedure (well, as well-known as anyone can be with a treatment that no one's heard of), so we were glad to hear that the doctor in Little Rock does refer patients to Louisville if he feels like he can't get the whole tumor. The Louisville doctor is an oncological surgeon, and the one in Little Rock is an interventional radiologist. We may still contact Louisville, but at this point we're leaning toward Little Rock and trusting God to show us where to go.

Mom's pain has started creeping back as she's been weaning off her steroids. She talked to Dr. T's nurse about this and will be starting another round of steroids tomorrow. At this point, the nerve block is still scheduled for next Tuesday, the 12th, but of course that is subject to change.  

Keep praying about all the decisions being made!

   

One door closes, another door opens . . .

I don't really feel like I have a complete update yet, but I'll share what I do know.

Dr. Behrman does not think surgery is a good option for Mom. He's not sure that he could get all the cancer and he's afraid it would just turn out to be a setback.

However, he did present us with something new to think about. He thinks Mom would be a good candidate for a relatively new (like less than 3 years old) procedure called NanoKnife. It's much less invasive than surgery and is used to kill very small tumors that are considered inoperable due to their locations near major blood vessels and such (which Mom's is). if you'd like to read about the procedure, this site has a great explanation/video about it.

It's not available in Memphis. Dr. B mentioned doing it in Louisville or Little Rock. He's going to talk to Dr. Tauer ASAP to be sure we're all on the same page, and then call Mom back. He said he would try to get back with us by the end of the day.

So that's where we are . . . waiting. I know you're shocked to hear that. ;)

We were initially very discouraged by this news and we're still disappointed that we're looking at more waiting, meeting more doctors, making more hard decisions, etc. But the more we read about NanoKnife, the more hopeful we become.

Keep praying!

Tricia and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

So last week was terrible. Horrible. No Good. Very bad. After I posted last Wednesday about Mom's increased pain problems, things continued to go downhill. By Friday, she wasn't keeping any food down and, subsequently, was hardly eating or drinking anything. She couldn't stand up straight because of the pain and spent most of her time curled up in a fetal position in her bed or the recliner. The pain was so bad and so constant that she was barely speaking. Her pain pills didn't touch it.

I took her to see Marcus, Dr. T's nurse practitioner, on Friday afternoon. Normally I would say I went with her. This time I took her. She was so weak there's no way she could've driven herself. I thought she was going to need a wheelchair to even get around the clinic (she refused - shocking, I know). Anyway, Marcus quickly became our new best friend as he: a) reassured us that this did not mean her cancer was rapidly spreading to other places . . . she'd had a PET one week prior and there's no cancer that grows that fast (his words), and b) made some decisions about her care that soon led to RELIEF! He told us that her tumor is likely irritating a bundle of nerves called the celiac nerve plexus, which is causing her pain and possibly some nausea (the pain meds weren't helping with the nausea, either). The nerve block is back on the table and will be done on the 12th, depending on what we find out today about surgery. Anyway, over the next two days, Mom received IV fluids twice, started a round of steroids, made a series of adjustments to her pain med regimen, and started a drug to help stomach tolerate the pain meds better (that last one is thanks to our wonderful GI doctor friend Randy). By Sunday, she was a new woman! Now she's got her appetite back (and then some - thanks to the steroids), is keeping food down with no anti-nausea meds, and has been able to cut way back on her pain meds. She still has some pain on and off, but it's definitely not keeping her down like it was a few days ago. And she's even gained a few pounds back!

We're not sure what caused such a sudden, dramatic increase in Mom's pain. The weekend before, our church hosted the Mid-South Girls Conference (600 girls spent the day worshiping and learning more about Jesus - incredible!). As usual, Trish coordinated the desserts for lunch. She was on her feet all day Friday and Saturday working on this, so maybe that got her celiac nerves inflamed enough that they just couldn't recover? Who knows. We are just so glad she's feeling more like her old self. Last week was one of the hardest and scariest we've had since this cancer journey started 11+ years ago. I am so thankful for all of you who prayed us - and fed us - through it, and so, so thankful that we serve a God who enters into our pain and is able to deliver us from it.

Okay, on to today's prayer requests . . . it's a big day!

• We see Mom's surgeon, Dr. Behrman, at 9am! 
• Mom's oncologist, Dr. Tauer, is presenting her case to a GI tumor board today, in hopes of getting some fresh takes on how to treat her.
• Pray for both of these men and their colleagues . . . that God will give them (and us) wisdom and discernment as they seek to make decisions that will lead to Mom's healing. Pray that Dr. B will be able to completely remove this cancer with surgery, and Dr. T will follow that up with a treatment regimen that will keep it gone for good.
• Pray that Mom's overall health will continue to improve and that she will be healthy enough to sustain whatever surgery/treatment is coming. 
• Pray for God to work in BIG ways and for people to notice! It is our greatest wish that the world see more of HIM through this journey.

   
"The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; He delivers them from all their troubles." -Psalm 34:17