Friday, March 11, 2011

It's Working!


Past due for a blog entry, but I have been a little sick.  Just the stuff that many people have had, sore throat, ear ache, but starting to feel better.

Last week Craig went to see his GI doctor.  He has been having a lot of pain in his stomach wanted to see if there was something else going on.  He is having Craig increase the acid medicine with some additional medicine and come back in 2 weeks.  We decided after that appointment to go right over and get a bag of fluids to help him, it seems that he can always use more fluids, he is not known for drinking to well.  When we got over to the office he started getting sick throwing up.  It was pretty bad and it just happened that the GI doctor called and had decided to get some blood work done and know that we were headed for fluids.  When were finished getting the fluids we headed home and upon arrival at home we found out that the  GI doctor had been trying to a hold of us and have us go straight to the hospital for a CT scan.  Craig’s white blood cells were very high, which are indications that there is an infection going on somewhere in his body and the white blood cells are trying to build up to fight it off.  It kind off gets my shock up when they tell us to go immediately to the hospital, I tend to not like those words. We waited until the doctor had the results before leaving the hospital.  The word was that the scans were stable, showing that the thought of colitis was negative but some other kind of infection was taking place that was not showing up and we were to still start some antibiotics that were prescribed.   We were due for the full body scan the next week for Dr. Breyer so were able to do both at the same time.       


Craig woke up on his birthday and said, “Well, I’m turning 50 today, we better call and get my colonoscopy done.”  OOPS too late.  You see the commercials telling people to get it done while they are still healthy.  Craig was as healthy as he had even been and all of a sudden got sick and our world changed.  All of his siblings have now had theirs done and everyone healthy and we are so grateful.

Some good friends of ours went to Disneyland on vacation and brought back a wonderful hat for Craig.  Apparently they all were on the look out for the perfect gift that they could bring him back.  We thought they did great! 

Thank you to those of you that sent cards, and birthday wishes to Craig.  We had a good day.  He received a few balloon bouquets, one from his work and the other from the Black family in our neighborhood.  A few days later I mentioned to him that he should inhale the helium from the balloon and sing a song.  He said with his luck it would make him blow up.

We went for chemo last Monday.  Our friends from Kaysville, the Bones, showed up at the clinic to be with us for a visit.  It was very nice to see them.  Todd has recently gone through surgery to remove a tumor from his leg.  We hope and pray that it is all gone and he can get back to a “normal life”, or at least what is normal after you have had cancer.  I have said it before and will say it again, “Cancer Sucks.” I hate the word sucks, and get mad at my kids when they say it, but for this situation it is the cleanest word that I can say on the blog. 

The chemo went pretty normal.  He got sick right away so they gave him medicine and he goes right to sleep.  It was about 1:30 pm when we got home, he took some pills and went right to bed and slept until 7:15 pm.  The longer he sleeps during the nausea the better. 

On Wednesday we were on our way over to get the pump off.  Just before we walked out the door I told Craig to grab his special little bag in case he was to get sick.  I guess I was listening to the little voice in my head, because we weren’t very far from the house when he got sick.  He used the bag all the way to the clinic.  He was very chilled when we arrived at the clinic and the nurse asked him if he was running a fever.  We explained that we had just driven from Orem with the windows down a little to get fresh air.  For anyone that pasted us driving probably took a double look to see a bald man with his head leaning against the window rolled down when it was so cold outside.  That’s our life.

We asked the nurse if they had the results back yet from his scan about the cancer.  She came back and I did not want to even look at her.  She smiled Craig and said, “It’s working, the chemo is working,” she high fived Craig.  The levels of the cancer are decreasing; all of the getting sick from the chemo are worth it if it is working.  So we will continue with this same chemo for another 2 months and then another scan with hopefully the same results.  

It has been a rough couple of weeks but Craig now has the pump off and is feeling a little better.  Yesterday he was able to put in a long days work from his recliner. He works very hard and even Saturdays; he puts in extra hours to make up for the not so good days.

This morning I asked him what he wanted for breakfast.  He just laid there and looked up at the ceiling of our bedroom.  He got a really discussed look on his face and said, “Did you just say the F word?”  Oops!  I didn’t really say the word Food, but that was what I was meaning, and he knew it.   Just one of our challenges in live right now.

We continue to pray for all of our friends and family that may need any special blessings.  We know that we are not the only ones going through rough times.  Others trials may be different from ours but are still trials.  We are all in need of special blessings at some time.

2 comments:

  1. Love when you post pictures. I am so happy to hear that the chemo is working! On the other hand I want to know what Bro. Perry is doing wearing a FLORIDA GATORS shirt! That does not make me happy. I was just in TN these past few weeks. I should have bought him a shirt! It would look a lot better on him than a gator one:)

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  2. Dear Cancer...you are getting Jimmered!!! Keep working chemo!

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