Back Surgery is Scheduled for Today

It’s been about a month since I updated and I realize some of you are thinking something is up since I haven’t updated. I’m here to tell you NO, nothing is “UP”… all is good. Steve took a cycle off from Chemo and ultimately had a month break. It was a nice break and Steve bounced back amazingly and we took full advantage of it. We went to Disney with the girls! We surprised them with a trip. It was a trip we all needed. You see, we love going to Disney as a family. We go every other year and it’s the biggest thing we do. And the girls love it. We all love it actually. It’s our “family thing” to do that we…

Steve is doing great.  He’s just tired.  But he feels fine. The side effects from Chemo can come on at anytime but he’s doing really well so that helps.  He had trouble sleeping last night because one of the meds is a steroid – the nurse warned us about it. Steve is also having some back problems which is completely unrelated to the cancer, thankfully.  So his back was also very sore.  After he finally listened to me and took the pain pills they gave him at 2am, he was able to fall asleep and slept through till 10am! Who knew I actually knew what I was talking about! He’s tired still and has napped a few times but in general, he still feels great. …

Steve starts radiation today.  He’ll have 10 treatments, Monday-Friday, to keep the tumors that they just removed in surgery, from growing back quickly and compress his spine again. He definitely doesn’t want to have that happen again. He had a CT Scan earlier this week to set up the radiation and the table he had to lay on was very hard so he was in a lot of pain afterwards.  It’s not the same pain as before the surgery but a different area and different type of pain.  But pain is pain. We’ve been spending all our time together since he can’t really go anywhere on his own.  It’s actually been pretty nice because it’s been quality time.  He seems more relaxed about the whole…

Last week, Steve had a new Bone Scan and CT Scan so the doctor had a baseline before we start the next chemo.  I was curious to see how much growth there would be without him having chemo for 4 weeks (2 treatments). We saw the doctor yesterday and the CT Scan showed some more growth in the lungs.  Not a lot, but more.  The bone scan confirmed what the last CT Scan said – and there are now 2 spots on his spine, but we already knew that.  There is also a little bit more growth in his stomach on the omentum. Not a lot, so that means the cancer is moving slowly.  It also pretty much confirmed that the chemo hasn’t really been…

Steve’s surgery last week was a success.  The spine surgeons were able to remove the tumors that were compressing Steve’s spinal cord without having to insert the titanium rods.  His bones were surprisingly strong.  They did insert a little cement into the spine where they removed the tumors, just to give it a little more strength. Because they didn’t have to insert the rods, the recovery was much easier.  Steve was up walking around the following day and then doing the stairs a day later. Two days after his surgery, his heart rate was still high – it was running 115-120.   Come to find out it was because he has a blood clot in his lungs.  He was at a high risk for getting one,…

I knew it had been a while since I updated this site, but I didn’t realize it had been 6 months!  The reason I haven’t updated in the past 6 months is there hasn’t really been a significant change….. which isn’t a bad thing when you are stage 4! This past week, Steve had his last follow up for the year so I thought it was a good time to share how he’s doing. His CEA number is holding at 11, which is low and good.  He had a bone scan earlier this month because he was having some back pain and his last scan still showed a spot on his vertebrae.  I won’t lie, this scared me.   I was more worried than Steve was. …