Steve’s Cancer Updates

Steve is going this morning for his first CT Scan.  We are pretty hopeful that it will look good because of how good his CEA number has been.  But seeing it will be good to reassure us that the Chemo is working. He will also have is CEA number checked on Monday.  We will have the results of both of those tests on Tuesday when we meet with his Oncologist. Steve has been getting mouth sores the last 3 cycles and they are unbearable for him.  We’ve been trying all sorts of ways to make them better and possibly avoid them but after talking to the doctor yesterday, we are thinking of pulling back on one of the Chemotherapy drugs a little bit.  There is…

My daughter’s and their friends spent their day off from school today selling lemonade to raise money for Colon Cancer. I’ve never been more proud of them. Not once did they ask if they could keep any of the money. Instead they went inside and got their money they have in a donation jar of their own, and poured it into the bucket. We’ve raised $245.21 so far and still have some donations coming in. Being a parent is hard, but seeing these kids do things like this reminds me it’s all worth it and I am doing a good job. And so are my friends who’s kids joined my girls today to help out. It was a great day and my heart feels good.

Today began round 6 of chemo.   It was the fastest and smoothest one yet.  We had one of our favorite nurses Erin (she was actually our first so that maybe why we like her so much).  The port worked great and Erin got the IV in right away with a perfect blood return!  So we were off to a great start. Steve feels good today, his appetite is up and he’s just in a good mood.  He’s been unhappy the past week due to another sore on his tongue.  When he gets these sores he can’t eat much or even drink much.  So think about it, would you be miserable?  I know I would!!  So it was a tough week but yesterday he started feeling…

This week Steve completed his 5th round of chemo and he’s still doing really well. The tingling in his fingers started almost immediately when he touched anything cold.  Even when he washes his hands, if the water is a little cold, they start to tingle.  Or when he got up at the infusion center to use the men’s room, he has to push the IV to the bathroom.  The handle on it is metal and it’s so cold inside the infusion center, that the handle gets cold.  So even that bothered him.  It’s extremely irritating and he gets very frustrated with it.  Even though he knows in the whole scheme of things, it’s not the worst thing, it’s still pretty irritating. I remember before I…

Today we saw the Oncologist again with an update on Steve’s CEA Number.   And we got some really good news! Steve’s CEA (tumor marker number) is down to 64!!!  On June 4th it was 536.  Then a few weeks later it was up to 834.8. Four weeks ago it was down to 263.1.   And today it’s 64!!! The doctor said not all cancers can measure the tumors with this marker, but Colon Cancer is one of them so this does tell us that the tumors are shrinking.  But we can tell as well because of some little differences that we see that I’ve mentioned before.  (His dry cough is gone and his night sweats are gone for the most part and his bowels are better. …