Friends of mine set up a photo session for our family. It was gifted to me in September but with Steve having surgery in October, we never got around to doing it. Now that he’s in his last days, we knew we had to make it happen. The photographer was kind enough to come to our house and work with us in taking some pictures.
I dressed us all in blue for colon cancer. And I love the results. We will treasure these photos forever!
We saw our 2nd opinion doctor today who is the best in RI and came HIGHLY recommended by many. He agreed with our current Oncologist and thinks this chemo regimen is really the best way to start. And then see what happens in 2-3 months when they do the first scan. At that point he said if it isn’t working, we should think about something else. He’d be more than happy to talk with us then but sees no reason to do anything else right now. Knowing he feels the same way makes us even more confident that this is the best thing for Steve. And we really like our current Oncologist so we’ll be staying with him. However, our 2nd opinion doctor also said…
Steve finished his 4th round of chemo today. He feels this one went the best so far. However, the tingling in his fingers from the cold came much faster this time. Almost immediately when he got home on Wednesday. But other than that it went well. He still feels fine, he even had more of an appetite than he has the last few times so that’s good! Four down, many more to go! Next time the doctor will check his CEA number again – the tumor marker number. We are hoping it’s lower again. He said mid September he’ll send him for a scan to actually see where the tumors are now or more importantly where they are not! We are looking forward to that. …
Today was Steve’s first day of chemo and it went well. We are getting chemo at the Infusion center at Kent Hospital and I have to say we really like them there. Plus it’s nice and close to the house which is a huge plus. The doctor told us we’d be there for a couple of hours but when we arrived they told us that wasn’t true, we’d actually be there for about 5-6 hours. Steve wasn’t very happy at first but it is what it is and nothing we can do about it. Eventually we’ll be down to about 3 hours. So perhaps that’s what he was thinking about. Since Steve had the port placed just 2 days ago, the area is still very…
We were so sad when our friends Mark & Sue moved to Florida almost 4 years ago. But we knew that was where they wanted to be and this time they weren’t coming back. It was sad to say good bye to them, but we had too. Last October we were able to spend the day with them at The Magic Kingdom during our trip to Florda. We had a great time and we couldn’t believe how big the kids got. I have to dig out the picture we took of them and post it here another time. It was just as hard to say goodbye to them after that day because we weren’t sure when we’d see them again. But Mark is in town…
So for those of you that know Steve well, you know that he isn’t big on fruits and veggies. He’s a meat and potatoes kind of guy (which also means low fiber – not good for the colon I’ve learned). However, when he first found out about the cancer, he vowed to do whatever he can to get his body healthy again and that included eating fruits and veggies if needed. While visiting with the Oncologist last week, he went over side effects of the chemo and asked us if we had any questions. Steve asked him if he should avoid any foods or eat certain foods to help repair the damage that the chemo will be doing to his body. I swear Steve had…
The doctor called to tell Steve today that his CEA number is 12. Last time it was 11 but the doctor says that’s still great and it will go up and down a bit, but doesn’t really mean anything. So Steve was happy. Steve also noticed at 1pm today that his pump wasn’t working and we don’t think it pumped anything since we left the infusion center yesterday at 1pm. 🙁 So now he’s hooked up until Saturday instead of Friday. We weren’t very happy but nothing we can do. Now we know to make sure it’s working like all the time.