Second Round of Chemo is Done!

It’s a little over a month later and the girls and I have began moving forward with our life without Steve.  I won’t lie, it’s awful.  Some days are okay, but lately most are not.  I’m really struggling with this.  I thought I would be okay.  I thought I was prepared for this.  I thought I grieved the last 2+ years, and I thought that was hard.  This is worse.  I was no where near ready for losing him.  I was no where near ready for the pain of missing someone that has been in my life, every day for 18 years.  Especially losing them when you have no choice. I also thought we had more time.  I thought we had one more Thanksgiving… one…

A year ago today Steve and I sat at chemo for his “New Year’s Chemo”. I was grateful to have him for another year. After the new year we found out that chemo would end in the fall. The doctor estimated (at that time) he would probably have about 4-6 months after chemo ended. Of course that was without knowing how the last 6 months of chemo would work. He was being optimistic. When Steve and I talked about that, we figured we’d get through the holidays, have another new year’s eve together and then sometime in 2017, he’d pass away. Of course we didn’t know for sure, but we were being optimistic. From the day that we found out he was stage 4, I…

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…

Our amazing community is hosting an evening of Yoga in honor of Steve this week.  I can’t even express in words what this means to our family.  Every week our friends amaze us with their love, support and generosity.   Calling ourselves Lucky doesn’t even describe what we feel.  LOVED is really more like it. Steve is a very proud man, so letting them do this for us has been very hard for him to accept.  But he’s realized that this is a way that all the people around us can help me, can take some sort of burden off of me.  It’s also a way for him to see how much love we have around us. I recently posted this on Facebook and I know…

Steve had his 8th round of chemo this week and he’s pretty happy it’s over because he has a break and won’t be back to the infusion center for 4 weeks. Why the break?  He needed it for so many reasons and without it, going forward would have been way too hard. First of all, his CEA number is down to 11.  So that’s GREAT!  So if he’s going to take a break, now is a good time to do it since the number is still going down and the chemo is still working. But the real reason for the break is because he needs it physically and mentally.  Even with the reduction in the 5-FU, he’s still getting the mouth sores, but not as…

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. …