The Port is In Place!

I had a house full of people today.  Just the way it should be.  My brother brought over a bottle of something for shots.  I have no idea what it was, I can’t remember.  But I do remember that I didn’t have any shot glasses so we used wine glasses.  My crystal wine glasses that I got when Steve and I got married.  So they were pretty appropriate to use! We all got together and did a “Shot for Steve”….. it was pretty fitting considering he enjoyed himself a drink or two over the years. A memory I will always cherish!

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…

Happy New Year! The last chemo treatment Steve received on Christmas Eve went well.  He over did it over the holiday with all our company so he was exhausted coming out of it, but he enjoyed the time we spent with friends and family so it was worth it for him.  He also got another mouth sore this time around, however it wasn’t at it’s worst and he was still able to eat more than just soft foods.  That said, he still dropped a few pounds.  He’s going to try and work on putting those back on this week. The doctor checked his CEA number on Monday and it was 15.6, which is a little higher than last time.  We never head from the doctor…

On June 18th, we saw the Oncologist and he told us the bone scan was clean and there is no cancer in his bones.  First good news we had received!  I thought for sure it would be so I was pretty happy to hear that. The plan was to start chemo on Wednesday, June 25, 2014 and the doctor planned for the first scans to be done probably in September to see it’s working.   They will be doing blood work weekly or biweekly to make sure the chemo isn’t affecting his white/red blood cells and platelets.  If it does, the doctor will readjust. Really hoping we can put this in remission for a long time.  Only time will tell.

Today is Steve’s 17th chemo treatment.  It’s been a while since I’ve updated and I’m sorry about that.  Steve’s been bugging me to post an update but I’ve been busy shoveling snow, ice, snow again, then more snow and then even more snow, then I got up this morning and shovel MORE snow!!! You get the picture. I want to apologize because this snow is all my fault.  I think that mother nature is trying to see how far she can push me before I go over the edge.  I’m sorry to take you all on the ride with me.  Hopefully she’s satisfied and will stop. So how is Steve doing?  Steve started a new chemo to replace the Oxaliplatin.  For those of you that…

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.