The Port is In Place!

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. …

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 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…

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.

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…

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…