Boring = Awesome

There I go again, not updating for an entire week.  I'd apologize except that my lack of blogging actually means things are good.  Well, not good.  More like...boring.  And in the cancer world, boring is good.  

Sam is up for round 8 tomorrow.  He can't wait.  Oh, I almost forgot to mention that he had surgery last Thursday (maybe things haven't been quite as boring as I thought).  His port was all wonky so they ripped that sucker out and installed a shiny new one.  It's even a new kind!  It was kind of like trading in a crappy old Fiat for a Mercedes Benz, only not nearly as thrilling as that.  But look what I got to do...

My life is now complete.  Seriously, I enjoyed that WAY too much.  I'm in very real danger of becoming a heroin addict purely to indulge my injection fetish.  Hopefully they'll keep me on the straight and narrow by letting me assist them with their meds for the next 6 months. 

Dad had chemo #4 on Thursday.  So far, I would say it's been pretty smooth, but that's also taking into consideration that the Prednisone crash probably started today.  That part never goes very well.  I'll be able to tell the extent of the damage from the sound of his voice when I call tomorrow.  I'll report back to you.  But until then, keep praying for boring.  We love boring.  Boring rocks our world.

The Good, The Bad, and The Globby

So the weird just keeps on coming.  Remember how I told you that Sam would be having his mid-treatment CT scan?  Yeah, he had it.  Good news, no visible cancer.  Bad news, gigantic blood clot in his heart.  Like, size of a cherry gigantic.  Additional bad news, he is now responsible for giving himself an injection twice a day for the next 6 months.  So far, Mom has been the only one who can tolerate administering the shots.  I'm hoping to get my turn.  But that's not the weird part.  The weird part starts here.  Dad moved up his mid-treatment CT scan.  He had it last Friday instead of tomorrow when it was originally supposed to happen.  The results are in.  Good news, cancer has reduced by 1/2, which sounds less exciting than Sam's results on the surface, but remember, Sam was on his third treatment by the time Dad started his 1st.  Bad news, not one, but TWO blood clots (he's kind of an over-achiever) were found on his scan.  One in his lung and one up by his port.  Additional bad news, he has to give himself injections twice a day for........wait for it............the next six months.  Mom is out shopping for her nurse get up as we speak.  That last sentence sounds mildly inappropriate, but I think I'll leave it.  I rather enjoy making people squirm just a bit.

Let's further examine this blood clot thing.  See that white arrow pointing to the dark glob inside the white glob?  That's what they have going on.  You don't want to have dark globs inside white globs.  It usually means there will be lots of needles in your future, as we have discovered.  But if you do happen to discover dark globs on your CT scan, you'll want to be sure you have a family member who also plans to have dark globs.  It's like getting cancer together, only funner.

Really, the good news outweighs the bad on this one.  As long as these blood thinning injections do their job, the blood clots probably wont become a huge issue.  That's the hope at least.  Cancer is getting it's butt kicked, and that's the most important thing.  Dad goes in for treatment #4 on Thursday.  Here's to taking out the enemy.  

Boo-yah!  

Counting Down

Our boys have been a little run down this week.  I usually find one or both of them looking something like this...

The next few days should be at least a little bit better.  

I think we've reached that point in the game where Dad and Sam are sick of being sick.  They both seem pretty worn out from the whole thing.  The tiredness, the throwing up, the pain, the lack of appetite, the brain fog, the worry, it's all taking it's toll.  It's hard to know how to help, or even what to say sometimes.  "Hang in there, you're totally going to beat this", only works so many times, you know.  They have battle fatigue and it's hard to think of things to combat that.  But the good news is that we've reached the point where we can start counting down instead of up.  Like when your running a marathon.  Okay, I have no experience to base this off of whatsoever, but I'm guessing that for the first half, you probably count up (mile 1, mile 2, mile 3, etc.).  But eventually, it probably becomes too mentally strenuous to count up.  So you start counting down (only 8 miles to go, now 7, now 6, etc.).  Folks, we're counting down.  And for some reason it feels huge to be able to do that.

I can't tell you how instrumental you've all been in helping us...them get to this point.  I've never seen a support team quite like the one my family has had.  I've been especially touched by the people who've gone through this before.  Cancer has an interesting bonding agent, if you will.  There's something about having gone through an experience with cancer either themselves or with a loved one, that teaches them exactly what another cancer patient might need at any given time.  There are conversations that they are uniquely qualified to have.  They can relate in a way that most people can not.  They know what to say and do when the rest of us feel helpless.  I would never have thought that the cancer community  could have inspired me in such a profound way.  It's love on a completely different level.  Talk about making lemonade...