Closing out 2022

 

12/22 – Thursday

Michelle completed her last radiation treatment on the 6th of December. It did quite a number on her hair, that's for sure. She still looks beautiful.

She started chemotherapy on the 12th of December. She had 3 consecutive days of treatment. The first day was the worst. Total time in the infusion room was about 4hrs. Total time at the office was almost 6 hours. The next 2 days were much shorter lasting less than 2 hours each. She had an injection to help prevent infection and to boost her white blood cell count.

Michelle will have MRIs done on the 6^th and 9^th of January. She will meet with the neurologist on the 11^th.

Chele is sleeping a lot and needs to be drinking more water (I am trying to stay on her, but she is stubborn). She is not in any pain at all. She is positive, happy and high spirited most of the time.

Love, Brian

Happy to Be Home

 

10/28 – Friday

The liver biopsy came back negative as we expected. We walked the halls a lot yesterday. Michelle got emotional in the hallway once. When I went to hug her, I irritated her newly installed port. I felt horrible. She stayed depressed most of the day. She took a 90-minute nap and had a hard time waking up after it. Groggy, sad and depressed are recipes for disaster. For the most part, she kept it together. She had some visitors later that night which helped her sadness.

Our sleep was not great last night. Michelle's O2 levels were concerning. At one point they were at 89%. Anything lower than 88% and an oxygen supplement could be required. When they could not bring the oxygen levels up higher than 92%, they decided to give her some oxygen at 4am. This made Chele very uncomfortable. This almost kept Chele in the hospital for another night. I will use an oximeter to measure it at home.

The pulmonology team came to get her around 10:30am this morning for the lung biopsy. I got a call from the pulmonologist around noon taunting his successful sampling of the lung. We should get the results on Tuesday. Six minutes of walking with Chele's 02 levels over 93% were good enough to clear her for discharge.

Love, Brian

A Vacation there won't be

 10/24 – Monday 

We got through a tough weekend!

After speaking with the doctors, we have learned that this is stage 4 Lung cancer and it has spread to the liver, brain and spine. The mass on liver and lung are very small and a bunch of lesions on the brain were seen on the cat scan. All tumors are lesions, but not all lesions are tumors. More on this after an oncology appointment and treatment. 

I did ask what the definition of "a bunch" was. You must embrace the bedside manner of the internal medicine emergency room doctors. He told me to draw a circle and throw a handful of pebbles into it. 

Cancer is suspected to be in the spine, but no cancer was seen from the full body nuclear bone scan. There will be an MRI scheduled and a follow-up with the neurologist with next steps. Michelle had a chest x-ray for a supposed COVID cough on 8/23. The internal med doctor  saw a possible cancer spot from this x-ray but can't be sure. I would have to hire a radiologist to compare the x-ray with the cat scan to see if there are cancer spots on the x-ray from 8/23. The oncologists tells us that this is an aggressive cancer and not all cancers show up on x-rays. 

Liver Biopsy was taken this morning. Due to the small size, the result is expected to be inconclusive. If this is the case, a biopsy will be ordered for the lung. The liver biopsy is painless and simple. The lung biopsy is more intrusive and will cause more pain.

Surgery has been scheduled for a port installation. After this procedure Michelle will be released from the hospital. 

We had a trip planned to Vegas 11/4 - 11/7 to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary which was the19th of October. We canceled that due to the brain lesions. 

Michelle is staying positive and is smiling more than I would be in her situation. She understands what is going on and positive energy is the best right now and is the ONLY part of this cancer that we can control. We slept better last night. 

Love, Brian

A Heavy Heart brings Melancholy news

 10/21 – Friday

I am writing with a heavy heart and sad news. Michelle was admitted to the hospital yesterday. She was slurring her words which caused concern. After a "head" CT scan, a "not nice" mass was discovered on her chest as well as a "bunch" of lesions on her brain. The oncologist believes this is an aggressive form of lung cancer that has spread to the brain, but there is no way to know until a biopsy has been done.

Today they will get a bone and CT scan. Nuclear imagining put a dye in her IV and her bone scan will be later today. She will also have a full body CT scan done today. Monday they will do the biopsy. The results of the tests should be in by Tuesday, hopefully giving more answers. Wednesday she will have a port installed for chemotherapy treatment and the plan is to be discharged after the port is installed.

Love, Brian