Today was a long day of flying but we made it safely back home and went straight to the cancer center to get Tim checked out. Dr. Edenfield confirmed the colitis and Tim got some fluids. He's on what is called "bowel rest" for the next few days and is limited to clear liquids only in the hopes we can get the infection & inflammation under control. He also broke out in a rash right as we were about to leave the cancer center. When it rains, it pours!
We have to keep a close eye on him for the next 24-48 hours to make sure he is getting better rather than worse for fear of the blood supply to his colon shutting off. So far he's still in some pain and having some cramping and the poor guy is hungry but his color is much better. His temperature is slightly elevated but nothing to worry about right now, we'll just check it a few times during the night to make sure all is well.
He has been a trooper today and even though today was a really tough one for him, he was really amazing about it all. Dr. Edenfield did tell us that this could've happened anytime/anywhere and is either attributed to a virus he picked up from someone last week or there is a slight possibility it's from the chemo itself. That alleviated a lot of my guilt for taking him on our little adventure!
In January of 2010 Tim was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer. After 6 months of chemo he was declared to be in remission until November 2010 when we found it had moved to his lungs categorizing him as Stage 4. He has been fighting ever since.
Monday, May 6, 2013
A Weekend of Firsts
This weekend held a lot if firsts for us. It started with being the first time either of us (but especially me) has made vacation plans the day of. We booked an incredible weekend deal on Priceline for flights & hotel to NY and left Friday evening. We had a great time including dinner, seeing the majority of the sights that NY had to offer in a day and getting to go to dinner with my cousin and her boyfriend.
Yesterday we got to Laguardia to head home and while we were in the security line Tim started feeling really bad. The dizziness & his pain got worse until he was laying on the floor of the airport with EMS on the way. We also both rode inan ambulance for the first time yesterday as they took him to Cornell to get checked out.
We spent all day in the ER and he ended up with a diagnosis of colitis. Apparently it's just a bug he picked up somewhere and was more susceptible to coming down with it due to everything else going on. They started him on lots of antibiotics and we got a cab to a hotel near the airport last night. After a very short night's rest were back to try again and currently waiting at the gate to board in about an hour.
Tim is only allowed water until we get home so needless to say it is going to be a very long & uncomfortable day for him. We should arrive around 11 and will be checking in with Dr. Edenfield before going straight to bed.
Everyone at US Air and at Weil Cornell have gone above and beyond to make sure we feel safe and comfortable. We couldn't have had a better experience within a bad situation. We are extremely excited to get home and get Tim comfortable and feeling well again but had a great time this weekend even with all of the excitement.
Yesterday we got to Laguardia to head home and while we were in the security line Tim started feeling really bad. The dizziness & his pain got worse until he was laying on the floor of the airport with EMS on the way. We also both rode inan ambulance for the first time yesterday as they took him to Cornell to get checked out.
We spent all day in the ER and he ended up with a diagnosis of colitis. Apparently it's just a bug he picked up somewhere and was more susceptible to coming down with it due to everything else going on. They started him on lots of antibiotics and we got a cab to a hotel near the airport last night. After a very short night's rest were back to try again and currently waiting at the gate to board in about an hour.
Tim is only allowed water until we get home so needless to say it is going to be a very long & uncomfortable day for him. We should arrive around 11 and will be checking in with Dr. Edenfield before going straight to bed.
Everyone at US Air and at Weil Cornell have gone above and beyond to make sure we feel safe and comfortable. We couldn't have had a better experience within a bad situation. We are extremely excited to get home and get Tim comfortable and feeling well again but had a great time this weekend even with all of the excitement.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Finally
I am so sorry for delaying this post for so long. It has been a long 3 months for both Jenny and I with the planning of the golf tournament and then helping out with the BrightLife house. For those that don't have Facebook we raised a little over $17,000 for iTOR from both the foot traffic at the house and the golf / silent auction. We are still waiting on the money to come in from the sale of the house, but when it is all said and done the money that was raised will allow every patient the comes through the Greenville Health System for the next year and has surgery to remove a cancerous tumor to get the genomic sequencing done. This will help the oncologists to find a drug faster and that fits their tumor profile. It was a lot of work but it was all worth it. There were so many people that helped out with both of those events and if I tried to name everyone I know that I would leave someone out, so I won't even begin to try. But, thank you to everyone that contributed to both of those events.
On to health news. Jenny and I had been worrying that the tumors might be getting worse because my CEA was rising to a really high level. I don't know what the exact number got to but I know that it was really high. The thought was the drugs I am currently on were not working, however, this was not the case. Dr. Edenfield noticed the rise in CEA and immediately scheduled me for a CT Scan to see if it had spread to anywhere else. I got the test done on a Thursday and was scheduled to meet him on Monday to discuss the results and the new path we were going to take. When he walked into the room I knew that he had good news. He had a slight smirk on his face and said that the CT Scan showed moderate improvements overall. What was happening is something called "Tumor Lysis" which basically means the tumors were exploding from the inside and causing small fragments to be released into my body and confusing my CEA into thinking that it was new tumor growth rather than dying off. Once we got this news he also informed us that my CEA took a significant drop. Again I don't know exactly how much it dropped since I don't want to know but apparently it was a very big one. So the plan now is to keep on the same treatment plan as before with chemo every other week.
In other news we went up to Old Edwards Inn the day after the tournament to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary and have been going pretty non-stop every since then. We still have some thank you notes to write from the tournament, things to be put away that are currently sitting in our garage or on our stairs but hopefully we can get back to normal soon, whatever that means.
It feels good knowing that we were able to raise money and we got good news all in a small period of time. I hope that everyone has a great week.
Tim
On to health news. Jenny and I had been worrying that the tumors might be getting worse because my CEA was rising to a really high level. I don't know what the exact number got to but I know that it was really high. The thought was the drugs I am currently on were not working, however, this was not the case. Dr. Edenfield noticed the rise in CEA and immediately scheduled me for a CT Scan to see if it had spread to anywhere else. I got the test done on a Thursday and was scheduled to meet him on Monday to discuss the results and the new path we were going to take. When he walked into the room I knew that he had good news. He had a slight smirk on his face and said that the CT Scan showed moderate improvements overall. What was happening is something called "Tumor Lysis" which basically means the tumors were exploding from the inside and causing small fragments to be released into my body and confusing my CEA into thinking that it was new tumor growth rather than dying off. Once we got this news he also informed us that my CEA took a significant drop. Again I don't know exactly how much it dropped since I don't want to know but apparently it was a very big one. So the plan now is to keep on the same treatment plan as before with chemo every other week.
In other news we went up to Old Edwards Inn the day after the tournament to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary and have been going pretty non-stop every since then. We still have some thank you notes to write from the tournament, things to be put away that are currently sitting in our garage or on our stairs but hopefully we can get back to normal soon, whatever that means.
It feels good knowing that we were able to raise money and we got good news all in a small period of time. I hope that everyone has a great week.
Tim