A surprising number of people have been thanking me for blogging about Jen's journey and how she's doing. This really started out as just a way for me to vent at 2am. Writing has a way of focusing and calming me. I didn't realize that all my Google plus and Gmail contacts would get notification of it the first time I published a post. It got circulated once, and now a lot of friends and coworkers are reading it. While it's kind of embarrassing, it's a blessing I didn't expect. So the blog's purpose has morphed into primarily keeping everyone aware of Jen's condition. However, my feelings and rants will still slip in here now and then (like later on in this one)... so take the good with the bad. Who knows, maybe this blog helps someone else deal with cancer in their lives at some point down the line.
Wednesday Jen goes in for more pre chemo bloodwork, port installation, and Dr's clearance to begin Chemotherapy. Bright and squirrley at Froedert. It's becoming a routine.
On Thursday the fight enters a new intensity level... Chemotherapy. It's going to be a very long day for Jen. They're telling us to expect a 12 hour treatment. She's getting 3 different cancer drugs each cycle: Carboplatin, Taxol, and Bevacizamab. On the first treatment they're going to go slow and individually so that they can monitor her reaction to each. Subsequent cycles will be administered faster, if possible, so that treatment could be completed in 5 to 6 hours. Regardless, her immune system will be very compromised. We'll have to be extremely careful about how many people she's exposed to, and conscious of the health of the rest of the family. If one of us comes down with a cough, sore throat, or sniffles, we'll have to figure about an isolation plan. Yikes.
Jen will go in for treatment every three weeks. Every 6 weeks she'll undergo a series of scan to determine if the tumor is reacting to the treatment. If it is, the treatment will continue until the tumors are gone OR they get smart and become resistant to the drugs.
If the tumors don't begin reducing in size or become resistant the Dr.s will need to find other routes for treatment. I'll also be weighting our options of getting into other clinical trials around the country. I don't care were we have to go, or what we need to do, but we have to find a cure for this. We have to.
I came home from the office today to find everyone in tears. Apparently, all the neighbors had stopped by to bring dinner and to let us know they want to help. I just missed it. On their own they've all banded together and stopped in to help. Wow. We hardly know the neighbors, we just moved in last fall.
I've also come to learn that there is an ever growing supply line of dinners being prepared for us. Again, Wow. Thanks guys. I don't know how to express it any more sincerely and simply than that. We're not sure just how much Jen's going to be eating, but it's a relief to know that I won't have to cook all the time.
2 comments:
Chris;
Please let your friends, neighbors and family know about a wonderful site called lotsahelpinghands.org
they can create a COMMUNITY and sign up in a more scheduled way for meals, cleaning, rides whatever you need. It just helps with the 12th pan of lasagna for Thursday's dinner ( :
Also, I know you said you'd do anything, and I get that!! Please visit the relics of St. Nectarios in Kenosha, He will interceed for you and Jenny and through the power given by God, God willing, he will send a miracle.
Also, an email appeared that I thought I'd pass on, about Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, who employs novel gene-targeted therapies in the treatment of cancer. It's a long article. If you are interested I can send to you.
God Bless you Chris, you are a true servant.
Dori
Thanks Dori. I'm setting up a similar portal in CareCalendar. I'll distribute the link to that when we get more details in. Please do send me any links you have to trials.
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