Well, this July has passed, and not a serious crisis has occurred!! No cancer diagnosis, no car accidents, no family deaths. I don't tend to be superstitious, but it was getting a little weird for a while. I did have a little incident where some ribs were rotated strangely, and caused enough pain to warrant Vicoden for a couple of days, and it took almost the whole month before I could sneeze without pain. I e-mailed Pat at work about the first sneeze, I was so excited. You can see what he has to put up with!!
As far as health news goes, evidently this chemo regime is working better. I had scans done last week, we met with Dr. Chui up at OHSU on Monday, and he is VERY pleased. He had called down to leave a message on the answering machine that things were looking good-he wanted me to have a good weekend. Nice guy. My liver enzymes are continuing to come down, which is a positive thing. As for the ones that are still a bit high, he thinks the high amount of tumor die-off is the cause. The bones are relatively stable, and the brain had two maybe-enhanced-a little-bit spots, (they were spots that had previously been radiated) but Dr. C. says that they see that all the time after radiation-that it's an inflammatory response. I guess I'd be a bit inflamed if I'd been nuked to pieces. So that's the scoop.
A friend who has inflammatory breast cancer is trying out a new, non-FDA approved drug called DCA. She's combining it with Gemzar (the old chemo I was on), and has had a spectacular drop in her tumor markers evidently. (She's going to the Seattle Cancer Treatment Centers of America-she's not all on her own :D ) It only costs $45 for a two month supply, so I can't imagine that any big company is going to ever want to back it up, but you know, if it works, and if some other country has a few more resources, it would be great to take advantage of it. In "nude white rats" they've seen a 70% reduction in tumor growth in 3 weeks. Dr. Chui says that there have been a LOT of nude white rats cured of cancer, (they just sound so cold, lonely and helpless!!). So it's hard to know if it could produce an actual cure, could stave the cancer off for a while, or what. The human studies have shown it to be effective against some but not all types of cancers. Breast cancer is one they've had success with.
I think that's all for the health stuff. I'm a little more fatigued after this chemo, and we're going to see if I can avoid the Neulasta shot this month and still keep my white blood cell counts up enough for chemo next month. We're thinking that the Neulasta (causes bone pain) combined with the Zometa (causes bone pain) was just a little too extreme for my 'ole bod. So we're praying that Robert's sore throat/head ache, etc. is just a quickly passing cold that doesn't get spread around the entire house. He's trying to set a record and not miss any baseball practices or games, and he's on quite the roll. Still loving it.
Other family stuff...
Sarah is really enjoying photography...enough to win first place in the Corvallis Library teen competition. She won an i-Pod shuffle (whatever that is). She's trying to perfect her abilities, and has taken some fun shots. Now we just need to get them framed and up around here. She's also wanting to photograph people, families, etc. so, if you have a need or just want to give her the practice, give her a call or e-mail. Valerie is getting ready to leave for Mexico with the church youth group for a week. They'll go down, help build houses, befriend people, get filthy dirty, and return home. As soon as she gets back, she has a wedding rehearsal to attend, and the wedding to coordinate the next day. Sounds a little tiring to me, but I'm so glad she has this chance. The rest of us will stay home in the air conditioning, hold down the fort, and pray for a successful trip for all of the kids. Fervency in their love of God, and that they can all be reflections of his caring and grace.
Thanks for "listening". ~ We appreciate our friends so much. Thanks for the prayers and thoughts, and we hope you're having a wonderful remainder of the summer. Take time to have some fun, and love one another.
Love you all,
Jeanne
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