Julie's take on things

Jim asked me to write for him today, since he is getting behind in blogging.

This has been a busy week. On Monday morning, we had an appt with Dr Te, (pronounced Tay) Jims oncologist. We had blood work done, and everything looked good clinically, except that Jim is losing weight again. He has been suffering from a lot of nausea, and has not had an appetite for a few weeks. We are not sure why, because he has not had chemo for five weeks. Possibly a side effect of some of the medications he is taking. But he didn't want to start another round of chemo if he was already feeling sick. The Dr agreed. He felt that we should change to a different type of chemo, and maybe that would make Jim less sick. The one he is on now is very harsh. So we are going to another regimen, once a week for three weeks, then one week off. We are scheduled to start that next Tues. We will see....

After the Dr, we went over the the new hospital to radiology. Jims drainage tube has not been working, and we, along with Dr Te, had decided that there was no reason to keep it in. They did a CT scan of his lungs, and there was not much fluid present. There also has been no shortness of breath, or pain in the lung area. We were baffled by this, because he has been producing so much fluid since October. The Dr told us there could be many reasons for the lack of fluid, but the most likely cause is that scar tissue has built up and fused the lining of the lung to the chest wall. This does not allow any space for the fluid to build up, which is actually a very good thing. The removal was easy, and only took about 10 minutes after the Dr came into the OR. Jim felt pretty good afterwards, and we went home after about 90 minutes in recovery.

Wednesday morning, Jim was scheduled for a PET scan. For this test, he has to drink a liter or so of radioactive fluid, then they strap him to a table and run a scan for about 30 minutes. He has to hold really still. They can then look at the results, and it tells us if the cancer is actively growing, and where and how much there is. He had one in October, another in December. Jim has been having increased pain in his back, so we were afraid that the cancer had been growing more in his spine and bones. He did pretty well for the scan, but had a hard time drinking all the fluid.

Wed afternoon, Justin competed in the regional solo and ensemble festival. Jim and I really wanted to see him perform, so we went to the school after the PET scan. We arrived in plenty of time, but were told the wrong room, so we sat in an empty auditorium while Justin played in the Seminary building. :( Such is life......

Wed evening, I was singing and speaking for a RS program, and Katie had a special fireside at the temple visitors center at the same time. So Jim packed up his oxygen, his blankie, pillow and fentanyl stick one more time, and drove Katie to the fireside. They even stopped by the Church on the way to hear me sing! Jim was exhausted when they got home, but he slept better Wed night than he has for a long time. :)

Thursday afternoon we had an appt with the lung Dr. He saw Jim in the hospital several weeks ago, and has been treating him with antibiotics for the lung infection. He looked at the CT scan, and told us that it looked like the infection was cleared up. Jim was very happy to hear this, because the antibiotics he has been taking were really yucky, and Jim had to take them four times a day for a month. It also has been upsetting his stomach. No more icky antibiotics, yeah!

The Dr. listened to Jims chest, looked at his bloodwork, and also looked at the PET scan results.
He told us that there is some new growth of the cancer, mostly in his bones and spine. There is also a small new growth in the upper lobe of the left lung. He said Jim has about 2/3 lung capacity still in his left lung. He also saw a small amount of fluid between the top and bottom lobes of the lung. Jims oxygen levels continue to look good. His blood count for the cancer is still high. We have another appt with Dr Te on monday, and we will discuss the possibility of radiation again, as well as the new chemo.

Today, we went for a drive. One thing that Jim really enjoys is going for a drive. We drove north today, and went all the way to Enterprise. Its a tiny little town, one gas station/grocery store, a miniature library, and a wee bitty post office. It looks a lot like Richfield, but much smaller. To get there, we drove through some amazingly beautiful country. Jagged red and white rocks one minute, forrest the next. We even saw some snow! We have gone lots of places the past few months that neither of us had ever been before, just driving around the countryside down here. It is so beautiful, we are truly blessed to live in such an amazing place.

Jims parents drove down to visit today, we are grateful to have them here. Next week is spring break for school and college, so we hope (with Justins help) to get some yard work done. Anyone who would like to volunteer to help........ :)

We rely so much on the Lord, and are so grateful for all the prayers and service in our behalf. We are reading a book together, The Peacegiver, by James L. Ferrell. It is a wonderful book, and we are having some great discussions about the atonement and forgiveness. It is really neat to have this time together, to draw closer to each other and to the Lord.

Sunday Morn again

Well here it is Sunday morning again and once again I am unable to sleep. Today it is for a more logical reason.... I somehow came down with the flu bug. Lee and Sharon W. stopped over and she made a special trip to bring me (what she called) contraband. She had made some chocolate dipped strawberries and even brought a box of chocolate doughnuts. They were down from Salt Lake for a golf tournament Lee played in and I am glad he stopped with Sharon to talk about golf a little. It was almost as good as talking about computers with Josh and Kirby. Now normally this would have been heaven for me, but just before they got here (and also right after they left) I got to visit the bathroom again in the kneeling position. I didn't think there was anything in there but enough to do the trick twice. So at the time it made it even worse when those two things (chocolate anything really) I would normally want so badly but they didn't even appeal to me. I appreciated the effort and the visit and I hope they don't catch the flu (I did warn them).

I have really been having a struggle with all this lately and I can't seem to shake it. I am tired of being sick all the time. I guess it is the opposite of the 5 weeks of relatively good health I had and the things I was able to do. In the Book of Mormon, Lehi tells Jacob there must needs be opposition in all things. I used to joke and tell people that is why I was brought into the world. Now I believe I was brought into the world to "experience" all the opposition instead of "be" it. I am sorry for the lack of writing and I got reprimanded by several people when I let my blog go for a few days. I apologize because I never thought that people would read into the silence the "worst case scenario" and I also never thought people had the time or inclination to check this every day but I heard from some people that they do. Again I am sorry.

So now to keep you updated: I am still scheduled to take out the drain tomorrow. Some of you might have missed it all, but a couple of weeks ago the drain stopped working. We went in to have it checked and they eventually replaced it. The "new" one didn't do any better so after talking with the doctors, we determined if it isn't going to work we might as well take it out. The current theory is that scar tissue or something has created pockets instead of one big pool of fluid laying in the lung area to drain. But on the same token, for some reason I have not been creating as much fluid to drain either. It could be the same scar tissue that is the cause of that as well. The interesting part is I am not sure my doctors are all communicating well because I have chemo scheduled for Tues., right after this little "removal" surgery. I am hoping the surgery is not that bad, but that is what they told me about the last time when they replaced it. I guess we will see. Prayers are in order again so I am putting out the cry for help through the prayers again. While you are at it, pray for a little help to get over this stupid emotional and mental depression I am going though. I could use a lot of help there as well.

I also wanted to brag on my kids again. Josh's choir concert was awesome (even though we forgot the pictures like I said), but then Justin's orchestra concert went over the top again. He played with both the High School and the Middle School and is first chair for both. Unfortunately he is a perfectionist and never happy if his performance is not perfect and we have to assure him that he did an awesome job anyway. He had a solo inbetween the High School and Middle School concerts along with several other kids. There was one kid that played the violin and was probably in the same level of ability as Justin, but everyone forgets to mention that he is only in Middle School. I really am proud of both of them. Josh just decides to pick up the sticks and play the Marimba this semester (I think there was a little desire to be with Kirby too...lol) and Justin just always blows us away. I need to also say that Kirby (was in Josh's concerts too) was great too, and she deserves some recognition because not only is she gifted on percussion and the piano, she makes Josh try harder too at the things he does. We love her being a part of our family and she is an angel as well. I love my boys (and girls) and in a discussion with one of my friends (and former employee) from Rapid City he commented on how lucky I was to have a close relationship with my family and when he wrote that to me, it reminded me again of how grateful I was for my second chance. I know that this should help me overcome some of the depression, and I forget how grateful I am sometimes, but it seems to be harder to remember as time goes on.

I also want to thank my wife publicly for all she does. When Katie got the flu a few weeks ago, it pushed her to her limit having two extremely needy and whining "kids" so I was so glad when her parents came down and rescued her. And Teresa the week before. Thanks to all of you, and while we are at it, I want to thank all our other angels here on earth. Our home and visiting teachers, and Julie's companion Marsha. I did make it to the hearing ward last Sunday and bore my testimony which was one of my short range goals. Then last Friday night we went over to the deaf branch for an activity. It always amazes me how many people show up to those activities and also what good food they have too. I wished I could have eaten more. We need to take Katie to all the activities for the branch because they called her to be the branch Historian. So she took her camera and took pictures. Now we have to put them on the branch blog I created. She is pretty excited about that too.

Well I hope that updates you on my status so no one gets mad at me again for a while. Pray hard and you are all in my prayers as well.