Christian's Cancer Journey

Yesterday (Monday June 28, 2021) was Christian's 5th chemo treatment.  We arrived around 8:45am as usual, had her port accessed, and labs taken. Then we waited in the lobby area until her pre-chemo appointment with Dr. Paluri. The appointment with Dr. Paluri is where she has her vitals taken, and he looks at her lab results to make sure she is good to go for her treatment. Everything looked good. He also showed us some images of the Liver MRI in a split window view comparing this last MRI to the one she had done before beginning chemo. You could see the tumors in the liver had gotten a little smaller. It is nice to visually see that, along with being told in the reading that they have shrunk some. We also discussed the potential plan after treatments 5-8 are complete. It will really just depend on what the next set of scans & tumor board meeting result in. After that, we were off to Pod D. We got a window seat which was nice. The pod nurses began to get the pre-meds together an

We received good news (scan results) at the appointment on Monday June 21st. The Chemo is working. Tumors have shrunk around 20% or so according to the scans. There are no new lesions showing on the scans either. This is all really good news. I took a picture of her, Dr. Paluri, and his APP Olivia. It is below. The hospital has a "Tumor Board" meeting on Tuesdays, and Christian's case was one of them on the ballot for discussion (with the recent scan information available) to define a plan moving forward. At the tumor board meeting, there are several different medical professionals from different aspects of the Oncology department, including Dr. Paluri, a few surgeon specialists, and others. They discussed Christian's tumors, the scan results, the chemo response, and what all is involved with the surgeries she will need to have eventually. There is a lot of info here, so I will just try to drop the main points. 1st, they decided that because she is tolerating the chem

 It is Thursday June 17th, in the morning. She is still asleep. Just wanted to give a quick update on how she is doing with this cycle.  It is about the same as the last one. She has been pretty wiped out since Monday afternoon, energy wise. Just like the last time, just fatigue and feeling kind of crappy. No nausea or sick feeling, just "blah".. She finds little pockets of energy every now and then throughout the day, and will start a load of laundry or something small. Other than that, it has been mostly couch & tv time, relaxing and resting. She had the neuropathy in her hands and feet, off and on, starting Monday evening. It went away yesterday. The cold sensitivity is on its way out, from this treatment, as well. We will see how she feels when she gets up, I imagine she will start to get a little more energy every day from today on just based on previous experience. Tomorrow morning we go get the MRI of the liver done. Monday morning we go get the CT Scan of the abdo

 Yesterday was Christian's 4th treatment.  Instead of taking her myself, I asked her sister Jen if she wanted to take her for a treatment, to see how  involved it is, and to get the experience for herself. There are a lot of moving parts to it in-between check-in and check-out. She said yes, so they spent the day together at the hospital. It is an all day event. With that said, I asked Jen if she would like to put together a little story to add here, like I usually do. Jen's Story: ***“You must be sisters!” = The theme of the day! Hi, I am new here and my name is Jen. I have the honor and privilege of being Christian’s younger sister. Even though, no one can ever tell who is the oldest….totally good for her. ☺️ Yesterday I had the opportunity to take Christian to her chemo treatment and thoroughly appreciate the knowledge and insight that the day offered. Although the day was a bit delayed and took us through a late afternoon experience, it went very well! The highlight of the

 It is Monday June 7, 2021. She is starting to get back to normal. Last week was rough on her. Thru the weekend she has started to gain some of her strength and energy back.  Saturday we just kind of hung around the house. That evening we had Jen, Steven, & Annabell over for a few burgers. After eating, they took the dogs for a short walk in the neighborhood.  Sunday I was outside washing the boat for a few hours. She helped me some and hung out outside listening to the music while I was cleaning. She did some cleaning around the house and we got Mexican for dinner. I would say between yesterday and today she is about back to normal. So hopefully this week will be a good recovery week for her to enjoy before the next treatment.  We are realizing that each treatment is making the side effects "build" and be more severe than the previous one. With that said, I am fairly certain she will be wiped out the week of the 14th (her 4th treatment). The upside for that week is that

 It is Thursday June 3, 2021.  This treatment has definitely hit harder than the previous two. She is still handling it very well and is very strong.  The main side effects are still fatigue & tiredness, feeling crappy, and neuropathy.  She has been fairly wiped out between yesterday and today.  Yesterday we had to go back to the hospital for a follow up appt for her Ileostomy surgery with Dr. Ashburn. It went very well.  Today we will be going back to the hospital at 3pm to get her 5FU Pump (Franklin III) and IV un-hooked. Tomorrow she is supposed to have an eye exam appointment, we will see how she feels. Basically it is a long week. We did go to her sisters house with our dog yesterday afternoon and let the dogs play for a bit. Christian hung out with her sister and niece at the table for a bit then we came home. Other than that, not much has been going on. She is just resting. The neuropathy is still come and go. We seem to think that maybe it is triggered by touching cold thin

It is Tuesday June 1, 2021. We just got home a little bit ago from getting her 3rd treatment. It went very well, as they all have so far, but it was another long day. We got there at 8:30am, waited to get checked in, then went straight back to Pod E. We did not have a meeting before treatment with Dr. Paluri this time because of Memorial Day Holiday yesterday changing the schedule. Usually treatment is every other Monday. Her next treatment will be on Monday June 14th, so we will be back on track for it.  It will also be her last treatment before the scans (MRI on June 18, CT on June 21), so we are looking forward to getting those scan results and discussing them with Dr. Paluri the afternoon of June 21st. Treatment today went as usual. Pre-meds, then Irinotecan, then Oxaliplatin, then get hooked up to the 5-FU pump (Franklin the 3rd lol) that she will have until we go back on Thursday at 3pm to have it un-hooked. We got out of there around 3:30, and home at 4pm. She is feeling it more