Thursday, July 30, 2009

Well, we lucked out today...counts are still falling with the exception of his hemoglobin which is up about 1.3 from yesterday. Everything else is rock-bottom, but we are going to increase some medication and hopefully will bring his magnesium and potassium up by tomorrow. Said we have to stay out of crowds......first time they have told us that so they must think he is really low. He feels pretty good, but doesn't have much of an appetite...Just drinks and goes to the bathroom......alot. Weather is unseasonably dry here and hot and humid.. Don't know where all this humidity is going but it isn't making any rain. Hope to see all soon.....Love, Terri and Michael

Wednesday, July 29,2009

We arrived home this morning about 3:00am. Had two units of blood and a 1 1/2 hour delay between them because of a reaction to the first bag which caused a fever. We had parked our car in the Mays garage because that is where we were scheduled to have the catheter taken out after pump disconnection. When we went to get the blood, they sent us to the main building and we thought we would be out by 10:00pm. We had to go to the UT Police Department to retrieve our Jeep. Wow things are never dull around the Medical City. Michael's counts continued to drop today even after the blood. We will have more blood work done tomorrow to see where we stand. He is pretty down due to Ronnie's death and counts being down. Keep him in your prayers. Gonna get some sleep while we can.
Terri

Proposing to take July and August from the calendar

Today was suppose to be a good day and turned out to be a very heartbreaking day. Where do I begin. Seems like I have know Ronnie Stroud forever. Actually knew him before Marc and I married in 1981. He and his brother, Cotton were contractors for Lone Star Gas Company when I worked for them. Ronnie wanted people to think he was a 'bear" at times but he had the heart of gold. When Michael and I came to MD Anderson, Ronnie and Wanda spent numerous hours encouraging us to fight the fight and all. Much to our surprise, Ronnie's fight has ended.....no more pain and no more suffering. We just never know what God has in store, do we? We have lots of memories and will always cherish the time we had with Ronnie.
Seems like everyone in our family, both biological and work and some of our friends have left us in July and August. Four years ago in August we lost Lee Ann Campbell who was a co worker at the City from cancer, three years ago last week we lost Corky Clifton with Cancer, and two weeks later we lost my husband and Michael's dad to a massive heart attack, a year ago last week we lost my mom and Michael's Mimi to Alzheimer's, and 7 years ago next month we lost Angel Thomas, Michael's first girlfriend and Omar Graham, one of Michael's best friends, and Billie Glazener two years ago. We don't like July and August and now Ronnie.

Wanda and Family: Know we are thinking of you all during this time. So sorry things had to go this way, but you have lots of memories and God will get you through this time.

We are at the hospital at this time waiting for blood. Michael's counts are very low and will get two units tonight before they take the CVC line out. We will continue to fight the fight, Ronnie.

Terri and Michael

Restful day

Well, we have had a good weekend and did get some much needed R & R. Michael played cards yesterday at Bo's Hamburgers....the people there are so good to him. Always wanting to know if they can do anything for him. On our way to play cards, we went by to tell Uncle Forrest where we were going. He was volunteering at the Resale Shop that he and Aunt Baba have volunteered at for many years. I (Terri) ran into Harold and Della Heckman, former pastor and his wife of St. Lukes Lutheran Church in Olney) who were volunteering there yesterday. I knew they volunteered as Forrest had told me, but wasn't expecting to see them there. Their daughter, Lynette and I graduated in 1971 from OHS. We talked for about an hour and then went on our way for Michael to play cards. He did really well at the card tournament and the kids are so kind to him. It does him good to get to play some during all of this ordeal. We have spent most of the day at the house except for getting our bag refilled at the hospital tonight. One more day with the backpack and round five will almost be history. Looking forward to seeing three more rounds behind us. God is good in that this has been a pretty non excitable round. Just hope we can stay out of the emergency room this week.....Hope all is well at home and know that we think of each of you every day. Love, Terri and Michael

Hard day

Well, as far as Michael is concerned, this has really been a good week. He got through the 'red devil' really good and has one more day with his other two chemos...He is doing real good. No nausea, no temperature, and still has a good appetite and good outlook. Today has not been too good for me especially after lunch when it hit me what day it was. Today would have been Marc's and my 28th Anniversary and a year ago tomorrow mother passed away. Michael said he wanted to take me out to dinner....said he couldn't be my husband but would take me out. Hope all is well at home and you all had a great week. Love, Terri and Michael

10:00pm......Well, Michael and I went out to Jax Restaurant here in Bellaire for dinner....he had a hamburger and I had a fish plate....About half way through, he crashed. He was so tired he could hardly hold his head up and so we packed up what was left of our dinner and headed home. He wanted to watch the Astros with his Uncle Forrest, but went straight to bed and has been asleep since. He has such a good heart......wanted me to stop by the flower shop so he could get me some flowers, but told him he didn't need to do that. Hopefully, he will have more energy tomorrow...we will see. It is amazing how fast he can go down .....one minutes full of vigor and the next ready to collapse. Next few days will probably be rough but we will make it. It seems like when we finish the chemo is when the fatigue hits the hardest....I guess that is to be expected. We have to go in tomorrow for a fluid refill of magnesium, potassium, mesna and sodium and injections of nplate to keep his platelet count from bottoming out and neulasta to help the red blood cells in his bone marrow. He will probably have flu like symptoms after the neulasta shot. Thanks for all the prayers and this round will soon be history.

Day 2 Round #5

Michael started round 5 yesterday with a few complications. We got him to the hospital about 7:30 and they called him in to insert the CVC catheter where they attach the chemo. We went to get an xray done and found that the line had a hook in the end of it and so they had to power flush it to get the hook straightened out. Went back to xray to make sure it was straight and then to chemo for 4 hours. They finally started the chemo at 12:15 pm and we finished with the inpatient part about 4:30pm. We were pretty hungry and tired. Michael is now toting his backpack.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 -----had a pretty good day today. Went to the hospital and was called for chemo within about 45 minutes of arriving. Surprise! Michael decided he wanted to leave the CVC line in until the end. Contacted Lindsey, Dr. Ravi's nurse and she advised that he could leave it in, but that he could not have blood drawn from it because each time you access it there is a greater chance of an infection. That was the main reason Michael wanted to leave it in so he would not have to have them dig around in his veins each time he had blood drawn. He has always been hard to hit, and really is now since he has had chemo. So, guess we will have a new line inserted for three more times at least, and hopefully that will be all. Michael spirits are great, just tired of all the needles. He is full of pzazzzzz and his appetite is non filling. He has had hiccups today a couple of times, but we are pretty much accustomed to that on days two through six. They are caused by the chemo. We had lasagna at one of the restaurants on the way home today. He was a little upset while getting chemo because we could not access the Internet.....MD Anderson was down......but it did come back up about 30 minutes before we left. Hope you all enjoyed the rain this morning. Understand the roads around town were a little wet and some of the folks had to stay at the coffee shop a little longer than normal waiting for the mud holes to dry up some. Thanks to all for watching things around the house for us. Don't know what we would do without you all. Love, Terri and Michael

DOWNHILL FROM HERE

Well, we had a wonderful time at home this weekend. Got some much needed R & R and had a little excitement on Friday night, but other than that we were pretty quiet in the big O. We arrived back in Houston at my brother-in-laws about 7:30pm tonight. Stopped at Cracker Barrell in Conroe and enjoyed a hamburger steak, hashbrown casserole and fried apples.....Boy was it good! Michael said it wasn't as good as mine....wonder what he is wanting? We start round 5 tomorrow morning at 7:30. The IV catheter will be put in then and then Chemo starts at 8:30am. Maybe we will get home this round before 10:00 each evening. We are looking forward to getting this round behind us and then only three more. Did get the scan results from last weeek, and they are clearer than the last. Not as much a change as the last one, but then we didnt' expect it to be that drastic. We are still praying for a completely clear scan one of these days. God is still working miracles.....Hopefully the shot we got last Wednesday morning will keep the counts from bottoming out this round. Will update the blog a little better since we have had some rest.....sorry about that!

Terri

Homeward Ho!

Well, we have the clinical study shot in the morning about 8:30 and then we are headed north. The doctor gave us the okay to come home even though Michael's platelets are barely above 50. Just can't leave him alone and must be careful that he doesn't fall or anything. Looking forward to some time of normalcy......if there is such these days. We should be arriving home sometime around 5:00pm tomorrow afternoon if all goes as planned......
We hope you will come by and encourage the Michael Scott to continue the good work.....He is an awesome kid and a trooper!

Terri

MONDAY, JULY 13, 2009

HARD TO BELIEVE WE HAVE BEEN IN HOUSTON FOUR MONTHS TODAY. IT CERTAINLY IS NICE TO KNOW WE ARE HALF WAY THROUGH AND ALL THE SCANS SHOW PRETTY MUCH TO BE CLEAR. GOD IS SOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD AND WE GIVE HIM ALL THE GLORY FOR CLEAR SCANS. WE WERE READY TO COME HOME TODAY FOR A FEW DAYS, BUT HAD ANOTHER CHANGE IN PLANS. HAD WE LEFT TODAY TO COME HOME, WE WOULD HAVE HAD TO COME BACK ON SATURDAY MORNING, SO WE OPTED TO GO HOME LATER IN THE WEEK AND START OUR DOWNHILL JOURNEY WITH CHEMO ON MONDAY OF NEXT WEEK. THE SHOT WILL BE GIVEN ON WEDNESDAY MORNING AND HOPEFULLY BE ABLE TO LEAVE FOR HOME LATER ON. DR. RAVI SAID HE THOUGHT MICHAEL COULD USE AN EXTRA DAY OR TWO AT HOME. I HAVE NEWS FOR HIM, BUT THIS TIRED MOMMA CAN TOO!

IT WILL BE NICE TO JUST RELAX FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS AND NOT HAVE ANYONE BUT ME IN CONTROL......YEAH!!!!!!

HOPE TO SEE YOU ALL THIS WEEKEND...
LOVE,
TERRI AND MICHAEL

Counts are climbing = Saturday, July 11, 2009

Yeah! Platelet count it up to 37 today....hopefully higher tomorrow.
Terri

Horrible Week

WOW!!!!!!!What can I say but that. We have never been so exhausted in all of our lives. Round 4 was great as far as nausea and being sick was concerned but otherwise it was definitely the worst. Monday, Michael's counts hit the bottom in white blood counts, hemoglobin, platelets, and electrolytes. You don't know what counts do until you saw the Wolfman this week. He actually looked spooky. White lips, etc. Had no color in his complexion whatsoever. So fatigued he could hardly walk. Thought the 2 units of blood and 6 units of platelets would energize him some on Tuesday night, but we ended up in the Emergency Center. Had a reaction from the first bag of blood. Was there until about 2:30am Wednesday morning and had to be back to the hospital at 6:30 for a CT Scan and PET Scan. Felt like I was in 'Hades' from about 2:00 on that afternoon due to insurance company refusal to certify the PET Scan for which he was injected at 1:00pm. Finally got home to get something to eat and some sleep about 4:30pm. We had blood work done today and platelet counts are still only 12 and we are not allowed to leave Houston until they reach 50. Our car was packed ready to head out, but guess we will stay until they are 50....we might get an extra day at home once they reach 50. We hope to see you all real soon. We will be going back to the hospital today for some more platelets and Michael has been placed in a trial study for platelet count. They will start him on new medication today to keep platelets from dropping so low and also be given an injection for them to monitor in a trial study. We will be making cancer history hopefully.....Dr. Ravi did not have the photos of the scans yet, but said he had been given a good report on how they had been pre-reported. Sounds Good!
Love to all....pray for COUNTS to go UP UP UP UP!

SATURDAY, SUNDAY, MONDAY --JULY 4,5,6, 2009

We had a pretty quiet 4th to have been in the big city. We didn't even see a firecracker, but did hear some. Houston and Bellaire bans fireworks and talked with someone who sells them and said sales were really low this year.We didn't get to the house on Saturday morning until about 2:00am after having two units of blood, so needless to say, we slept most of the morning. Michael was pretty fatigued Saturday afternoon so didn't have much excitement in our lives. Sunday he wanted to go play cards at Bo's Hamburgers and my brother in law was gone out of town, so we ventured out of the house to play cards. He lasted about 1 1/2 hours and forfeited the game and wanted to come home. This morning we had blood work done and received a call from Terry and Glenda Horry saying they would see us tomorrow sometime. We left the hospital and ventured over to my nephew's car shop where he builds race cars and works on them and Michael wanted to get in one. He found out how cramped quarters the drivers have to put up with. He had a little fainting like spell while he was there so we almost had to pick him up and get him to the car. Like to have scared Jeff and I both....didn't know what was happening, but decided it was the heat in the shop. He is pretty sensitive to climates these days. The nurse called and said every one of his counts were bottomed out and probably would have to have blood tomorrow if they were not improved. We will have bloodwork done again tomorrow and Wednesday is the scan day starting at 6:30 that morning.....Can't hardly wait to see what the Chemo is doing.......Michael has slept most of the afternoon and I took a nap too. Boy did it feel good! Hope all is well in your life and remember us this week as we see what God is doing in Michael's body..The photo to the right is one of Michael in the race car today.....
Love to all,
Terri and Michael

July 3, 2009

Well, guess I bragged too soon. We received a call this afternoon that Michael's hemoglobin was 6.9. This is .1 under the alarming number of 7.0. So, we had to make a trip to the hospital for 2 units of blood. He felt great until we got there and when he laid down on the bed, he was out. I just get so upset with him pushing himself so hard. He just doesn't realize that his body has nothing in its defense system and he has to have some rest during each day. We got the two units of blood and had the PIK Line removed and left to come home about 1:40am Saturday. He is a free man right now and doesn't have to carry the backpack around. Since the white blood count is down pretty low, we will be spending the day at the house. We don't want to spoil any plans for next week. We will be having another PET Scan and CAT Scan done next Wednesday so should have results by Friday. Michael really wishes he didn't have to drink the Barium for the Cat Scan. It made him sick at his stomach last time he drank it....tried the banana and cherry flavored ones and still made him sick. Hope all have a happy and safe Fourth of July....

Love,
Terri and Michael

Wednesday -Thursday, June 30-July 1, 2009

I always heard, "no news is good news". Yes all is well in Houston. This has really been a very non exciting round of chemo. We did spend about 4 hours in the hospital last night due to miscommunication between the Chemo department and our Dr.
Michael's potassium level was elevated yesterday morning after labs, and they had a normal bag of fluids for him when we arrived at the hospital to have the bag replaced which contains a very large amount of potassium. Of course, it was my fault according to Michael that I mentioned the elevated potassium level and that got everyone excited because of the fluid bag contents. We had to have labs drawn again and then wait and see. About 12:15am this morning, they finally got the replacement bag of fluids from the pharmacy and sent us on our way...without potassium.
I guess God gave mothers mouths so they could get things in a stir!!!!!! This morning his potassium was back to normal but his hemoglobin was a little low, but the doctor's nurse had talked with us in the Sky walk as we were leaving and commented on how well Michael looked. She called after receiving the lab results and said she was not going to order a transfusion today due to how well he looked when she talked with us this morning. He really feels great and has run no fever whatsoever...YEAHHHHHHHHHHH! Maybe we can stay away from the ER this weekend.
Hope everyone has a great fourth of July and remember the troops overseas and at home who are keeping our freedom......Thanks troops!
Love in Him,
Terri and Michael