I forgot - another piece of good news!

Hi all - Amy again. I forgot to tell you guys that we got the results of Scott's bone marrow biopsy today and it was negative. The cancer doesn't appear in the other side of his pelvis so, between the biopsy, the scans and the blood work, it doesn't appear the cancer has metastasized. That is GREAT news!

Here are a couple pics.

This one is from last night - Scott hangin' with Ollie.

This one is from today - we're calling it "Chemo Cool". He has a headache (that's the thing that's bothering him the most right now) and he had on his sunglasses to help.

An hour or two more and we'll be going home. He's still hanging in there. He's feeling a bit fatigued and has a wicked headache, but he's okay.

Love to all,

Amy

Chemo #1 - checking in

Hi all - Amy here. Thank you guys so much for leaving comments for Scott - it made him feel so good. (Do you think he'd be mad at me if I told you he shed a tear??) It's always so amazing to see friends and family come together in tough times. Scott's a strong guy, but love and support will lift him up even more. Please keep up the love! :)

While Scott's first day of chemo is not totally finished, the actual chemo is done. It's amazing what he's going through in one day - it will be a 17 hour day by the time we're done. He had to do labs first thing in the morning, saw the doctor, got LOTS of questions answered and finally started the IV around noon. They used his new port and he's already happy he has that over an IV in his hand or arm. He had to do some preliminary hydration, some nausea meds, and then his actual chemo meds. He had three different chemo drugs administered "manually" - they didn't put them in bags and walk away - a nurse used large syringes and slowly administered them through the IV. They do that to make sure nothing goes wrong and they can monitor him. After two of them, they gave him a medicine to protect his bladder, and then gave him the third one. These medicines are really scary - they are so toxic. But it's all in the name of kicking cancer's butt.

Right now he is one hour into a 6 hour hydration bag. Once he's done with that, we'll go home. Tomorrow afternoon, we go to the Deerfield Campus (for those of you who don't know, we'll be in downtown Miami for the outpatient and inpatient treatments) for a shot to boost is blood counts and help his immune system. After that - he goes without chemo for the rest of this three week period and has an 5 day inpatient stay on March 21st.

Some really great news is that he is not feeling much pain. He hasn't even had to take pain meds today. Maybe it was all the distraction or maybe it's just things getting better - but we'll take it. He's in good spirits, but resting. Dad and I are here working and keeping him company. He will probably do his own post tomorrow, but I wanted to let y'all know how he did today.

Thank you again for your thoughts and prayers - we're very grateful. One more thing - please say a prayer for Scott's Grandma (Memmom) who is having surgery today. She fractured her neck and will be recovering for awhile.

With love,

Amy

Sunday Morning (02/27/11)

Well, I guess I officially became a cancer patient 72 hours ago. Actually I’ve been one for almost 2 weeks, but mentally, I didn’t really think I was one until Thursday (02/24/11) morning. That’s when I had the port put in. Pretty cool procedure actually, and I didn’t feel a thing. Unlike the bone marrow biopsy I had the day before the port. If any of you ever have to have a bone marrow biopsy, ask them to knock you out. It really hurts!!

Anyways, I’ve never really done anything like this before, blogging I mean. I don’t really know what to say here. I guess just to let everyone know that my prognosis is good. I’m not really looking forward to a year of chemo. In fact I’m scared to death by it, but what else can I do. Lately I’ve been experiencing less pain in my leg; not sure why, but I take it as a good sign. I’m hoping that this is an omen of things to come. That it will get better. That, while I may be uncomfortable during a treatment, nothing really bad will happen during it.

I’m not sure that makes sense. It’s hard to put my thoughts down, which is weird for me since I’ve always been good at writing. I guess I just don’t really know how to describe what I’m feeling.

Tomorrow is my first chemo treatment and I have no idea what to expect. The doctors can tell me what could happen, but not what will happen, since chemo affects everyone differently. The not knowing is frustrating, and it scares the hell out of me.

Normally, I am in really good spirits. I laugh about it. Make jokes. Guess I’m just in a bit of a funk right now. As the title of my blog says, “Scott’s Chemo Adventure” begins in less than 24 hours. Keep your fingers crossed for me.