That's a wrap!

Friday was #6 of Hubbys BCG treatments, #6 is the last, final one that he has to do! And the crowd goes wild! I was beginning to think I wasnt going to make it to the last one, literally last week I was ready to get th big D. The emotional roller coaster ride you get on when someone you love has cancer is a hard thing to endure. We have had a tough battle the last few weeks, he has felt like crap, I have felt like crap, its all been crap. I had to take a few days to regroup and so did the Hubby, things just get overwhelming sometimes. Now we have one more hurdle left hopefully, another surgery in August at Moffitt again. The best news possible being when they do the surgery they dont find any tumors at all. If everythings all clear in August, he doesnt have to go back for a check-up until November, then continue the 3 month checkups. This has really been tiring on me, not only am I dealing with KC my spunky, typical 2 year old boy, I also have a needy 38 year old Hubby who thinks he should be treated the same. I know that sounds horrible, but being at home most of the day with them both is taking a toll on this mama hen. I need someone to cook, clean, and pick up after me too damnit!! Atleast KC doesnt come back with any smart comments like his Dad, I think we can blame that on the fact hes not talking. Im sure that he will end up being a mini-me version of his Dad in more ways than I care to think about,

We stayed at homebase for the 4th, Hubby has a sweet hook up for fireworks and we get the good stuff! No sparklers and roman candles here, mortars and TnT baby! The mosquitos were terrible, I mean pick you up and tote you off terrible. We dunked in Off before we went outside, and poor KC, and KAS had bites where I didnt get it good. KAS had them on her feet and ankles, and KC had them on his fingers, ear, and neck. We had a few friends over and grilled burgers and dogs. I forgot to charge my batteries for the camera so I didnt get one picture, not one! Nothing fancy schmancy, just a regular holiday weekend.

Heres Hubby giving me the thumbs up for his last treatment. I think he was faking it, what do you think?

ok Im really back this time....I swear

KC, Mom, & I left Wednesday night for a family reunion in Aliceville, Alabama. We went there back in March, but this time we got to see about 200 family members from all over. I also volunteered to coordinate a family cookbook, wait I volunteered? I never do stuff like this, what was I thinking? I made a special email for family to send recipes to, and I got over 20 recipes at the reunion already! This should be a fun project, and I have a entire year to work on it so thats a plus. Feel free to give me your favorite recipes also. This was KCs first reunion and it was so neat taking my son to a place I in a sense grew up. We then rushed back Sunday so Mom could be at work Monday, we got home after 2am and let me tell you it was a long car ride. My Mom is not a good traveler and after about the 9th hour we decided it would be best to not speak. Im used to it so its just better that way. I love my Mom to pieces but shes set in her ways. Thank goodness for dvds because poor KC wouldnt have made it otherwise, he watched Oswald, Clifford, Wonder Pets, and Fraggle Rock and he was out by 9:30pm and we were only past Tallahassee. Monday was spent cleaning up my disaster of a house my Hubby left me, doing laundry, and sleeping!

Today, well today KC started preschool! Im a little freaked out but not to bad, hes only going 2 half days a week from 8-12. I dont have alot of friends with younger kids, so I thought it would be go for him to socialize with other kids his age and learn new things. I struggled to find the right place for him for a few months because its hard leaving him with someone I have no clue about. I found a place close where I actually knew some of the people working their from high school and it made me feel at ease. KC is not a morning person (he takes after his mama I think) so I thought waking him up would be a process but he was fine. I also thought being a so called mamas boy he would not want to stay, but I was wrong on that too. He went right in, came back and gave me a smooch and said bye bye, bye bye. Wow! Take that mama! I came back to pick him up and they said he did so good! They said he follows directions and listens so well already, and I must say it made me feel pretty darn good. I hope Thursday goes just as smooth, but I think hes really going to adjust ok.

It my now extra free 8 hours a week I will be joining a gym, getting a personal trainer, and signing up for some sort of school. Im thinking of getting a surgical tech certificate or something medical where I can work in the hospital. I have always been a creature of the night, so Id really like to work night shift so my daily schedule doesnt change to much. Im just thinking about all this, I havent made any decisions yet but I know I want to do something.

Hubbys treatments having been ok, hes done 3, so now 3 to go. Last week they postponed it a week becuase they were thinking he was starting a infection becuase of some burning he had so hes back on for this Friday. In the last month we have learned of 3 other family members and friends who are also battling various cancers. Our close friend whose in his late 50's discovered he has stage 4 bone cancer in his jaw, and also several lymphnodes. He is also going to Moffitt, and he may be starting chemo and radiation first, or may have surgery first to remove his jawbone and lymphnodes. While at Hubbys treatment, I saw a family friend who used to work for my grandparents business and he has stage 3 colon cancer. He was there getting his chemo treatments and he has 6-8 weeks of that and he will then have surgery to remove part of his colon. And also while in AL one of my Pops cousins, (my 4th or 5th cousin) recently had gastric bypass and lost alot of weight, and discovered he had enlarged lypmhnodes so went to get it checked and he was told he had cancer and he is getting treatment at a cancer center in Auburn. Its just astounding to knew first hand so many people going through this disease. Its really not fair! Please say a pray for those you know, and may not know dealing with cancer.

Thanks for sticking around! :-)


Here is KCs first day today

KC & my SILs nephew

KC & Mrs Donna

Hubby Update

Hubby's Dr. appointment went well this week, not bad news but not great news either. The tumors removed were all non-malignant growth tumors so no chemo & no radiation. His Dr. is pretty concerned about how quickly the tumors returned, & how agressive they were in covering the whole bladder. He wants to keep a very close eye on this because he doesnt want it to move outside his bladder or worse to other organs and possibly become malignant. He stressed the importance of Hubby losing weight & being more healthy should he need to have surgery for a bladder replacement. So, the plan for now is Hubby has to do 6 weeks of BCG treatments, and then surgery again in August. He hates hates hates the BCG treatments, and without having done it myself I would have to agree! The surgery in August is just bypassing a step in doing a cystoscopy. Instead of doing the cysto to look inside his bladder to see if he has any new tumors, he will be put under so if they see any they can go ahead and remove them all in one step. Hubby doesnt like this idea at all, he hates all this stuff and even though hes had this for 10 years now he still has not been able to grasp and accept it. Its gonna be a rough few months for sure. Hubby has done BCG treatments several times before and they were no success, so he doesnt see the point in doing them again. The time when he did have a good report he was drinking this stuff my aunt got snagged into called Mona Vie. I dont believe in a miracle cure in a bottle, but we are going to try it again & see what happens this go around.

We will find out this week when the treatments are to start. This is going to be a rough Summer! I wanted to post this picture, its on the building its says "to contribute to the prevention and cure of cancer."

Finally....some Easter photos & a update on Hubby

I still dont have my laptop, and with everything going on its not been high on my priority list. I have been posting my pictures from this dinosaur but I am not able to resize or edit them because I have none of my programs, or favorites, or anything on this stupid thing! The Hubby is finally home, he was able to come home Thursday afternoon. After spending 4 days in there he was ready to come home, even though the food was great! That place is just the greatest place, people are there from all around the world for one common cause....cancer. I brought my camera Wednesday when I took KC to visit him in the hospital, but Hubby said if I took a picture as soon as he got out of there he would smash my camera into a million tiny pieces, so it never came out of the bag. Guess you could say he did not want any memories of this huh? Im playing nurse until Monday when I get to remove his catheter. Wait...what did I just say?? You read it right, they taught me how to remove a catheter from my husbands penis before we left the hospital and I will tell you I am about as pleased at that as my Hubby is. I also learned how to properly flush a bladder through a catheter with a giant syringe & some saline. Fun huh? On a lighter note, he did tell me that hes had more women touching his pecker (his exact words) in the last 4 days than he has in his whole life. I laughed so hard in the car on the way home I cried. I had to add the fact that a few men had done the deed also, since he has male Drs., he didnt find that to funny though.

I wanted to share some Easter photos because if I dont I know I never will. On Easter KC, KAS, & I went to church, then after church we went to my familys to eat lunch. KC got to hunt eggs for the first time, even though he was by himself. He still had a blast! KAS & I colored eggs on Saturday while KC was napping because its just to messy for him still. We did tie dyed eggs, camo eggs, and some other cool ones too.

Enjoy!


KC in his Easter outfit complete with paci.
Our eggs

KC with his Easter basket

KAS and her Easter basket

Yesterdays News

Well, a last minute change happened yesterday and the Hubby did not come home as planned. His surgery was supposed to last right around 1 hour and 2 1/2 hours later I knew it could not be good news and I was right. The surgery was to remove 2-3 tumors that were seen during a cystoscopy in November. At that time Hubby had no insurance and the bills at Moffitt totalled right around the $20,000.00 mark from previous surgeries and procedures so we applied for financial aid through Moffitt. During the holidays our paperwork was somehow"misplaced" and we didnt find out until February. We re-applied then and it was just approved at 100% payment 2 weeks ago, so his surgery was pushed to the front since it had been so long. When his Dr. went in his bladder he said the entire inside of his bladder was covered in tumors and in all he lasered out tumors that added up to the size of a grapefruit. He said Hubbys CT scan did not show any tumors or growths on the outside of the bladder which he was pleased about, and he said the tumors that were removed we not deep in the muscle which he was also pleased about. He was really concerned at the amount of the time it took these tumors to take over, and in the 7 or 8 years we have been with this Dr. I have never heard him use the word concerned which really made me uneasy. He also used the actual word cancer which scared the shit out of me. This decade of dealing I have always told myself it wasnt real cancer, so it would be ok. I always rationalized it in my mind that the kind of cancer that kills is the malignant kind, which my Hubby didnt have so its all good. In 1998 when this all started Hubbys tumors were actually malignant cancerous tumors in his bladder, and from then until just today all tumors that were removed in other surgeries were benign, superficial growth tumors, and that is a HUGE difference! The tumors today were sent off to the pathologist to determine if they are the superficial growth tumors we are used to, or the the other cancer kind that we really really dont want. The results should be back in 3 - 10 days, but the nurse said usually they are back within 3-5 days. The Dr. also did say some news I was glad to hear, but then followed by some more news I didnt want to hear. The good news, after this surgery the Dr. said he is leaning more towards NOT doing a bladder replacement, after the last 2 surgeries he had said he was only going to do this a few more times before he wanted to just replace his whole bladder. Right after this, he said that if the pathology reports come back as cancer we would discuss our options further, but that he would more than likely want to start some rounds of chemo and radiation since that path has never been taken and see what happened. Hubby has been lucky that he has never had to do any of these treatments, and I hope he stays that way. So, with all the cutting inside his bladder he was still bleeding pretty bad so they decided to keep him over night. His catheter got clogged with blood clots 4 times over the evening because he was bleeding so much. Just the thought makes me cringe! I didnt tell the Hubby all the details because he was still to out of it to really comprehend it all, and I knew it would just scare him. I didnt leave the hospital until 9pm, and he didnt want me to leave him but I just couldnt do it. Hubby said this morning that the Dr. came in to check on him and there was still way to much blood so he may be able to come home tonight at the earliest. I dont recall many people checking out at night so Im assuming he will more than likely stay again tonight. I hope these results come back quickly and they hold positive news for us!

Blahhhh!

Hubby came through surgery ok, but we didnt get good news. He actually had to stay overnight because of nausea and he was still bleeding quite a bit but he should be home tomorrow hopefully.

I have started compiling the details to post tomorrow because I wanted to read it again when Im not so out of it. I dont think I have been this tired since I came home from the hospital with a newborn baby KC!

Im off to dream that this all is just a dream.

Thank you for caring!

Surgery Day

Ok, so I never found time to post about Hubbys surgery but over the next few days I should have a alot of free time. Surgery is today at 12:45pm at Moffitt. His surgery shouldnt last more than 2 hours, the are going up in his bladder to remove several large tumors. This is a day surgery so we should be home by later this evening unless plans change last minute. This makes 11 surgeries for this same thing so it should be a cake walk, but its not. My Hubby hates anesthesia, and hospitals like most guys do, and hes the biggest sissy, like most guys are. Last time we did this he was sent home with a catheter which I had to remove 3 days later, and Im not a RN for a reason. Can we say ICKY! It was not fun at all, for me and certainly not for him. Im not good at all this, I get frusturated and agitated because men are supposed to be men and I dont know how to handle a balling 38 year old man very well. Ive had several surgeries and its always not been a big deal to me. Is that insensitive of me? I hate that I feel that way but Im just like get a grip! Oh how I hate this part!

Please keep us in your thoughts & prayers this afternoon.
I will update once we get home and settled.

Thanks so much!

Today..

Today, marks the one week spot for the Hubbys surgery.

Today, I made him go for pre-op all by hisself.

Today, I am not looking forward to the week ahead and the weeks that will follow.

Today, I wonder why everyone always thinks that I am so strong.

Today, I thank others from the bottom of my heart for providing my family the financial aid needed to pay for Hubbys surgery 100%, healthcare for one year, and $20,000.00 in bills that were already accumulated, all paid for by donations to Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa.

Today, I wish that one day we will be able to help someone else like we have been helped.

Today, my mind wrestles with the thought of my Hubby not being here.

Today, I try to tell myself everything is fine.

Today, I want this surgery to be the last surgery.

Today, I worry.

Today, I hope.

Today, I pray for my Hubby and others.