November 21, 2009

Well here I go again. I didn't write last night because: a) I'm too lazy b) I was watching TV c) I forgot or d) all of the above. Well, if you picked d) you were right. Thank God Anne reminded me this morning. I had promised I'd write while we were out here to keep everyone informed about what has happened.

Anne spent a rough night Thursday after the liver embolization procedure. She had a lot of pain in the right shoulder with certain movements (referred pain from the liver), and between that and the need for vital sign monitoring (blood pressure, pulse and temperature) about every hour or so, she didn't sleep much. Her pain meds did help a lot, and the resident that was on call that night at the hospital spent a lot of time with her. She was a lot better by the time I showed up in the morning. Her labs looked good, although her hemoglobin dropped a bit. They "dismissed" her (everywhere else in the world it's called "discharged" except at Mayo) around noon, and we came back to the hotel and had lunch. She then proceeded to sleep most of the afternoon. By the time she woke up, her pain had largely disappeared. We ate at one of our now favorite restaurants, Victoria's, which is right around the corner. It has a huge menu of pretty decent Italian food--way better than anything in Saginaw, I'm afraid to say, and the portions are huge as well. The calamari in my pasta dish were real--tentacles and all! We saved half for lunch today, but we wound up having such a large breakfast (OK---I did), that we may not be hungry for it.

After dinner we watched TV (and I read as usual while watching--now I can't remember what I watched OR what I read), and as Anne was passing out in her chair, we hit the sack reasonably early. It's 9:45am now, so we have to kill some time before we go to the airport to head home.

So, again, we had a pretty decent experience at Mayo Clinic again. The motto "The needs of the patient come first" was again witnessed everywhere. I have been put on a committee at Covenant for patient satisfaction for the operating room services, and I plan on stressing that motto. I'd suggest that we all adopt this motto: "The needs of the other person come first". If we all can think of that in our daily work and relationships, wouldn't we have a better world? We shouldn't think of ourselves first. Christ surely didn't, or He wouldn't have died for us on the cross.

The following verses express what I feel right now about "Our Faith Journey":

"Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song." Psalm 95:1-2

It has been a bit of a wild ride, but God has been with us throuhgout the whole journey. I will shout this for all to hear, and I have been singing for joy all day long.

God Bless,
Tony

November 19, 2009

I'd like to thank you all for your prayers. It's amazing how many of our friends are on Facebook, but after getting it to work on my Blackberry, I was able to read each and every birthday wish and prayer for Anne.

We got to Methodist Hospital at 6:45am this morning and went to Admissions. Apparently, Anne wasn't in the system to be admitted, although she was in there for the procedure. After waiting about an hour, they got things straightened out and she was brought, by escort, to the oncology floor. Nice private room, but fairly small. I wish my patients could have such a room. Mine get a double with not enough room for one bed no less two. And her bathroom was large enough for 4 patients at once (although there was only one potty!)

Her team of doctors came in to introduce themselves. There is an attending "consultant" physician who we met later in the afternoon, a resident, and an oncology fellow. They were both wearing suits. When I was a resident, I wore a scrub shirt, white pants and a long white lab coat--full of plaster. Turns out the fellow is from Edinburgh, like Anne, so they hit it off right away and reminisced about HP sauce, Haggis and Rybena. It was lovely, and picked up her spirits. She was a bit nervous as would be expected. They finally picked her up around 11:30, and I left to get in some lunch. I took a stroll through the gift shop, which would put Stroebels in Saginaw to shame, then went to the family waiting area until she got back at around 3:30 pm. She did incredibly well. I didn't speak to the interventional radiologist, but Anne said he was a bit "older" so "he must have known what he was doing." It's nice to know that just getting older puts you in the category of "knowing what you're doing".

She rested a bit and wasn't allowed to get out of bed until 8:00pm. She did have some soup and juice, but started getting some sharp pains in her right shoulder--referred pain from the liver area. They seemed to get better after she got up and walked around, and went to the potty. The oxycodone didn't hurt either. I left her just about sleeping at 9:00pm and I wound up eating dinner finally in the bar at our hotel. We're hoping she'll be discharged by tomorrow.

They did let us know that we're scheduled to return on December 14th for a CT scan and some other tests, and then she'll have the big surgery--removal of a lot of liver and the colon tumor--on the 18th, so I'm planning on being out here for Christmas. We could be in a lot worse places--think of those poor kids in Iraq and Afganistan for instance. We'll keep praying that God watches over us. A concern would be her getting a cold or the flu which would delay surgery. They're thinking she should get a flu shot, which we were avoiding because of the chemo, but apparently they think it's a good idea out here. They are the experts, so we'll do what they say.

My verse for the day is:

"And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to
him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek
him"
Hebrews 11:6, NLT

Our faith through this journey has only gotten stronger. We have seen with our own eyes and with our own hearts how great is our God. We believe that He has indeed rewarded us with incredible miracles of healing. The oncologists here were amazed at how well Anne responded to the chemo--but she wouldn't have without God intervening for her. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

God Bless,

Tony

November 15, 2009

I want to start this blog out with the lyrics to a song by Chris Tomlin, and I think you'll see why when I get to the meat of the blog:

The splendor of the King, clothed in majesty
Let all the earth rejoice
All the earth rejoice

He wraps himself in Light, and darkness tries to hide
And trembles at His voice
Trembles at His voice

How great is our God, sing with me
How great is our God, and all will see
How great, how great is our God

Age to age He stands
And time is in His hands
Beginning and the end
Beginning and the end

The Godhead Three in One
Father Spirit Son
The Lion and the Lamb
The Lion and the Lamb

How great is our God, sing with me
How great is our God, and all will see
How great, how great is our God

Name above all names
Worthy of all praise
My heart will sing
How great is our God

Name above all names
Worthy of all praise
My heart will sing
How great is our God

How great is our God, sing with me
How great is our God, and all will see
How great, how great is our God
© 2004 Six Step Records

Yes, God is GREAT! And all I have is praise and thanks for Him.

Since I last blogged, a buch of stuff has happened. We had been waiting to hear from Mayo Clinic on when we would be going out there for Anne's surgery. We initially thought we might meet with a different oncologist than we had met when we were out there in April, who was the director of the department and a colorectal cancer specialist. Instead, Anne got a call from Dr. Banck whom we had seen last time. She was enthusiastic about Anne's response to the chemotherapy this time (apparently she didn't know so many people had been praying for us and that God had interceded). She had talked to Dr. Nagorny, the number one liver surgeon in the world, and they felt that Anne's liver was indeed now able to be operated on! The next step was to get a PET scan, which apparently shows tumor activity. Mind you, her lab work has been normal, but there was still a chance that the tumor was still active. As it turns out, Dr. Balcueva had set the PET scan up for Friday, November 6th. Dr. Banck was excited to know that things were already scheduled.

Of course, I didn't get the results of the darn PET scan until the following Tuesday night, after calling myself to get the results. Anne had Fed-Exed a copy of the PET scan to Dr. Banck so she could have it by Monday, November 9th. I looked at the PET scan myself multiple times, but honestly, this was the first one I had ever seen one, so I really didn't know how to read it--but I thought everything looked great. I saw only "black holes" in the liver where the tumor WAS, but no increased uptake like you should see if the tumor was still active. There was some uptake in the colon, I thought, but there was no blockage of the colon. Well, the radiologist here felt the same way (not bad for an Orthopod, I thought). Dr. Banck herself called Anne Wednesday night (are they awesome at Mayo Clinic or what? I personally hate calling patients--but maybe I should start--it is very uplifting for the patient). She told Anne that the Mayo Clinic radiologists felt that the PET scan was ENTIRELY NORMAL!!! They felt there was NO TUMOR ACTIVITY LEFT. PRAISE GOD!!!! She told Anne that the new plan was to do a procedure to cut off the blood supply to part of the liver that was diseased (full of dead tumor--embolize it) which would then allow the normal liver tissue to hypertrophy, or grow bigger. This is done through the femoral vein, like they do for cardiac catheterization. She'll stay overnight after the procedure. The plan will then be to return to Mayo Clinic for the definitive, big surgery, where they will remove a good portion of her liver to get rid of the dead tumor, and also remove the portion of the colon that is diseased. This is a lot more surgery than we had initially thought, as we didn't think the liver was resectable, but thank God it is now. That means that she will be CURED, and not just palliated.

Apparently, this procedure has been pioneered by a surgeon at MD Anderson in Houston, Texas. I can only thank God for him--God has seen fit to give this doctor the skills to be able to come up with this technique that has improved the prognosis of patients with Stage IV colon cancer tremendously. I thank God with all my heart and soul that Anne has been so responsive to the chemotherapy so that she is a candidate for this type of surgery.

So, we head out to Mayo Clinic this coming Wednesday, November 18th, and Anne will have the procedure on my birthday, November 19th (it's my sister Margaret's birthday too, and my cousin Christine's). I couldn't ask for a better birthday present. The big surgery will take place anywhere from 3 to 5 weeks later, which means we may be spending Christmas out at the Mayo Clinic. For what this means for Anne's treatment and recovery, I couldn't ask for a better place to be, although I will miss being home. We'll have to see about the girls coming out too, but we'll have to see how that goes. I will keep everyone posted on how things go out there by blogging every day while we're out at Mayo. We're planning on being back on the 21st, so this is a short trip. Next time will be around a 2 week stay, we think.

God Bless,
Tony



Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God alone who is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen
1 Timothy 1:17