Almost 2 down, 2 to go

Sorry this hasnt been updated yet but better late than never. Let's see, on Friday we went and saw Dr. Tannir. He came in only to see Jason which I thought was very nice. He was happy with Jason's progress. HIS TUMOR MARKERS ARE FALLING!!! This is great news it means the chemo is working and the tumors are shrinking. Jason and I were so relieved, getting that good news mad going back in alittle easier. The doc does not want to do any CT scans or MRIs this time, he is happy with the markers and Jason being in less pain and doesnt want to expose Jason to any unnecessary radiation right now. We agree with him, but we will do the scans after his last round of chemo.
So far this round of chemo has been completely boring and uneventful which is just the way I want it. On Monday I got Jason down the room for 15-30 year olds. It has video games, a pool table, big screen tvs etc. He said it was fun but only lasted a little while. Oh well it was good for him to get out and see other younger cancer patients.
We are currently waiting for them to start the next round of chemo, Ill give them a little while longer before I bug them. We are getting sprung tomorrow, however will be back in Friday for his outpatient Bleomycin. But then we are free until the next Friday. We dont see the doctor again until right before we go back in for the 3rd round. They are sending him home with some Neupogen shots to help keep up his blood count. They work so we are all over it.
His spirits are good, he's tired and ready to be home and see Ronan. We both are, but it hasnt been to bad this time. We got good news pray thats what keeps coming.

Kim

Goin back to the slammer.....

So lets see, we went to the doctor last Friday and all was good. Jason's blood counts had dropped but we were expecting this. They actually were back on the rise but not fast enough. Dr. Tannir did not want to derail his treatment so I had to give him 3 shots of Neupogen. Thats a drug that sends the bone marrow into overdrive to produce cells. Jason has felt pretty good the past couple of days. A few friends have dropped by to chat and that always makes him feel good. I think he is getting bored of just me cracking jokes. We did shave his head on Saturday, he had been leaving a pretty good trail of hair. Ronan didnt mind at all. I have some cute pics of the two right after it happend. I will post those when we get done with this round of inpatient chemo. That brings me to my conclusion because its 1am and we go back to the hospital tomorrow. I promise more updates then. Bye, Kim

ER my patootie, no rushing zone apparently.

GRR, blogspot ate my blog. So we went to the Er last night. Jason was having chest pains and chronic diarrhea for about a week. (Ill bet he loves me announcing that). To make a long story short we waited 6 hours for a bed, 3 more for a doctor and were released today at 11 am. They drew a cardiac panel and it came back negative for a heart attack, they did an ekg which was also negative. Apparently the Bleomycin can cause some pain. The diarrhea subsided by the time they gave him a room. Having nothing in your stomach since 1 pm can do that I suppose. However they did discharge him with a perscription for when it returns with the next treatment. Overall it was a pretty rotten experience and I will be emailing the patient adovacacy department. He came home crashed, ate, crashed, showered, crashed. He is pretty tired right not his white cells are low. Normal range is 4.0-9.0 he is around 1.9 as of last night. We knew this was going to happen so we will just up our hand washing and such. He is in good spirits and converses and plays with Roo when he can. His hair is starting to fall out so we will have a head shaving party tomorrow. Ill post pics if he agrees. Well we go to the dr. on friday so there will probably be another update then. Thanks for the prayers, and think high thoughts about white cells, but not too high cause that would be a totally different problem. Good night all.
Kimmy

Dr. Visit

So yesterday was a rather eventful day. We thought we were going to be in and out of the dr. but apparently the business side of things had other ideas. We finally met with the Physician Assistant to Dr. Tannir, her name is Zeta. She went over Jason's most recent cbc ( complete blood count) and told us all of his numbers like white blood count and red blood count look good. We will probably start seeing the numbers falling this weekend. We then saw Dr. Tannir and he looked at the area were Jason's tumor was and was quite happy that you could no longer visibly see the bulge nor palpate the mass. This along with Jason being in quite a bit less pain makes us reasonbly sure that the cancer is responding very well to the chemotherapy. We hope that by his next appointment that he will be able to come off all pain medication.
He also had his first outpatient round of Bleomycin. That was a breeze compared to the inpatient chemo. We walk in start an IV, about 20 minutes late walk out. He is doing pretty good, complaining about "funny tummy" but no nausea, he's tired but resting when he can. I believe some of the steroids are giving him insomnia, he gets to stop those for now so that should help. Some of his friends came out to see him today and he was quite a bit perkier for a while. It was nice for him to have a little bit of normalcy. Again, thanks for your prayers.

Kimmy

Theres no place like home.

So Jason was released from the hospital today. We have a slew of medications and instructions, but nothing to difficult. He went through the 5 days of chemo like a champ. There weren't really any bumps in the road except for them having to put in a new IV for one day. Let's on Tuesday he went for a doppler sonogram to make sure that there was not a blod clot in his leg because there was a fair amount of swelling to it. That test came back negative, no clot, just a tumor pressing on his veins and lymphnodes. The swelling has decreased significantly infact I dont think that it is even swollen anymore. He is eating well, drinking alot, and resting. He did get up and watch alittle tv and spent some time with Roo. He's actually sleeping now besides me, we have to go back down to MD Anderson tomorrow to get some blood drawn, meet with the doctor, and do a round of Bleomycin. Thats one of the chemo drugs referred to as the "antitumor antibiotic". So lets hope its doing its job. Thanks again for the prayes. Love you guys and will update probably tomorrow at some time.

Kimmy

Hello from room P919!

I (Kim) thought that we would start this so that all of you guys could keep uptodate on Jason's treatment. I suppose the best place to start would be the beginning,so settle in.
Most of you know that in February of 2008 Jason had surgery to remove a tumor and we were told that it was testicular cancer (tc from here on out). He underwent 17 bouts of radiation and we were basically sent on our way with a pat on the back. Well in February of this year Jason complained about his back hurting, we both thought that this was due to helping move an entertainment center. We put it off and he just pushed on through. In May it became so bad that we finally went to the dr. We did the standard practice of physical therapy, steroid shots, nothing helped the pain. So the Dr. Watters decided that surgery to remove the bulging part of the disc would be Jason's next best option. He was scheduled for surgery for 09-04-09, but the dr. wanted one more MRi before. We went on 09-01-09 to get that done. We went to Dr. Watters office on 09-03-09 and were told that it wasnt back surgery that was needed, we needed to contact an oncologist. We left straight from Dr. Watters office to the Emergency Room at MD Anderson. We waited forever, they were busy, but we were eventually seen. They drew blood, did a full body MRI, CT Scans with and without contrast of his head, chest, and abdomen. The results showed that Jason had a large (cantaloupe size) mass on his left hip bone that wraps around the bone and encompasses the sciatic nerve, as well as tumors near the spine. He was finally admitted into a room on Friday evening. Saturday morning Dr. Tannir, his new GU doctor came in and explained what was going on. In his opinion that this could be nothing other than a recurrance of his last cancer that has now metastasized. The position of it, the nature of it, and his tumor markes lead him to believe that and postponing treatment in order to get a biopsy would be putting Jason's life at risk. So no arguments from us we decided to start on a standard but heavy duty course of chemotherapy for Jason. He will have 4 cycles of chemo. The layout will be Day 1 through 5 he will be in the hospital on day 8 we will be out patient for chemo, on day 15 we will be outpatient for chemo, then back in the hospital on day 21 to start the cycle over. If all goes according to plan we should be done with chemo in the middle of November.
So far the chemo hasnt had really any effects on him. He had a little nausea the 2nd day, but I attribute that to the chopped beef sandwhich and soda. He seems a little more tired than usual but he is up all night having to urinate constantly do to post chem rehydration. He has gotten to see Ronan a couple of times and that lifts his spirits. We should be going home on Thursday and everyone always feels better when they are at home.
Thats about all for now. I will repost when there is more news. Keep those prayers and well wishes coming, they mean so much to both of us.

Kimmy