Tue, 25 May 2004

Hanging tough

Hey everybody. It's Tues morning and thought I'd give a quick update about last week and how Jade's check-up at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) went yesterday.

Jade made it through chemo pretty good last week. We finished up on Sat and that night did the last of the fluids and mesna. His bladder was able to handle the cytoxan ok with the mesna and other precautions so that's fabulous news. His incision from a week ago seems to be healing fairly well, even with chemo last week.

Jade's counts all looked good yesterday but he should be "bottoming out" by the end of this week and starting to head back up by the first of next week. He'll have some quiet days here resting while he's neutropenic. His energy is ok but not great and he definitely is having some of the effects of the chemo (tired, achey, foggy, etc....) He still has a cold and cough that started up two weeks ago. A chest x-ray yesterday showed some slight signs of "mild" or beginning pneumonia so they started him on antibiotics last night. He'll have blood work done this Thurs and again next Tues so double check his counts.

Jade is scheduled to have his next round of chemo start June 7th and a week after that he will have a CT scan to see what effect the chemo is having on the tumors. This is a "figure it out as you go" type of road we're on since we'll see with each CT scan what's happening. If the tumors are responding and shrinking we'll keep going, if not we'll switch to another chemo. There's always the possibility that the tumors can become chemo resistant as well. So, we can't plan too far ahead.

We're hoping to manage it enough to be able to "live" with the disease rather than just be "dying" of the disease. We're doing ok so far. (Just could use an extra nap or two.) Thanks for all the emails, prayers and good wishes the past week. We really appreciate all the hope and love we are the recipients of. We love the summertime which is coming and hope you're able to enjoy the season of picnics, family, friends, BBQs and fun. Have some homemade ice cream for us too!

We'll keep you posted! Take care.......................

Love......................Tanya and co.