First up, we had a great holiday season with family and friends, Christmas Eve was spent at my mother's house along with my brother, and my son and his family as well. Christmas Eve at mom's is an annual tradition we've been doing for some time now. Christmas eve I also started having a sore throat, but more of that to come.
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| Brenda with her Mom & Brother and the blanket she made her mom, Christmas Day |
Christmas day was spent at our apartment with Brenda's mom and Brother as well as friends of ours Michelle and Jerry whom we've known for some time now. Food was aplenty! a turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, vegetable, and all the other trimmings! Brenda's mom and brother had come earlier in the day and we did our gift exchange then. I was all I could do to contain myself when I unwrapped the Pink Floyd Discovery Edition box set, which has all 14 of their albums and digitally remastered and a collectors book included as well. This is something I've wanted for a long time and getting the newest box set was the icing on the cake! Everyone scored well, Brenda got the car seat and steering wheel covers she wanted so now our vehicle has been pinkified with black covers, covered in pink hearts.Thirty years ago I'd have never lived down driving a car with pink heart seat covers! |
| Brenda working on Christmas Dinner |
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| My son Travis & wife Bonnie, he's wearing the beard had Brenda made him for Christmas! |
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| Our granddaughter Emily with a couple of her gifts |
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| My brother Jamie our Grandson Andre & I Christmas day after he wore us out! |
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| Our newest grandchild Megan, not happy about the ears! |
After all the excitement of Christmas and time with family and friend's it was time to relax and recoup. That was until the wee hours of Dec. 29th when I got up at 3am coughing up blood! I woke up Brenda to tell her what had just happened and we were off to the hospital. Upon arrival we were told there would be a mega wait time, even though the waiting room didn't seem that crowded. I asked the triage nurse if the wait would be mega enough that I should send Brenda back home to bed while I waited. She said "yes", so I sent Brenda back home to bed, told her I'd be fine. I then asked to be put in a "quiet" room due to my compromised immune system and a waiting room with sick people in it.
As the normal quiet room was already occupied, they put me in the pediatric waiting room which was empty. Actually with the way it was set up in there with vinyl covered bench seating I was able to get a sheet from the nurse to curl it up into a pillow, turn out the lights, close the door, and slept off and on until finally around 8am the nurse came in and got me go to a room to see the doctor.
After going over everything with the doctor, (by the way, by this time I was no longer coughing up blood) he took blood work and sent me for a chest x-ray. After about an hour or so he came back in the room, said everything looked OK and that I most likely had a bronchial infection and gave me antibiotics to take. I called Brenda to come and pick me up around 11am. It was back home and back to bed for me after a stop at the drug store on the way home.
By Jan.2/12 the infection seemed to be getting worse and I also was losing my voice, so rather than a long wait at the hospital again, I just went to a local walk in clinic. The waiting room their was full with people hacking and coughing. Luckily the nurse said it would be a long wait and that I probably would not see the doctor until 3:15pm, it was noon when I checked in. She also told me it would be fine if I left and came back at 3:15 and that I would not lose my spot.
When Brenda dropped me off, she left to go get gas and stop at the grocery store. So I wandered across the street to Tim Horton's for a coffee while waiting, called her and told her where I was. She stopped in and joined me and had a tea. I ended up just staying there at Tim Horton's till my appointment at the clinic.
Finally at 3pm I wandered across the street and seen the doctor. I showed him what the doctor at the hospital had given me, and he had me stop taking those antibiotics and gave me new ones along with an inhaler and Hycodan for the cough at night so I could get a good nights sleep. That infection lasted about three weeks!
Going into the New Year I had an ultrasound done on my abdomen January 16th, this had been ordered by my medical oncologist at my last visit with her, and was done to follow up on the abdominal pain/discomfort I've been having on the right side. I would not know the results of this until I seen my radiation oncologist on January 20th.
Seeing my radiation oncologist on the 20th was a milestone event for me as well. My very first cancer treatment, which was radiation on my throat for the squamous cell carcinoma was January 23 2007, which made this the five year mark since that treatment, which by the way has worked to this day!
The doctor and I discussed that milestone and it's importance. In the cancer world doctor's really don't like to use the words "cancer free" until the five year mark. I asked him to do a scope of my throat during this visit, he replied, "are you sure you want me to do that? You really don't need one! I replied that I did indeed want a scope just so I could say there was no evidence of disease and then I could scratch one of three cancers of the list of the ones I've had.
He also went over the results of the ultrasound with me and checked out my abdomen. He also told me before I left that he would be going over my last few scans and tests with the radiologist just to have another look and make sure they were not missing anything going on in the abdomen that would be causing the pain/discomfort. He said he would try to have the results of that available for when I see my medical oncologist on February 1st. Brenda also took a photo of my radiation oncologist Dr. Schneider and I to mark the event. I also seen my Dietitian Donna Danelon at this visit and snapped a photo of her too!
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| My Dietitian Donna Danelon |
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| Dr. Schneider & I at my 5yr follow-up exam. |
Moving on to February, I seen my medical oncologist on the 1st and we went over my current status. She felt I was doing well and that the disease is "stable". There has been very minimal growth in the affected lympnodes and she went over the one on my left jaw/chin area and felt it hadn't changed much since my last visit. She was also happy that I had lost a few pounds and wants me to take better care of myself. She is also going to order some further tests from my blood draw that day to be sure there is nothing related to the abdominal pain/discomfort.
As things are holding stable, she has decided for now to decrease the frequency of our visits so I will see her again sometime in September of 2012. In between now and then I will be seeing my radiation oncologist again in May, and if anything "pops" up between now and then I can always call either of them and they would see me a.s.a.p.
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| CTV's Arms Bumanlag |
Also I failed to mention earlier, I did a live t.v. appearance along with Renata Sznajkart who is the new Events and Fundraising Coordinator at the Windsor & Essex County Cancer Centre Foundation. We were on CTV Windsor during the 6pm weather segment January 27thwith Arms Bumanlag our local weather specialist to promote the Foundations 16th Annual Bowl-a-thon, which is taking place February 11 2012. This is a fun event and this year we are raising funds for the Men's Comprehensive Health Program at the Cancer Centre, so if you in the Windsor area come on out and have a fun afternoon of bowling and support a great cause at the same time. Lot's of prizes to be won as well! Sponsorship Opportunities are still available!
Till next time.....xxx
p.s. I am currently entered into a contest to win the use of a luxury suite for a Windsor Spitfires Hockey game, and have some serious competition, so if you'd like to help, just go to the following link and "like" my photo, it's the 1st one, and be sure to hit the like button under the photo, and I thank you! Will keep you posted how it goes.
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