This day wouldn't be complete without a picture of my little trick-or-treaters. We had Annakin Skywalker & the blue Power Ranger. It was a fun night for them!

one down... two to go

Here we are - finished with round 1 and feeling okay tonight! This picture is what all of the meds looked like hanging there, and it took about 5 hours for the entire infusion. Not too intimidating... but the giant syringe of red liquid is the med that will make my hair fall out so I'm particularly not fond of that one. Our day started with a visit to the doctor to hear the GREAT news about the PET scan. Only one tumor, only 3 months of chemo and some radiation after that. I can definitely do that! After thinking about all of the "what-if's" that go along with this diagnosis, it's good to just know what we're fighting and concentrate on that. The wondering was so difficult. We'll repeat the PET at the end of treatment and the doctor is very optimistic that it will be completely gone. After visiting the doc, we went up to the infusion waiting area. That is the strangest waiting room ever, there were probably 15 people in there waiting to be called. When our name was called we went into a small cubicle with one recliner for me and one small office chair for Michael. The nurse started my IV and off we went. She gave each medicine one at a time and explained what each one was, it was pretty interesting actually. I praise the people smarter than me who figured all of this out. We got to leave as soon as it was over... and don't have to go back (hopefully) until November 21. I'll have weekly labs to check my counts and I'll take my temperature twice a day to make sure nothing is brewing. I'm going to bed soon and will wake up to see what tomorrow brings. I have no idea how I'll feel, I'm just going to take it as it comes.

Treatment #1

I'll let Jennifer post more later, but we are in our little cubicle right now and she is receiving infusion #1.  She is napping because they have to give her a couple of meds to fight side effects and the side effects of the side effect fighters is sleepiness.  Does any of that make any sense at all?  Well I wanted to post some really good news.  The PET scan came back and it showed that she just has that one spot.  No little lumpies anywhere else.  This means that she will just have the 3 chemo treatments and then radiation and according the the doc that should "CURE" her. We were so happy to hear that news.  Oh, for those that are wondering, all of the test combined to stage her at Stage 1.  We still have a way to go, but everything is going as good as possible.  Thanks to all of you that are thinking and praying for us.  

Here we go.

Good Morning. I have been awake for a while, making sure I have everything that I need for day #1. I've realized this is a little like the night before a big vacation, except it's kind of a scary vacation and I don't know where I'm going. I'm running on not much sleep so you see how strangely my mind is working at this point. :) I've packed movies, snacks, laptop & iPods... may even take my comfy pillow. Michael is packed and ready to go too - I'm so very lucky to be able to have him with me every step of the way. Here we go, baby!

Last night I was able to speak with Dana, a friend from my hometown (Hobbs, NM) - she went through this exact chemo regimen almost one year ago. It was a very comforting conversation... Dana, if you read this THANK YOU! She made it through... it wasn't fun but the feeling of being cancer-free at the end is definitely worth it. I'm ready to be right there with her. I've been talking to other friends as well who have shared their chemo stories and given me priceless advice. It helps more than they know - they are all beautiful survivors.

We've been oriented.

Today took us back to Dallas for more appointments. First we met with my liver doctor at UT Southwestern - I've been his patient for about 10 years so he knows me well, and even he was surprised to hear of my latest diagnosis. After shaking his head a few times and then looking over my list of chemo drugs, he told us that my liver should be fine with these drugs... it might even do well with the help of these drugs. Great! One worry to mark off the list. I'll see him again in March, tumor free I hope.

After that I decided it was time to go wig shopping, or "cranial prosthesis" shopping as they call it in medical lingo in an effort to try to get your insurance to pay for it (no luck). I found a shop on the internet about 15 minutes away from the hospital so we drove that direction and were surprised to find it in a little shopping center... we weren't sure why we drove all the way for that. We laughed as we went in, still not believing we were shopping for wigs. We went in and the lady working said she thought she had the right one for me - I tried it on and loved it - well, I loved it as much as I'm going to love a wig. So now I'm the proud owner of the "codi" in creamy toffee - and from what I understand, she'll need to make her debut in about 3 weeks. I guess that little store in the shopping center was the place I was supposed to shop.

To end our day, we had chemo. class at the cancer center. It was informative - interesting to see a very diverse group of people getting together, none of whom really want to be there at all. We were all on information overload as we listened. I think we did learn a lot about the routine, possible side effects, and all of the people there for support. Plus, we got a free pen and thermometer so it wasn't all bad. We'll get to try out this new routine on Friday as we go in for round 1.

Our boys...Michael

We have had a lot of people ask us about the boys and how they are doing so I thought I would share a few stories about them.  First let me give some background information on them for those who have yet to meet them.  Zach will be 8 in November.  He is very intelligent, quite serious (most of the time), and is the biggest mama's boy since...well probably since me.  Ryan will be 4 in December.  He is our free spirit.  He is always singing, dancing, or playing his guitar.  He has a really great sense of humor and the best belly laugh you have ever heard.  

During that first week of not knowing, Jennifer and I spoke a lot about what we should tell the boys.  We decided that we would tell Zach that there was a lump in mom's leg that the doctors wanted to take out, and not much more.  Zach and I have a nightly routine where after family prayers we lay in his bed and tell each other everything we did that day.  The night that we talked about the lump he had a lot of questions.  What is it made of?  How will they take it out?  Can I be in the operating room when they take it out?  The reason was because he wanted to see what it looked like.  Remember, this was still during the time we thought it was a sarcoma and surgery would be needed.  The next day Jennifer and Zach were talking and Jennifer gave Zach a the opportunity to name the lump.  That's when "it" officially became LUMPY.  

Throughout the past two weeks we have had more and more talks and Zach now knows a lot more about what is going on.  Here is our line of thinking.  He is very smart, he hears people talking about what is going on, he has the right to know what is happening to his mother, and he is about to learn a great life lesson.  That last point is the most powerful to me.  Zach is old enough to remember when his mom had cancer.  He is going to watch his mom fight with passion, love, and grace.  If he can internalize those qualities of his mom he will be a better man for it.  So during our talks at night we have spoken a lot about what is going on, in a very age appropriate manner.  He knows that his mom has lymphoma.  He knows that his mom is going to have to have treatment that might make her feel different, look different, but she will still love all of us very much.  He has vowed to help me take care of things around the house while mom concentrates on getting better.  We'll see how long that lasts.  He is being very brave and he loves his mommy very much.

Then we have Ryan.  Last night we had prayer time in his room.  When we finished all four of us were having a family talk about mommy.  It was actually Jennifer, Zach, and I trying to tell Ryan that mommy might feel a little sick and might even lose her hair soon.  I think that he needs to be prepared so it isn't just a shock to him and then we have issues with him coping.  So we are talking to him about how things might be a little different.  So now he is just fascinated with the idea of mom not having hair.  We talked a little about Lumpy and he wanted to see it and touch it.  I then asked him what he would do when Lumpy was gone and he throws up the peace sign and says, "deuces Lumpy", and then laughed the biggest belly laugh ever.  That's our Ry!

Diffuse Large B-Cell non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma

I feel like I'm learning new things constantly.  There is an entire world out there that I had no idea about and I'm becoming a little more educated every day.  Today Michael, mom, and I met with my new radiologic oncologist, Dr. Cheek, and my medical oncologist, Dr. Molina.  

Dr. Cheek talked to us first about radiation treatment.  He also told us a little more about my diagnosis - Diffuse Large B-Cell non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.  What a name.  He said that if the choice was between this and the original suspicion of sarcoma, he'd take this.  I liked him even more at that point.  He will start radiation after my chemo is finished - probably sometime in January.   He took lots of time to sit and talk with us and answered so many questions.  I'm understand that radiation will be the easier of the two parts of treatment - much easier...

After learning a lot from Dr. Cheek, we went upstairs to meet Dr. Molina.  This was the man with the plan.  Woah.  Dr. Molina first ordered a PET scan so check on a "predominant" lymph node that was found in the CT scan.  They think it's fine but need to make sure because that will change the # of chemo treatments that I need.  Then he drops another bomb, he's doing a bone marrow test today.  Now I've had three of these in my life and they hurt.  I mean, they HURT.  After that news it was hard to concentrate on what he was telling me.  I know I'll have a regimen of chemotherapy called CHOP-R.   Each letter stands for one of the meds in the mix.   It's standard for this type of lymphoma and it has a host of side-effects, but tends to be really effective.  I'll have that infusion once a month for 3 - 6 months.

 I'll start chemotherapy next Friday.  Halloween!  I hope Michael & Kim are up to taking my little Yoda & Storm Trooper trick-or-treating without me.  My dad used to hide in the back of the house on Halloween with the lights off, a bit of a Halloween scrooge.  If he were here, I'd go hide with him this time... I think we'd have a good excuse for once.  :)

Some very cool news  and something I'll be praying for:  I found out that after exposure to chemotherapy, some people with autoimmune diseases (I have 2) have no problems afterwards and don't have to continue their immunosuppressive meds. I'm not going to put any money on it, but if that happened in my case I might even believe this was a blessing in disguise.  

This evening, my hip hurts... I know I'm starting chemo next week (I even have chemo. orientation class on Tuesday - should be a blast!)...  and my nephew Brandon just called to tell me that he's shaving his head when I do whenever that time comes - how amazing is that?

Another big day tomorrow...

Oh my gosh, thank you all so much for checking up on us. Tomorrow morning brings my initial appointments with my two oncologists. We should get more answers... I have a typed list of questions to take with me so I don't forget what he says. It was invigorating to get back to school today, man those kids are something. Zach is in the class across the hall so we were able to sneak in a few winks & hugs too. Luckily when you are 7 it's still not uncool to hug your mom.

Longest week of my life...Michael

I hate that my first post on here is going to take a negative tone, but I wanted to chronicle the first few days from my point of view and then how God and my Jenny changed that.

So my wife and I are watching Sunday Night Football and she tells me, "I have a really weird bump on my thigh, do you think I'm growing  a new muscle?"  So I look at it and my initial thought was that it might be a torn muscle that hemorrhaged.  Although she didn't have any pain that made the most sense to me since she had just had a pretty good leg workout the day before.  

So the next day after going to the family doc and getting no answers we all decided that maybe a trip to the local ER was in order.  Of course I have all sorts of things going through my mind but I felt like everything would be fine, after all it always is right.  So after getting the boys in bed and waiting for her to call, or Kim to text, I finally get a call from Jennifer and she is crying. The only words I really remember her saying are "mass" and "possibly malignant".  After that point I was lost.

So the next day we call the osteo-oncologist that came recommended by the hospital staff and he can get us in 2 hours later.  So we load up and drive to Baylor Hospital in Dallas.  Our doc comes in and says lots of stuff but all I really remember him saying is, "My suspicions are that it is malignant" and he orders a biopsy for two days later.  

So now I'm freaking out.  I spend the next two days learning everything I can about sarcomas (the initial suspected culprit) and trying to find statistics.  Numbers that had been gathered by faceless men, women, and children that came before us.  I wanted to know what our "chances" were.  These are the times when I went to my darkest places.  I was scared for my wife.  I didn't want her to be sick.  I didn't want her to feel bad.  I didn't want her be scared.  And most of all, I didn't want her to not be with us.  I cried a lot and prayed a lot.

Thursday brought the day of the biopsy.  Jennifer and I went early to do all of the paperwork stuff, and our moms and Craig (Lois' rock) came later.  When the Dr. came out to talk to us all I really remember (I seem to zone out a bit don't I) is him saying, "my suspicions are true and it is malignant".  He said that his initial diagnosis would be a sarcoma but pathology would tell us for sure later.  So there we have it, I guess that was the first official diagnosis of cancer.  The next step was a bone scan and CT scan to see if it has gone anywhere else.

It's Monday now and we load up to go do the scans.  Jennifer and I drive back to Baylor and she does all of her scans while I wait and work in the waiting room.  She tried to bat her eyelashes and smile to the lab tech in a lame attempt for results but he wasn't budging.  He's a stronger man than I, I could never tell her no.  So we leave the hospital with a CD of the images and no information at all but we have an appointment on Tuesday with the surgeon to get the results.

That afternoon Jennifer got curious and wanted to see the images so she put them in our computer just to see if she could pull them up.  When she did not only did the images come up but so did the report.  She yelled at me and hung the phone up on her mom she was so excited to see it.  So now we're both reading frantically and I can honestly say I didn't understand one single word of it.  So I ask her what it said and she says she's not sure but it sounded pretty good.  

Finally Tuesday rolls around and we go see the surgeon to get the official results from somebody that actually understands them.  He walks in and says that he has good news and that the cancer had not spread anywhere else.  I can honestly say that was the very best news I had ever been given.  Then the shocker...It's not sarcoma, but lymphoma.  Wow, and with that the entire game changed.  Treatment, doctors that we will see, everything changed with the new results of the biopsy.  So now we are looking at chemo and radiation rather than surgery and radiation, but all-in-all I think that all of the information was very positive.  

Next, we drive home and this is where my entire line of thinking has changed.  My wife, my best friend, my boys mom has just been officially diagnosed with lymphoma.  What do I do for her?  How can I make her feel safe?  I have no idea what to do.  So I ask her what she wants to do after we pick the boys up from school.  Her answer was let's go to the gym.  So we go to the gym and she gets on the elliptical machine.  I warmed up in the cardio section close to her and just watched her.  She was focused, driven, and pretty hot looking if I must be honest.  I finish my warmup  and go start my lifting which is in another part of the gym.  I finish my first two lifts and go check on her.  She's got her iPod rocking and she is kicking that's elliptical machine's butt at this point.  So I go back and keep lifting.  After a couple of more lifts I go back and just peak around the corner and she is still getting after it and by now is sweating up a storm but still looks pretty dang good.  Long story short...I finish my lifting and go check on her and she says she just wants to finish up.  She ends up doing an hour total, on the day that she was diagnosed with lymphoma.  That's when I decided to stop worrying about what might happen to her.  I was looking at her as a victim, but she never did.  I'll never make the mistake to underestimate my wife again.  She is strong, beautiful, smart, determined, and "lumpy" has no idea who he just picked a fight with.  

How we met "Lumpy"...

After you reach the mature age of 36 and gain tremendous amounts of wisdom, you realize that your life is a story :). Michael and I are both there, and we know that our life story changed on October 12. I noticed a lump on my thigh that day and had a feeling that something wasn't right. After the 2nd doctor the next day said "We have no idea what that is", I knew I was probably going to be glad that they were checking it out.

I had an MRI & ultrasound on Monday night (Oct. 13). Kim waited at the E.R. with me while Michael stayed home and got the boys tucked into bed. We joked... was it an egg? was it a descended testicle? where is Dr. House when you need him? Our jokes stopped when the doc came back in with a referral to an orthopaedic oncologist. The morning of Oct. 14 - we were able to see this doctor and this time instead of hearing "I have no idea", we heard "I think this is malignant, let's do a biopsy".

Thursday morning (Oct. 16) we are at the surgery center for a needle biopsy of my thigh. I'm sedated in case the specimen wasn't enough, they would have to make an incision to take more tissue. As I'm drifting off, I'm thinking to myself... "maybe he'll find that it's just a big bruise... "and then I start realizing that I better pay attention because I don't want them to start until I'm out! I woke up only 45 minutes later and they immediately brought Mom & Michael into the room. They had to tell me that it was indeed malignant - some kind of sarcoma - we need scans to make sure it hasn't spread. I honestly admitted to myself that's really the news I was expecting.

The following Monday (Oct. 20) we're back at Baylor for a CT scan and bone scan. I drank my barium and had a radioactive injection - the staff there is so good at this process. I was in and out within 3 hours. I hate knowing that the reason they are good is that a lot of people have done this before me. I met a girl there who was being put on the list for her 3rd liver transplant. So many people in the world are struggling with things we don't even think of during our hectic days - visit a hospital on a Monday morning to see what I'm talking about...

The DAY - the big news - today is October 21 and we found out that my scans are CLEAR! No cancer other than the tumor in my leg. It's like a breath of fresh air. Then the news that confused us all, it's not a sarcoma. I have some type of large-cell lymphoma. The tumor is in the muscle of my right thigh even though this is a blood cancer. I have so very much to learn about this!

As of today, we know what to call "Lumpy" - it's a lymphoma. We know that Lumpy needs to be destroyed. We know that Lumpy is going to be destroyed by chemotherapy and radiation. I don't mind the thought of any of this, I just want to be better. My boys (all 3 of them) need me as much as I need them.