Good report.

     Today Gennie had her final appointment (before her chemo treatments begin) with her local oncologist. We were worried her counts might be low but they are actually up a bit. This is great news with the holidays coming. Tonight we have out annual Christmas party with the gang. A group of folks we have known here in Poquoson for over twenty years. There was a real possibility Gennie would not be able to attend. With her report today she will be there.
     We are both a bit nervous about the upcoming chemo treatments but in some ways glad things are getting started. There have been nights when one or both of us have had trouble sleeping. It is really strange the dreams you can have when you are faced with stressful events. Some of Gennie's dreams have been really.
     I want to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season. We are very thankful for your interest and support. It is sad how many of us are facing so many difficult situations. One thing I have learned (and count on) is that with the love and support of family and friends you can face any challenge.
     I will post again after Gennie has started her treatments. She will be admitted on the 28th. Until then be safe and enjoy the season!!!!
Bob  

Some changes

     Sorry for not posting any news for quite a while. To be honest there was nothing new to post. Well that has changed in a big way. Gennie has been doing and feeling great. She has had three series of Vidaza and we thought all was going well. After her second series we went to MCV for another biopsy. This past Tuesday we got a phone call from Judy our coordinator at MCV. She told us that the Vidaza was not working and Dr. McCarty wanted to see us Friday. OK this only induced slight panic and we started reading all we could find about what may be next. Gennie asked Judy what she thought Dr. McCarty was going to suggest. She said he would probably want to move on to induction chemo and then straight onto transplant. More panic. We finally decided to just relax and wait for our meeting.

     Dr. McCarty does in fact want to move to induction chemo. He has suggested a treatment known as FLAG. This is a combination of Chemo drugs giving in the hospital in a six day period. This is intended to sort of hit the disease hard and beat it into remission. The better the remission she is in the better the chances her transplant will result in a long term or permanent remission. We have scheduled this procedure to begin on either Dec. 27 or 28th. Gennie will be in the hospital (MCV) for a minimum of four weeks and longer in needed. The first seven days will be the actual treatment and the balance is recovery time. Ten days after treatment they will do another biopsy to see if her marrow is responding the way they want. If not another dose may be done, this would add time to the stay. Hopefully it will work correctly and she will just have to recover. Once recovered she will be able to come home for a few weeks. During this time we will be going to Richmond frequently for pre-transplant testing. Her brother will also be tested at this time. If all goes well we are looking at the end of Feb or the beginning of March for transplant. This procedure will be another four to six weeks in the hospital. Once the new cells begin to engraft and she is doing well we will then move to a place to live in the Richmond area for about six months.
     When we get to MCV I will let everyone know her address. The best way to contact her will be e-mail (deadogdottie@yahoo.com) she may not get back to you at first but I know she would like to hear form everyone. She will be allowed to have visitors. The only requirement is that they are healthy. It would be best to wait for a couple of weeks as she will probably not be feeling to well at first. I will let folks know when she is ready for guest.
     A very sad part of the timing is that Gennie will not be able to attend the ceremony for my Dad at Arlington Cemetery on Jan. 17. That is the day my Dad will be reunited with my Mom. Family will be coming from all over the country and my Nephew Robert, an army chaplain, will be performing the ceremony. Since Dad was Army Air Corp both the Army and Air Force will take part in the service. I will attend with my family. Gennie will be there in spirit.
     Like I said in the title, changes. We knew when we started this changes were going to happen. This is just one of what will probably be many. They are frightening but necessary. If one treatment is not working there is no need to continue it. I am just thankful there is another to try. Dr. McCarty did not seem to concerned with the change. He stated that we tried Vidaza first because it is a bit more comfortable on the patient. Well there is nothing easy with Gennie. So on the the next treatment.
     I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas/Hanukkah season. We are looking forward to ours. We will be here in Poquoson with our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter. We will be wishing we could be with our son, daughter-in-law and grandson also but I am sure we will be face timing with them.
Bob

round two begins

As many of you know Gennie had a problem with low while cell counts when her second series of Vidaza shots was to begin. She had to put off the start of series two and take five days of Neupogen shots. Today she went in for her CBC and her white count was normal for the first time in recent memory. Therefore they started series two. That was three hours ago. We are keeping our fingers crossed but so far no problem. The first series it was about three hours in when the problems started. We are hoping because they treated her for nausea this time first she will not have the same problems.

Overall Gennie is doing well. She had a full four weeks of difficulty but managed to get through it OK. She is much stronger than me. The port problems seem to be over. We are going back this Thursday, one more time, for the surgeon to look at it and declare it fit to use. The last few days Gennie has started going into her exercise room and worked out for about 45 minutes. I can't tell you how happy this makes her.

This past week has been a difficult for both of us. On Saturday my father passed away. He had been ill for some time and as much as the loss hurts it is a relief not to worry about him now. He had a wonderful life and  all in the Craig family will miss him just as we miss Mom. I was so lucky to have such loving and caring parents.

Thanks to all of you who have continued to support Gennie and me. It means so much to both of us to have you on our side. That's it for now I will keep you posted on her progress.

Step backward

Gennie has to go to MCV tomorrow to have her new port taken out. We saw her local oncologist today and they were not happy with how her incision looked. They had us call MCV and report the problem. We heard back from them and they want her there at 10am tomorrow and plan on having it removed. I am not sure where that leaves us but my guess is once she has healed she will need to have another put in. This means in the short run she will have to have her next series of Vidaza injected in her belly again. This will start next Monday.
This past week was to be her first rest week of two between series. As it turned it was far from restful for her. When she went for her CBC on Monday she was running a slight fever. Not sure what was causing it they gave her Cipro. On Tuesday of that week she developed a major eye infection. We saw the eye doctor and he gave her two eye drops to combat it. On Wednesday she still had major pain and her oncologist called in Vicodin for her. This seemed to help with the pain to some extent. She mostly sat in a dimly lit room all week and tried not to complain to much. Not a good week. It now looks like the fever may have been caused from the infection from the port.
On a brighter note her blood counts seem to be a little better than last week. This will allow her to put off a blood transfusion for another week. She wants to wait as long as she can on these.
As for me I have been cooking soups. Last week I made both Colonial veggie soup from scratch and also cream of peanut soup also from scratch. They both turned out great and she enjoyed them. Not much taste good to her right now so I have been trying to make things I think she will like. Some friends have also brought food over and it was appreciated. Gennie's weight is a concern to me as she is getting just a bit to skinny. Today she was told by her PA to try and eat small meals more often. She even suggested a milk shake they have at Sonic that has 1000 calories. Not a chance Gennie will do that but it sounded great to me.
That pretty much brings us up to date. Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and kindness.

The end of the first cycle

During the past twelve days Gennie has been stuck in the belly fourteen times with Vidaza, endured two Neupogen shots in the arm, had a CBC (complete blood count) done and took a trip to MCV to have a Vortex port Implanted in her chest. Other than that things have been quite normal for the two of us. The first day of the Vidaza shots she was to be given nausea medication done through an IV. The nurse did not read that on the chart and it did not happen. The result was a very difficult night for Gennie. She was given two prescriptions of meds she could take for the nausea if it occurred. That was pretty funny when the most common side effect of Vidaza is major nausea. Well I was able to get one of the prescriptions filled that first day and it did nothing. The next day when she went in for her second set of shots they gave her an IV of fluid and we were also able to get the better medicine filled. That night she did much better. As the series went on she did better with the treatment thanks to the regiment of meds they gave her to combat the nausea. Every other day they would give her another medicine via IV to help also. Every Monday they are checking her CBC and last Monday her counts looked pretty good. She finished her Vidaza shots on Tuesday and then started her Neupogen shots. These are intended to increase her production of white blood cells. Today she had the last of those shots for this cycle.

Yesterday we went to MCV to get her Vortex port installed in her chest. She will need this port when she has her marrow transplant. We asked if they could install it now and begin using it for her Vidaza treatment. They all agreed and now she will not have to get all those shots in the belly. The port is pretty amazing. It is much bigger than I expected. It is about 1 1/2" long by 3/4" wide and 1/4" deep. It is a double port that the doctor ordered. She has an IV tube buried under her skin connecting to it and her carodid artery near her heart. They will use these ports for everything from taking blood samples to injection her Vidaza shots to blood transfusions to the actual infusion of her new blood stem cells. Pretty amazing port.

As for how Gennie has been feeling during all of this well she is doing OK. She is not eating much because of the nausea and nothing taste quite right to her. I worry about this some because of how small she is. She has lost about 5 1/2 pounds already and that brings her to 95 1/2 pounds. She is trying to eat but not doing real well with it. I will keep after her. She made the comment today that she hates feeling bad. I just try to tell her it is going to be OK and she now has a few weeks to recover before starting the next series.

As for my new jobs around here they involve getting intimately aware of just how much laundry two people can go through. So far I don't think I have ruined anything yet. The other day I did all the bathrooms and vacuumed the entire house. I fully expect some nice aprons and stuff for Christmas from all you sympathetic types out there. During all of this we are also still closing out our business. I was able to sell two trucks the other day. A few more to go. I have contacted an agent to see about renting our commercial property. I hope he can find someone soon. My most important job is to keep Gennie upbeat. She is doing really well with all of this and I expect she will continue to. She does miss seeing all her friends. Keep in mind she is not sick and would love to see some of you. If you are not sick come on over and visit.

Well that's it for now. Thanks for the interest. I will post again when we start round two!!!!

Interesting first day

I would have titled this "Difficult First Day" but Gennie will see the title on Facebook. Around three PM yesterday, about an hour after Gennie received two long needles to her belly (this is how Vidaza is administered) all the difficulties she had in 1997 with chemo came rushing back.  She has 100mg of Vidaza injected her belly area using two long menacing needles. The nurse said this is the area of the body with most fat. I sort of laughed and wondered if she had ever seen Gennie's belly.  They called in two perscriptions for nausea but we will have to wait for approval for one of them. I picked up the one the insurance company will allow her to have. The top side effect of this type of chemo is nausea. Well, Gennie confirmed that. From 3PM until 10PM Gennie was hugging a trash can. It was awful for her. On her own she called the "on call" doctor. It took him about two hours to respond. He told her to take more medicine. She had already taken the full dosage. I knew at this point she was seriously ill. She has never called a doctor without being hounded to do so. She finally got to sleep in her recliner around 11PM. This morning at 8AM she has already called the office to make them aware of the problem. She simply stated she will not go through that again today. Hopefully they will address this problem before her next two shots today at 1:30PM.
My job through all of this was pretty simple. Keep the dog from making it worse and keep emptying the trash can.  Today I have decided to stay with her and take her to the clinic later for her next shots. We both thought that after it went well yesterday she would be fine to go on her own. Not so fast. If they want her to take her meds before the shots she will not be able to drive. No big deal just a modification to plans.
Well that is the update from Day 1. Hopefully the clinic is used to this and has a fix for Gennie. If not it is going to be a long arduous road she has to walk.

And so it begins

Went to see Miriam today at VOA.  As we suspected Gennie's counts are very low. She is neutropenic. She will have a transfusion next Tuesday. My part in this is to play golf. Thankfully the doctor has agreed that Gennie should go on our planned vacation to Crisfield MD this weekend. We are both looking forward to it as it may be the last trip for quite some time. She will be wearing her mask most of the time.

Gennie is scheduled to start her Vidaza treatments on September 12th.

That's it for now. Hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend.