Still Riding High!

We are still enjoying the good news we got last week.  We are hoping it will carry Trent through this round of Taxotere.  It is going to be a tough week physically but mentally I think it is easier knowing that the drugs are working.  Hopefully the cancer cells don't get smart and become resistant.  We are really praying for DUMB cancer!

We went down for chemo yesterday.  It was the longest day ever!  We had to wait two and a half hours before anything even happened.  His labs came back critical meaning some of the numbers were too low to get chemo.  So to remedy that, they gave him blood.  However, they didn't have enough time to put in two units so he only got one.  We left the hospital at 9:00 pm!  The infusion room usually closes at 7:00.  I felt bad for the nurses who had to stay with us, but Trent really needed the blood.  Then today we had to go back down to get the other unit of blood.  No one told Trent he needed to keep his transfusion band on so when they found out he had taken it off, they had to type cross him all over again.  That usually takes about 1 1/2 hours.  So today we got there at 1:15 and left at about 6:00.  It should have only taken 1 1/2 hours total.  After all of that, Trent is pooped. 

We are going to change up the pain meds a little.  The pain that he is having is a lot of phantom pain from the muscles and tumor that were removed.  So he needs a medication for neuropathy.  We are going to try Lyrica and see if that will help his body not get the surges of stabbing pain. While we were working through the pain med issue our nurse found that Trent was supposed to have an MRI in September and a follow up appointment with the surgeon.  Somehow in all the hubbub of chemo that was overlooked.  We have scheduled the MRI for Wednesday the 17th. They will look for any remaining cancer and also any new lesions. I expect that everything will be fine as there have been no issues at all with the healing of the incision on his side.  But it will be good to talk to the surgeon and see what he says about getting some physical therapy to improve Trent's gait.  I am a little worried about a regular schedule of therapy though, his good days are so sporadic that it would be hard to know when he could do it. 

Trent was also told to try to start exercising to help with the fatigue.  I am not sure how easy that will be!  Some days he barely lifts his head off the pillow!  But I know I feel better when I exercise and hopefully it will be the same for Trent.

We have been so touched by all the people who have shared in our joy at the progress Trent has made.  It has really been an eye opener for us.  We are not in this alone by any means.  We are very blessed to have tremendous support from many, many people.  You are truly inspiring to us and motivate us to be better people each day.

I haven't posted any pictures for a very long time so here is a recent one of our family.  I really wanted to have our family pictures done at our usual time even though Trent is not looking like his normal self.  It was a difficult thing to do, emotionally, but it was really important to me.