Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today is our 17th anniversary.  The last two years we have celebrated our anniversary at the Huntsman, this year we are home, but Trent is too sick to do anything.  We had great plans to have a quick bite out and maybe catch a movie, but no such luck.  That's okay though, we can celebrate on Monday hopefully.

Trent seems to be a little better than last week.  I think he caught a bug when my family was here visiting and he paid the price for about 10 days.  Because of that it is hard to tell what the new pills are doing to him.  I really don't think they are affecting him too negatively.  Hopefully they are going gangbuster on the cancer!

We went down to the Huntsman on Thursday to talk with Angelique, the social worker who works with Dr. Carr.  She is really good for us and is helping a ton.  While we were talking to her she suggested checking out some medication CDs from the Learning Center.  We chose a few and are trying them out.  Last night we tried the Sleep one and it is just a bunch of weird music that Trent didn't really care for.  Then I put in the 'Cancer Fighting' one and Trent liked it much  more.  He was getting all pumped up about beating cancer and wanted the kids to listen to it too.  That might not be the best CD to listen to when we are trying to get Trent to sleep but it is a great one for the daytime! :)

While we were there, Dr. Carr did a quick examination and confirmed my suspicion that the tumor on Trent's side is growing already.  We had asked to see him because the hematomas on Trent's chest are getting big again and I could also feel a lump where the tumor was removed a couple of weeks ago.  Dr. Carr would prefer to let the hematomas heal themselves unless they are too painful.  They are forming on the outside of Trent's ribs, right where the tumors were invading the chest wall. Those areas are weaker now and are allowing a bit of fluid to collect outside the chest wall and create a hematoma.  Eventually there will be enough scar tissue there to stop the fluid collection and his body should reabsorb that fluid.  That may take a while though.

I asked about the possibility of doing some radiation on the tumor on Trent's rib.  Dr. Carr said that was possible if it was tender and painful.  It does cause some discomfort sometimes but we are going to wait a bit and keep a close eye on it.  We will probably discuss that with Dr. Gouw when we meet with him on the 13th.  I would imagine that would be near the time when we start Trent on the other drug, Lapatinib.  I would like to see how the two drugs do together.  I also asked Dr. Carr's opinion on doing an ablation on a patient with one lung.   He said he would not do it and I was not surprised.  That takes away one tool that we were hoping was in our tool box.  Basically, the new chemo pills have to take care of the cancer.  There is no way around that.

We had labs done and waited around a bit to see if Trent was going to need blood.  It turns out he doesn't but his bone marrow is being just a bit sluggish still.  We will have to feed him lots of steak when we finally gets his appetite back.

This week has been one big kick in the teeth after another, and we are glad to see it end.  Even though Trent has not been much for celebrating our anniversary today, I am celebrating by myself.  I am the luckiest woman in the world to be married to such an amazing man.  It has been 15 years of wedded bliss and 2 years of the hardest trials I could have imagined for us.  We have grown closer and our marriage has become stronger.  We are very different people than we were 17 years ago, even two years ago.  But I believe we are better people who still share the crazy, silly love that started all those years ago.  Lucky Us.