Another Dr. visit

We had the follow up visit with the infectious disease doctor at the University of Utah. We had our niece Olivia with us to be returned to her mom in SLC. She was absolutely golden today. She was the perfect little angel. The three of us were sitting in the waiting room looking at all the brochures for living with AIDS and Hepatitis C and such. It made me think we didn't have it so bad after all. At least we were only dealing with staph. That is what the doctor told us today. They are pretty sure that it was staph that was causing all the problems. The pathology report showed no abcesses in the tumor at all and they are confident they have taken care of whatever was left behind. However, they decided to keep Trent on the IV antibiotics, Vancomycin and Meropenum, for a couple more weeks. That way when the chemo knocks off all of Trent's neutrophils he will still have something to fight any infection with. I felt pretty good about that. Both of the doctors looked at the incision and were very happy that there is no outward sign of infection at all and all of the labs are coming back normal. YEAH! We LOVE normal!

As the time comes closer for the next round of chemo we are more and more scared. It does not help at all that we know EXACTLY what it is like! It is AWFUL! It is hard to go through that all again after we have had some time with Trent feeling pretty good. But we are excited to get back to kicking cancer!

Texas Roadhouse Rocks!

My sister-in-law works at Texas Roadhouse and they have offered to do a fundraiser for our family. On Monday if you go there and mention our name 10% of your bill will be donated to help Trent kick cancer!

New Friends

Me, Trent, Todd, and Steph

(My lens had a fingerprint on it, sorry for the fuzziness!)

We have been looking forward to our visit with Todd and Steph for a while now. They are friends from Pocatello who are going through cancer treatments too. They found our blog from the radio ad for the cupcake fundraiser and we have been able to share many things. Our lives have traveled very similar paths and have finally crossed. All things happen for a reason. It was a great visit and we are glad to count them as friends. We are praying for you Todd and Steph!

Trent has done much better today. He was up helping to tend kids, clean the kitchen, and watch the dog. It was so nice to see him up and about. The pain in his chest was mostly gone until this evening when it started to act up again. The morphine we were given doesn't seem to help too much. We will have to start doubling up on the oxycodone. Besides the pain in his chest he keeps saying it feels like his stitches are going to split wide open. I am sure that won't happen. Number one-no more stitches, and number two-his incision is completely healed and looking beautiful. All the little holes that the stitches were in have bled just a bit before they scabbed over. When Trent sees even a drop of blood he assumes something is wrong. I can totally understand that reaction because of the horrifying hole that was the biopsy site. However, since the surgery he has healed up great. Just a psychological thing I guess.

We did hear back from Huntsman today. We are still on schedule to start chemo on Monday. As of now the drug regimen has not changed. We are going with doxrubycin and cisplatin. They are both nasty for nausea but not the brain stuff. Hopefully Trent will remain lucid and normal, albeit sick, throughout this round. We are enjoying the last few days of feeling good before the horror begins anew. We have to keep thinking, it is a means to an end. We have to do this to make him better, but it is all so backwards. Pushing him to the brink of death just to yank him back is awful. It is terrifying and horrible to watch and I don't even have to feel it. I can't imagine that I would hold up as well as he has. I am so proud of him and completely in awe of his strength. Together we will see this thing through.

Do You Want the Bad News or the Worse News?

I had a million and one things I needed to catch up on today so when Trent announced he was having chest pain I knew we were in trouble. I have been especially aware of any new symptom he has been having lately. He kind of has a cough and he always feels like he has something in his throat or chest that he can't cough up. It has been scaring me to death that the cancer in his lungs is actually big enough to feel.

When he told me he was hurting I did twenty questions with him trying to figure out if it was cardiac or pulmonary. I was worried about a clot in his lung. I told him I thought he needed to see a doctor and he was adamant he did not. Well, I won. I called Katie at the Huntsman and she got us an appointment for a scan a hour and a half later. President Baird and my dad gave Trent a blessing before we left. That made me feel a lot better. We zoomed down to SLC and saw Dr. Voorhies. He told us he thought Trent may be having a pulmonary embolism. Great. One more thing. We couldn't decide which was worse to have-a pulmonary embolism or cancer so big that it causes pain. I think they are pretty much a toss up. Both are pretty dang scary.

We got Trent in for the scan and just as they were pushing him into the machine he started having massive chest pains. Scared me to death. But I calmly told him to take deep breaths and relax. The scan was over quick and we went back to see Dr. Voorhies. We were worried he would be admitted for anticoagulant therapy. The nurse said we would probably just have to do some shots at home because judging by the way Trent looked it probably wasn't a very big clot.
Then Dr. Voorhies came in and told us the good news. It was not a pulmonary embolism. Then he told us the bad news. The cancer had grown so big it was putting pressure on the pulmonary wall and causing the pain. Not fabulous. He will talk with Dr. Gouw and we should be getting a call tomorrow afternoon to give more details about the treatment plan now.

I can't say we were shocked at the news. Trent hasn't had chemo for five weeks now. We had to know the cancer would continue to grow without treatment but there was a little part of me that was really hoping things would be better than this. I didn't expect everything to be smooth sailing after removing the giant tumor on his hip, but I was still hoping it would be.

We are still very hopeful about the next round of chemo. We have been praying for Dr. Gouw constantly and will continue to do so. This is just a little bump on the big bump on our road.

Railroad Tracks

Trent finally got the stitches out today. All 38 of them, spanning about 16" down his side. He is left with a pretty gnarly scar but the incision looks great in terms of healing. The actual taking out of the stitches was not too bad. Some of them were pretty tight and those were a bit tender but Trent chatted away with the nurse the entire time.

It ended up being another very long day at the Huntsman. Trent's port was clotting again and we had to do the medication to clear it out which takes a couple of hours. We forfeited the consult room/nap room :) to do a couple of errands for my Dad while we waited. Too bad, because we were dang tired by the time we got home.

I just have to say again how nice it has been to have Trent back mentally. We had such a great time today and I just had to smile while I listened to him chatter away with everyone. He is such a great guy and so sweet. I love him so much! I really miss him when he turns into chemo patient. I know that Trent hates it too. He is feeling so good and so much like himself that it really makes us dread chemo next week. We know it is for the best and a necessary evil, but we are not looking forward to it at all.

Fun Day with my Hubby!

Happy Pioneer Day!

We had a great weekend. Saturday Trent was able to go with Zach, Jarom, and his friend and his boys to the movie. That was huge! We even traveled to Providence to do it! He was tired when we got back but not too bad. Since the surgery he has slowly regained his strength. Each day he is a little stronger than the day before. He even scoots around a little without any crutches at all. It is nice to see him get better every day. We have had so much fun talking to the real Trent-he is really funny! That chemo brain is so NOT fun.

Last night Trent's sister Trisha and her husband came from California. It was so good to see them! We hadn't seen them for over two years. They had never even seen Jonathan. It was fun to have them stay with us. They headed out early this morning to go to the Rasmussen Family Reunion. We had hoped to go to but that was just too much of a drive for Trent. I was nervous that we would get up there and he would be miserable and I wouldn't be able to help him. Ultimately I left it up to Trent who decided he could not do it yet. He really misses his family and wanted so badly to go and tell them all how much he loved them. It was a tough decision to make.

Today Trent actually went to all three hours of church. We had many ward members come and greet and us say how happy they were to see him there. We were happy too. It felt good to be there and we both enjoyed every minute of it. Trent had an awesome lesson in Elder's Quorum about the Priesthood. They discussed the power and authority of the priesthood and how important it is to petition God using the priesthood. We had a similar lesson in Relief Society. Both of our testimonies of the priesthood have grown exponentially. We have come to KNOW more fully that the priesthood is the authority to act in the name of God. What power that is! We are seeing daily the blessings we have been given come to fruition in our lives. It is humbling and amazing. We are so grateful however unworthy we may feel.

Fun Day

Today was pretty good too. Trent is still dealing with post op pain but doing well. His incision looks beautiful and is healing really well. The holes from the drains are hardly draining anything at all but his leg and side are a bit swollen. He keeps complaining of being sore and I have to remind him that he is now forcing a little tiny muscle to do the work of several large muscles. He is getting pretty good at getting himself in and out of bed. He gets around pretty much all by himself. He still needs some help when he has been in one position for extended periods of time but is mostly independent now. He still doesn't eat with us at the table because those darn chairs are just too hard on his bum! So he eats on the fluffy couch instead.



We got Trent outside for a bit this evening to watch the kids learn to ride bikes. We showed off some of the tricks we have been teaching Scout and that was about all he could handle.



It is pretty scary to watch Trent change physically. He is starting to lose his eyebrows and eyelashes and I don't love that. I knew it would come but I secretly hoped it wouldn't happen to him. It makes him really look like a cancer patient. Little by little this is all starting to sink in. My husband has cancer. Cancer is our life. Hope is our future.