PET Scan Results

So, as many of you know, Scott had his PET Scan this morning.  I had to work.  :P
The scan was at 7:30am and we had the results by 10:14am.
Good news:  The radiologists were baffled.  Everyone is baffled.  They pulled up the scans and the lymph node that was big and abnormal looking last month is now completely normal.  It's uptake time of the radioactive dye was within normal limits (the cancer cells uptake the dye quickly because they think it's delicious, so that's how you can see the abnormal cells on the scan.), and nothing around it looked suspicious either!  They looked through the rest of the scan of his body and could find NOTHING - meaning that Scott doesn't have to have surgery for now!   I wanted to jump up and down the hall at work when I heard the news and scream it in everyone's faces!  We are so happy and thankful that our prayers were answered beyond what we even dreamed we could have hoped for!
We still don't know why Scott's calcitonin levels jumped so quickly and we will have to continue to monitor that closely.  He will probably have another one drawn soon.  The PET Scan can't really detect anything smaller than 1cm, so we will have to repeat it in a few months to make sure nothing is growing. In the meantime, a copy of today's scan has been mailed off to Dr. Moley, our specialist at Washington University, to review.
We feel like we live in a world of emotional extremes right now.  We've spent the last few weeks completely accepting this surgery and diagnosis, only to have it wiped away.  I'm thrilled - completely thrilled - but still can barely believe it and don't really know what to do with myself.  It's a total shift of thinking again.

SO, thank you all for all of your prayers and encouragement!  We know that God had His almighty hand in this and are grateful most of all to Him.  We'll keep you updated as we follow this over the next weeks and months.

Oh. Hey Mom,

I was just... Uhhh,  ...decorating?

I have been blessed

A peace has settled over me today and I am ok with cancer once again.  I have come to an acceptance point I guess, and although I do not like it one bit, I am not going to let it control my attitude anymore.  For now. This morning a friend called asking for advice.  Someone she knows was recently diagnosed with cancer (a different kind than Scott's) that presented much the way his did.  His prognosis is not as good as Scott's though and his treatment will be worse in some ways, making for a difficult road ahead.  After talking with her I felt a burden lift off of me and Martina McBride's song "Blessed" has been running through my head ever since.  Hearing a story similar to ours snapped me out of my sulky bitterness I've been walking around with since we got Scott's CT results.  Scott and I definitely don't have the best circumstances all around at this time, but when I consider how much worse things could be, I have nothing to complain about right now.  God has dumped more grace in our laps than we know what to do with and I am stunned at people's generosity and kindness continuously.  So basically, I could blabber on about this longer, but it all boils down to the fact that I have chosen to be thankful today for the good things we have in our life.

We met with Dr. Abbas, a cardiothoracic surgeon (the best we've been told) at Ochsner today just to get another consult.  We have a new game plan that has developed over the last 24 or so hours and he agreed with it.  We have Scott's PET scan next Tuesday and it will be read immediately.  If the lymph node in Scott's Mediastinum is still the only thing they see we will probably be having surgery here in town by the first week in August with Dr. Abbas.  If there are more areas of concern - say in Scott's neck, or elsewhere - we will stick with our surgery date of August 25th in St. Louis with Dr. Moley and Dr. Patterson, the cardiothoracic surgeon he works with.  The surgery to remove the lymph node we know about is rather basic for a cardiothoracic surgeon and, if possible, it would just be easier to be here in town where we are close to home and know lots of people.  So, please pray that there are no other naughty spots to deal with and that we can hopefully get this all over with sooner, rather than later.

Escape Artist of the Day

Beatrice is naughty.  I guess she has been feeling the spirit of competition with Winston ever since his courageous adventure a few weeks ago and had to prove herself.  Here's what went down today:
Scott built the chamelions a little sunning post outdoors that they were starting to outgrow, so today he concocted a new one.

Much thought went into this - it's supposed to be high enough that they would stay in it, but low enough that if they somehow managed to fall out they wouldn't be hurt hopefully.  He even added the safety measure of a barrier ring on the ground so if they should by some random act of God happen to fall out (or jump) they wouldn't be able to go far (the metal ring was more buried yesterday).  Well, Beatrice outsmarted us.  She is an odd one, that's for sure.  Chamelions crawl up generally - they want to be high and safe - it's instinct.  She doesn't.  She likes to be low to the ground and hides on the bottom of her cage all the time.  So, we took them outside to the sunning spot and Winston climbs to the top, meanwhile Beatrice goes right down as low as she can and hangs off a little vine over the edge by her tiny back foot and tail.  We kept checking on them and she stayed there.  I tried to help her in once and she went right to that spot again.  I walked in the house for a few minutes, came back out and she was gone.  

We searched the yard high and low.  Pouring sweat in the heat of the day, crawling around under the stairs, searching through the vines and grass, checking every inch of the house, fence, stairs, any surface we could see while hoping we didn't step on her.  After inspecting our whole yard and digging through the only bush we have several times, we gave up.  The only thing we could think is that she had somehow jumped from that little vine and cleared the metal barrier on the ground before scurrying off across the yard.  We solaced ourselves that we had gotten her to be a big enough girl that she could hunt on her own and hopefully we would someday see her as a huge colorful chamelion running wild in New Orleans.  
Tonight we went to dinner at our neighbor's house.  On the walk back we decided to look for Beatrice in one last valiant attempt.  Our only hope was that it was dark, and she turns bright green when she sleeps and is easy to spot.  Perhaps she  would be in the bush we had looked through all afternoon?  Scott put his headlamp on and marched outside.  Immediately, this is what we discovered.

Beatrice was sound asleep on a leaf at the top of that blasted bush we had dug through so many times!  We pried her off carefully, marched her right back inside, plopped her in her cage and latched the door.  Hopefully we don't have any more scares from these two rascals anytime soon!  Although, I do wonder how long she would have lived in that bush if we let her...

Winston and Beatrice back together again

Baaaaah

So, we got up early this morning and left the house by 7:00 for Scott's PET Scan.  Got to Ochsner, drove around hunting for parking, traipsed across the hospital double-time (because they moved the scanner apparently since December?), and arrived in admitting only to discover that his appointment is NEXT Tuesday.  I guess we should have asked the date, and not just the day, when the nurse called to inform us of the appointment.  Such a waste of a perfectly good morning to sleep in when we are both off work together...

Gas

Oh. My. Word.  I cannot even believe Lucy tonight!  She must have snuck some of Ariyah's food today.  At first I thought I must be mistaken lying here in the dark when I heard the sound of a little fart coming from her side of the room, but nooooo.  She keeps passing gas like a college-age boy who just filled up on beans and beer, without the slightest bit of regard for the rest of us here in the room!  Scott is softly snoring beside me and Ariyah is chomping away on her rawhide, while Lucy sounds like she got a hold of a whoopie cushion in her kennel.  At least the smell is staying by her and so far my nose hasn't been plagued by her stench.  Here's to hoping I can fall asleep before the smell creeps across the room.....  Ugh, there she goes again.

Off to Texas

We flew to Amarillo on Thursday and spent this weekend in Panhandle, TX.  We went to visit our really good friends, Adam and Jessica Young, who are going to be having a baby any day now.  Jessica's twin sister, Emily, who we are also good friends with, drove out from Oklahoma City and it was great to see her as well!  Scott and Adam went to college together and were in the same Fraternity and are pretty much the best of friends.  We always have so much fun together and it was great to be able to catch up on everything with them.  They have been completely remodeling a home and so much has changed since we were last out there, over a year ago.  We were able to help get quite a few projects done, celebrate Adam's birthday, and even squeeze a little relaxing in there.

Me, Jessica, Emily, Adam & Scott out to dinner in Amarillo

Scott & Adam at the Birthday breakfast

Emily, Jessica, and me at Adam's Birthday Breakfast

Emily and I helped Jessica get the nursery painted & finished some last minute shopping to prepare for baby.  We just wish he would have decided to come see us while we were out there  :)  

Bummers

This last week has been full of calls to insurance, consults with doctors, making appointments, and lots of cell phone minutes used talking to friends and family.  We talked to Dr. Moley after he reviewed all the reports and he has said the lymph node needs to come out within the next month.  We are also getting a PET Scan (basically a detailed CT Scan) on Tuesday morning to look at the rest of Scott's body and make sure nothing else has popped up.
Dr. Moley contacted one of the Cardio-Thoracic Surgeons he works with to do the surgery.  Scott will need to have a Microsternectomy, which makes me sick to my stomach as they will have to cut through bone to get to the lymph node(s) behind his sternum.  After Dr. Moley's scheduler worked for a whole day, re-arranging schedules, the soonest time we are able to get into an OR at Washington University with both of these doctors is on August 25th.  Because Dr. Moley originally said he wanted to do surgery sooner than that, we are still waiting to see if this date can be moved up.
Scott is still consulting with other doctors and we are going to try and see a Cardio-Thoracic surgeon here in town this week to get more opinions on the plan of care.  We may also talk with another Ear, Nose and Throat doctor and see if they have more ideas.  We want to continue to explore all of our options, to be absolutely sure of our choices.
As a result of all of this, I will be calling Frontier School of Midwifery tomorrow to decline my spot to start the Graduate School program this fall semester.  The week of orientation would start a few days after Scott's surgery and we both think school + work + cancer are a little too overwhelming at this point.  We are also going to miss two weddings we were really looking forward to, and our two week vacation out of the country  set for the beginning of September.  Major bummers all around, but we are moving on and trying to accept it all.  We hope that we can get this icky stuff out of the way now, and we're sure there will be plenty more vacations later.
Thanks for the continued prayers and calls and texts and comments and love you send!  We are so grateful for it all :)

Cancer Frustrations

Well, today was disappointing.  It has been almost six months since Scott's surgery and we had our big follow up appointment with Dr. Panunti, our Endocrinologist at Ochsner.  Earlier this week Scott had a CT Scan of his chest and neck and repeat labs drawn.  We had three goals for today:  1-Calcitonin levels would be below 500.  2-Scott's thyroid levels would be within normal range.  3-The spots on Scott's lungs would not have increased in size or number since the last CT Scan.

SO, the good news:  We achieved one of our goals!  The spots they saw on Scott's lungs are still the same, meaning they are probably just granuloma's (scars from a previous sickness of some kind).  The bad news though, is that Scott's Calcitonin levels have increased to 800 in the last two months.  Normal range is 0-15, Scott's were almost to 3,000 before surgery, and have been at about 500 since surgery.  The increase is an indicator to us that cancer is growing again somewhere.  Dang it  (confession: I said a much different word to myself in the office).

The CT Scan also found an enlarged lymph node in Scott's mediastinum, the area behind his upper sternum (breast bone).  Also another dang it.  I tried to take the news in stride and managed not to cry in the doctor's office in front of her and her fellow and the medical student following our oh so very interesting case.  I think Scott was trying not to just get up and stomp his feet and yell like an angry 2 year old.  We both did a pretty good job controlling our emotions.  Dr. Panunti says it's time to go somewhere else again for further care.  Scott's is the second case she has ever seen and it's time to go to the experts.  It's hard hearing a really good doctor say she doesn't know what to do with you anymore.  This means either back to Washington University in St. Louis where Dr. Moley is, or to MD Anderson.  The news is so frustrating.  We wanted so badly to be normal again.

We faxed all of Scott's results to Dr. Moley and will probably hear back from him next week.  The next step will most likely be to biopsy the lymph node that is enlarged.  Then we'll probably have another surgery and possibly try a new experimental drug that just came out.  It's overwhelming thinking about doing everything over again that we recovered from in January.  What happens to grad school?  And now I really need to stay at least part time at my job when I start grad school because we need my benefits since they've already approved everything and cover everything so well. That overwhelms me that it's no longer just an option, but a necessity.  What happens with residency?  Scott's program has been absolutely AMAZING and so gracious in dealing with him and his sick self throughout this last year, but if we need another extensive surgery or experimental chemo it's hard to take any more time off than he already has.  What happens to our vacation we were going to take in September?  And getting chickens?  And who will take care of the dogs when we go out of town?  And feed the chameleons their gross bugs that Scott doesn't mind? And is this going to be something we have to deal with for the rest of our lives???  When will we ever have kids if we're always fighting cancer?  Why Scott? Why us? All these questions have been flooding my mind since the appointment and trying to swallow me up.  I'll be the first to admit I'm being a little irrational and over dramatic about it all, but that's my first reaction.

Now I'm just trying to take deep breaths and not freak out too much about next month and two months and six months from now.  I'm going to put my makeup back on and go to dinner and laugh and carry on like a rational human being.  We're just going to continue to take it one day at a time and deal with it.  I remember feeling this way and much worse when we first got the diagnosis in December and we came through that first surgery just fine.  Everything will work itself out along the way.  Stressing just gives me an ulcer and makes me want to cry all afternoon.  Which I still did for a while anyways.  And then napped.  We are thankful it's not Scott's lungs.  And that it's only one lymph node so far.  And that we have great doctors who are willing to go the extra mile for us.  And amazing family and friends who pray for us everyday and are so supportive.  Life will be ok.  It's just going to be more work.

*Heavy sigh*  Alright, done ranting about all that.  Last thing from the appointment is that Scott is now Hyperthyroid.  Meaning he's got all sorts of extra hormones in there going crazy.  He feels the best he's felt since last spring though, so for now Dr. Panunti says it's alright.  The benefits out-weigh the risks.  He's not symptomatic and so we'll just continue to keep an eye on it for now and let him be happy and have energy.

Adjustments

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at how crazy our house has gotten with two dogs.  Lucy passes gas in front of guests without guilt, snores, drools and doesn't wait her turn.  Yet we can't stay mad at her for more than two minutes because she is SO cute.  Her mannerisms are hilarious!  Ariyah doesn't know what to do with her half the time.  She has really started making herself quite at home, especially in the last 48 hours.  She is testing the limits to the max, attempting to see just how far she can go.  Her and Ariyah are T.R.O.U.B.L.E when unsupervised.  So far they have pulled pillows off of the couch and bed on separate occasions to use as they please (luckily I have caught them both times before any holes were chewed).  Yesterday I left them in the bedroom for three minutes and Lucy had her way with the corner of a text book of mine that was on the floor.  That bought her a nice time out in the kennel.  Our backyard is fenced in (thank you Jesus) so we can put them out there whenever we need to.  Well, last night we caught Lucy trying to dig through to China in a little patch of dirt between the concrete patio and the brick wall.  That bought her a good scruff-grabbing scolding from Scott and a bath (which she didn't seem to mind - her feelings cannot be hurt...so we thought).  Until she punished us for her punishment by leaving a gift of poo in the dining room five minutes later.  This bought her a good forced inspection of said mess and 15 whole minutes in the kennel.  She finally calmed down after that and just wanted love the rest of the night, which we will happily give.
So far today she has chewed off the end of a football (much to Ariyah's grief as that football is one of her favorite toys), attempted to chew up Ariyah's dog bed, and been caught in the act trying to steal pillows again.  All of which have gotten her good scoldings and several nice shots in the face with the spray bottle of water (which she detests).  It's like watching a naughty toddler!   She has had a year of bad habits instilled in her from her previous family that we are gradually going to have to train out of her. We have faith that she will learn and this is just an adjustment period that any adoptive family would have to go through, but still.  It's work!

          My Nursing Textbook....

Exciting changes

Scott is done with his first year of residency!!!!  Yesterday marked his last day as an Intern and today he starts his second of four years.  He'll be working a few less hours and be able to Moonlight now (work as a doctor in other ER's or Urgent Care Clinics when they are short staffed, to get paid real money).  I can hardly believe we've lived here for over a year now and come so far!  It has flown by and I am so proud of him and the rest of the resident's he works with for doing so well.  The next two weeks he has "orientation" again where they work with the new, incoming Interns to teach them things, and also learn how to take on the leadership position they will have as second years - making more independent decisions in the care of patients.  He'll be working only a few hours each day and it's going to be really nice to have him around.

In other exciting news, I was accepted to graduate school last Wednesday!  I applied to two programs and have yet to hear back from one of them, but Frontier School of Midwifery accepted me for the Master's program to become a Certified Nurse Midwife!  I'm so excited and leaning towards their program anyways I believe, but still waiting to hear from University of Cincinnati before I whole-heartedly accept.  Hopefully I will know in the next week or so.