A Bit Behind

Sorry this is being put up a bit late. Kathie had treatment on Monday and also her bi-monthly meeting with Dr. Aklilu (is it bi-monthly or bi-weekly... she meets with him every other week would be the point).

Dr. Aklilu feels that her fatigue and pain could be from either the cancer growing OR from the cancer responding to the chemo - nice political answer, and probably just what Kathie needed to hear as she occasionally has been slipping into the pessimistic side of things.

He also felt that she has been living with an amount of pain that has demonstrateably (yep, made up word - so says spell check ) been affecting her quality of life (she's been too tired to do much and her appetite has dipped pretty low). To remedy this situation, he has asked her to wear a pain patch on a regular basis. Initially after putting it on, she felt great... and then all the drugs in her system caught up with her and Wednesday morning she spent throwing up and feeling loopy. Things have balanced back out, and she seems to be benefiting greatly from this new addition to "treatment."

Dr. Aklilu has also asked her to take pepcid regularly to control some heartburn issues. She's been getting a dry scalp due to the Erbitux and he suggested something like Selsun Blue or similar to help that - oh, if only every solution came in a $2.99 blue bottle!

On another note, due to the lowering appetite, Kathie continues to stay at a lower weight than ideal and we've been trying to think of brilliant and healthy ways to add some calories. If anyone has some high calorie suggestions that do not include sugar or artificial sugar, shoot Lauren an e-mail: laducharme@bsu.edu

Last, SCRAPBOOK - Lauren is hitching a ride from Bob on the 9th down to NC... the book is going down with her to give as an early Valentine's Day present. If you are planning on your page being in there when she gets it, please get it in the mail by Monday so Lauren can get it together. Also, please make sure your name(s) is/are on it somewhere:) The stories and letters have been great (not that I'm reading them;) ) - if you want to write a longer letter than will fit on the page, there is no shame in attaching an envelop to the sheet - the top of the scrapbook pages are open, so it can easily be slipped out for viewing.

Don't forget to mail everything to Lauren's school address - e-mail the above address if you need the apartment address.

Thanks to those who have already sent the pages, I think she'll be very touched by your pages... and thank you to those who almost have it ready to pop in the mail (right???)..... and thank you to those who at least are reading the blog and praying for her:) All of you are amazing and your concern for Kathie and the family is deeply touching to all of us.

oooh... speaking of family, in a little over a week, the DuCharme family will be reunited for the second time in a year!!! (unprecedented since Christen headed to the sunny island life) - Christen is on the mainland as of today and back with Bob and Kathie next week. Lynette will be making a visit to NC around the same time as Lauren (though is lucky enough to stay for a couple of weeks... ) I believe the children were somehow tricked into helping unpack and set up the Lexington house - oh, I think it was with gentle reminders of how Bob and Kathie had paid for colleges, credit card bills while in college, put food on the table, made sure no one fell into the Grand Canyon, etc. :) Parent card, works every time!

Posted by Lauren

A little off

Lauren and Kathie enjoyed a nice weekend together. Kathie picked Lauren up from the airport on Saturday and went almost straight to a bridal shop appointment at a schmancy place. Surprisingly, they did not decide to buy the $5,000 dress;) They had a short appointment so they could make it to Alec's basketball game (which was pretty great for 7 and 8 year olds!). Alec's team won by 4 points.

Saturday continued to be busy - after a VERY quick bite to eat, Kathie and Lauren headed to the tile shop to finalize some things for the Lexington house. After that they went to David's Bridal - neither of them thought this was ideal, and the service was chaotic and pressured as they expected... however, Lauren found "the dress." Not wanting to make a compulsive buy, they made an appointment for Sunday and returned with the entourage (Melissa, Emily, Bob and Ben's sister, Liz). They bought the dress on Sunday.

Not surprisingly, Kathie was a bit pooped after a day of running around, but her spirits were good. Sunday, after they bought the dress, Lauren left for Winston-Salem to see Ben and his family, and Bob and Kathie joined them later that evening.

Kathie and Lauren looked at the church Monday afternoon before heading to go look at reception places. Again, by the time Lauren and Kathie made it back to Apex, Kathie was a bit tired, but after a quick nap and dinner was ready to hit the movies with Lauren. They went and saw 27 Dresses (definitely a chick flick, but cute). Since Bob had left for home, Lauren slept in Kathie's room and they got up early to head to the airport on Tuesday.

Lauren flew out Tuesday, and Kathie made the second trip this week to Winston with Eddie to go get her Erbitux treatment. The benedryl knocked Kathie out shortly after they started. Wednesday she woke up feeling a bit off and ended up taking an hour and half nap in the afternoon.

Lately, she's been having a few more aches and pains (shoulder, back, a bit of nausea, some shortness of breath occasionally and a rapid heart beat once in awhile). Overall though, she says she hasn't been feeling too bad - the fatigue is still what is slowing her down. The next month will probably add to that, as the house is finalized in Lexington. There are hopes to sleep in the new house before mid-February (keep your fingers crossed!). Since they will need some things in the new house, Lauren is meeting Bob and Kathie in Lafayette in a couple of weeks to pack up some of the house. Christen will be coming the next week to help continue the process.

Kathie is starting to lose her hair again, but it is not obvious yet on her head - it's still pretty full.

Posted by Lauren

Treatment

Kathie received treatment today. The benydryl as usual, knocked her out. This evening, however, she seemed to have more pep than usual after treatment. Also, there were some very positive blood test results - red: higher than they've been in awhile, white: good... CEA was elevated - but we have learned to ignore it after the over enthusiasm in Lafayette when it dipped. Next Monday she is off due to MLK Day, but Lauren and her will probably find something to do in Winston anyway for wedding stuff:)

Christen is gracing the mainland with her presence beginning at the end of January, and she'll be joining Bob and Kathie February 6th.

In about 3 weeks Kathie will be having new scans to see if the present course of treatment is working so if you've gotten lax on those prayers, now would be a good time to beef them up and harass Mother Teresa a bit;)

Thanks again for those I have heard back from about the scrapbook! Please make sure to e-mail me if you are going to do it! I do not want anything mailed to the Lafayette house... I need it to be mailed to my school address.

Posted by Lauren

Edit to the plan

Yay! I heard back from several of you... but I also got a good suggestion in there that will speed the process up. I'm not a regular scrapbooker, so I forgot about the kind that just have plastic sheets that paper can slide into... so I'm going to do one with a 12x12 page. If you go to Michael's, Hobby Lobby, Scrapbook Bug, etc... you should be able to get a 12x12 sheet - there are all sorts of sheets to do it on. You can do as many as you want in theory... but maybe try to keep it to a reasonable 1-2 so that I don't have to buy a three ring binder instead;)

I realize this means you'll have to fold it when you mail it - just do the best you can. Still e-mail me to let me know you want to do it... and I'll e-mail back my address... clearly I don't want to post that on here.

Thanks for the enthusiasm:)

Posted by Lauren

Kathie hates to read (but not letters)

So, the good news about Kathie's blog is that she doesn't really read it;) Why is this good you may ask? Well, it gives me an opportunity to tell you about a little project I'm planning... if I can keep my ducks in a row at school...

At Jeannie's funeral last year, the priest made a comment that stuck with me... due to the beautiful notes written by Dave and his girls, the priest had suggested to all of us that we take the time to write a letter to someone who we hadn't spoken to in awhile, or who might enjoy receiving a letter. Well, I thought about how maybe this could be done on a larger scale and for a different purpose.

So here is the plan. I would like to create a little scrapbook for Kathie with pages made by her friends. I figure the pages could include a letter or a favorite memory about/shared with her and maybe some pictures (older ones would be even better! :) ) This serves or can serve 2 or so purposes:

1) It can show her how important she is to all of you and give her a little more edge to keep that fighting spirit... and hopefully can add a little laughter here and there - butt jokes can only go so far in keeping the humor up;)

2) It can be an opportunity to say things that we often wait to say until someone is gone

3) twenty years from now, when Kathie is gone, it can be a great book of memories of their mom for the kids, and a way to get to know grandma better for the grandkids.

How I would like to do this... I want people who would like to make a page to e-mail me with their name and address and I will mail out the scrapbook page and before the middle of February you would mail it back to me... the sooner the better. I would like it to be a Valentine's Day gift, maybe... but that might be unrealistic (for me to get it together with school), but we'll see what I do.

So clearly, you need to e-mail me ASAP if you are interested: laducharme@bsu.edu
E-mail me within the next week!

There is absolutely no pressure to do a page - I don't know who reads this anyway... but I didn't want to selectively mail out things to people and miss people who would have enjoyed the opportunity to be involved... and my plan to steal addresses from her address book over break failed miserably because of my lovely illness most of break.

So, clearly, this is an experimental project... but I'm hoping for the best:)

Posted by Lauren

A new addition to the mix

Kathie went in for chemo yesterday. It went well, but the meeting with Aklilu lead to a suggestion that Kathie get a neulasta shot after her Camptasar and Erbitux treatment because her neutrophil count went down "so low" with the last one. As far as we're concerned, it's all relative - I mean, we were all thrilled with 1100 - it seemed a heck of a lot better than 6! However, Dr. Aklilu's opinion is clearly a little more important than ours. So, Kathie will go in for neulasta on Wednesday. She will get it every other week - so just the weeks she gets the combo of both drugs. The only slightly odd thing is that it is not typically done. There is no info on the books about taking neulasta with the Erbitux... but Aklilu did not seem concerned about that, the concern is more with making sure she does not become neutropenic and can stick with this regime the full 2 months.

The chemo of course knocked her out a bit - she was very sleepy and only "rang in the new year" when some mischievous neighbors set off some fireworks;)

Good riddance to 2007 - we're hoping for a much happier 2008.

Posted by Lauren