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
Monday, January 14, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
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
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
Friday, January 11, 2008
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
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
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
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
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
Thursday, December 27, 2007
In and out
Kathie was checked in quickly (as in... 15 minutes) to Wake Forest in Winston-Salem on Christmas evening. Bob spent the night with Ben's family. They actually let Kathie sleep through the night after taking her temp and blood pressure at 11:30. At 10:30 in the morning, two oncologists came in to talk to her. The good news was that her white count had actually gone up since her blood tests on Monday... the bad is that she definitely had some sort of upper respiratory infection. They gave her some antibiotics via an IV but she got checked out in the afternoon...
Lauren spent 4 hours in urgent care the day after Christmas and only got back about a half hour before Bob and Kathie. So... everyone is still stick, but slowly recuping. At least Kathie was not neutropenic!
Kathie was tired today, but still managed a visit to the new house with Bob, Lynette, Kaitlyn, Sophie, Ben and Lauren. The seven of them also met up with Ben's parents for a nice lunch at the winery between Lexington and Winston-Salem.
So, despite Christmas not being fantastic, we still had a nice day today. Everyone just kind of lounged yesterday... all of us on a nice amount of antibiotics.
Posted by Lauren
Lauren spent 4 hours in urgent care the day after Christmas and only got back about a half hour before Bob and Kathie. So... everyone is still stick, but slowly recuping. At least Kathie was not neutropenic!
Kathie was tired today, but still managed a visit to the new house with Bob, Lynette, Kaitlyn, Sophie, Ben and Lauren. The seven of them also met up with Ben's parents for a nice lunch at the winery between Lexington and Winston-Salem.
So, despite Christmas not being fantastic, we still had a nice day today. Everyone just kind of lounged yesterday... all of us on a nice amount of antibiotics.
Posted by Lauren
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Giving the doctors something to do
Well, we figured there are all those doctors and nurses that have to work on Christmas regardless, so we might as well make them feel like it was worthwhile to be there. Kathie was admitted into the hospital about an hour ago. They are doing the standard blood tests and starting an antibiotic tonight. Tomorrow (when you are allowed to have cancer), an oncologist will come in to look over everything and see how things are going.
Though the doctors made an excellent effort to keep Kathie out of the hospital on Christmas, her fever just kept going back up.
Bob and Kathie will stay in Winston tonight, and if Kathie is going to have to stay for a bit, Lauren, Lynette, Sophie and Kaitlyn will join them tomorrow.
All and all, this has not been our best Christmas... but tomorrow is a new day.
We will definitely be toasting to the end of 2007.
God bless.
Posted by Lauren
Though the doctors made an excellent effort to keep Kathie out of the hospital on Christmas, her fever just kept going back up.
Bob and Kathie will stay in Winston tonight, and if Kathie is going to have to stay for a bit, Lauren, Lynette, Sophie and Kaitlyn will join them tomorrow.
All and all, this has not been our best Christmas... but tomorrow is a new day.
We will definitely be toasting to the end of 2007.
God bless.
Posted by Lauren
Merry Christmas?
Well, as noted before, Kathie got to get the second part of her treatment yesterday on Christmas Eve. Kathie and Bob spent the 23rd night at Lauren's fiance's (yes, you read that correctly) family's house.
The appointment was early on the 24th, and since Winston is about an hour an a half from Eddie's, it was worth being 10 minutes down the road instead. Blood tests showed her white counts as decent - but she pretty much slept the day away after receiving her Erbitux.
Unfortunately, Eddie's house has been a house of disease. Emily had some sort of virus at the beginning of last week, and a cough that was going off and on most of the week. Bob had/has a sinus infection, Lauren is suspecting she has managed to get a lovely case of bronchitis (self-diagnosis... she'll go into urgent care tomorrow if she still feels this badly). Lynette has a bit of a cold, and Ben (Lauren's fiance as of 12/13) also was starting to get a bit of a cold as well, but has now retreated back with his family in Winston. Basically, Kathie was surrounded by germs... and despite best efforts to not breathe around her (and a ridiculous amount of hand washing)... she seems to have caught something.
As a result, Kathie spiked a fever of 103 last night, which almost earned her a first class car ride back to Winston-Salem to get checked into the hospital (apparently, you can't have cancer on Christmas Eve or Christmas - the cancer center at Rex in Raleigh was closed, as was the one at Wake Forest in Winston, but in Winston they were going to admit her to the hospital right away, in Raleigh, we would have had to go through the emergency room). The doctor prescribed a z-pak, and we have all been crossing our fingers that she isn't neutropenic. Luckily, Walgreens was open last night, so Bob and Lauren picked up her z-pak along with more meds for Lauren.
Some tylenol and a wet wash cloth got Kathie's fever down to 100... and the decision was made to just keep checking overnight. Kathie and Lauren slept downstairs on the couches... Lauren waking up every two hours to feel Kathie's forehead. Everything seemed fine at 3:30 AM when Lauren did her last check, but Bob came down at 5:30, and Kathie was back up past 102. Again, she almost got to take a trip to Winston, but a little bit of time, tylenol and the wash cloth took it back down to almost normal... so the doctor said to wait and see if the z-pak helped. However, if her fever goes back up, Bob is taking her to Wake Forest to get some blood tests and an IV going. Merry Christmas, huh?
Anyway, Kathie does not feel like she is neutropenic - she is not feeling the weakness she has in the past, she's just tired, and has a very attractive cough... second only to Lauren's. Just in case she is neutropenic, those questionable foods are being avoided until we know that low neutrophils are not the cause of her fever.
On the positive side, Lynette was able to extend her and the girls tickets, so she and the twins are still here visiting grandma - giving her a healthy dose of laughs and smiles.
Posted by Lauren
The appointment was early on the 24th, and since Winston is about an hour an a half from Eddie's, it was worth being 10 minutes down the road instead. Blood tests showed her white counts as decent - but she pretty much slept the day away after receiving her Erbitux.
Unfortunately, Eddie's house has been a house of disease. Emily had some sort of virus at the beginning of last week, and a cough that was going off and on most of the week. Bob had/has a sinus infection, Lauren is suspecting she has managed to get a lovely case of bronchitis (self-diagnosis... she'll go into urgent care tomorrow if she still feels this badly). Lynette has a bit of a cold, and Ben (Lauren's fiance as of 12/13) also was starting to get a bit of a cold as well, but has now retreated back with his family in Winston. Basically, Kathie was surrounded by germs... and despite best efforts to not breathe around her (and a ridiculous amount of hand washing)... she seems to have caught something.
As a result, Kathie spiked a fever of 103 last night, which almost earned her a first class car ride back to Winston-Salem to get checked into the hospital (apparently, you can't have cancer on Christmas Eve or Christmas - the cancer center at Rex in Raleigh was closed, as was the one at Wake Forest in Winston, but in Winston they were going to admit her to the hospital right away, in Raleigh, we would have had to go through the emergency room). The doctor prescribed a z-pak, and we have all been crossing our fingers that she isn't neutropenic. Luckily, Walgreens was open last night, so Bob and Lauren picked up her z-pak along with more meds for Lauren.
Some tylenol and a wet wash cloth got Kathie's fever down to 100... and the decision was made to just keep checking overnight. Kathie and Lauren slept downstairs on the couches... Lauren waking up every two hours to feel Kathie's forehead. Everything seemed fine at 3:30 AM when Lauren did her last check, but Bob came down at 5:30, and Kathie was back up past 102. Again, she almost got to take a trip to Winston, but a little bit of time, tylenol and the wash cloth took it back down to almost normal... so the doctor said to wait and see if the z-pak helped. However, if her fever goes back up, Bob is taking her to Wake Forest to get some blood tests and an IV going. Merry Christmas, huh?
Anyway, Kathie does not feel like she is neutropenic - she is not feeling the weakness she has in the past, she's just tired, and has a very attractive cough... second only to Lauren's. Just in case she is neutropenic, those questionable foods are being avoided until we know that low neutrophils are not the cause of her fever.
On the positive side, Lynette was able to extend her and the girls tickets, so she and the twins are still here visiting grandma - giving her a healthy dose of laughs and smiles.
Posted by Lauren
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