Happy Holy-days

As Christmas fast approaches (it’s Christmas eve as I write this), I’ve come to realize a couple of things.

First I want to apologize to all our friends & family for not sending out Christmas cards….again! I want you to know we do think of you often. To our family & friends here in Florida to family in New Jersey, Maryland, and Canada, across the country to California and anywhere our friends have ended up in between and the many kids we’ve hosted from overseas in Spain, Macedonia, Korea, Japan and the one in Hong Kong, we want to send much love and many Christmas wishes.

I also want to say, women who work and still keep the home are truly my heroes; especially those who have kids and go to school along with everything else. How you keep a home relationship is beyond me. Just trying to work and keep things running well at home has become so hard! Being dept. head for the library at school, President of PALMS (Pinellas Association of Media Specialists or inforMation Specialists), running, and just plain ol’ housework (including Gil & Jason)…. I can’t keep things organized. I wonder, now, how I kept it together last year when Gil was going through his treatments.

By the way, he is doing wonderfully. He sang in the church cantata (I helped with sound) and has been working on re-wiring the band set-up at church. Today we are hanging out with the McReynolds as there are 4 services at church today so, why bother going home to Clearwater when we just need to drive back to Tampa within a few hours.

But, back to the whole Christmas thing; I do want to thank everyone again for your support and love. We have really had a rough couple of years – Jason, 4 hurricanes, parents left “homeless” for 10 months, the loss of Nikita, Gil’s diagnosis and treatments, getting Jason through school and into college, I’m just muddling along, but we could not have done any of it without the support of our friends and family. We love you all very much.

Well, this may be a more personal blog on my side, but it's done; we are home, it's late, and it's time to go to bed.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!
Well, on Thursday, Nov. 23 I ran the 5K Turkey Trot (known as the "WingDing") in 28 minutes 41 seconds (4 minutes faster than last year). Then Gil and I went home, cleaned up and headed to SouthPort Square in Pt. Charlotte to celebrate Thanksgiving with Mom & Dad, cousing Jim and Aunt Ruth. Jason decided to stay home and take care of the dogs.

December 1st was the Anniversary Gil's first Chemo session. It came and went without much notice. But as he says, "hopefully we'll never have to do it again". We are all very thankful that it is done and over with, and that Gil is in good health to this day.

Well, December is a very busy month....Christmas performances, holiday parties, shopping, taking kids to the airport, and picking them up (ok, that's in Jan, but...), Christmas services, anniversary...oh, yeah....

December 21st we will be celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary. Jason will be heading home Dec. 13th - we are very happy he will be able to spend the holidays with his friends and family in Hong Kong. We will be done with our Christmas cantata at church and on break from work by the time we celebrate our anniversary, so we are spending two nights at Inn at the Bay, a bed & breakfast in St. Petersburg. It will be a nice break, but we will also be looking forward to Jan...sort of.

Happy Halloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Well, Gil had his PET scan last Thursday. Monday he had his follow up with the Dr. and....YAHOO!!!....he is ahead of schedule. In fact, he won't have another PET scan until March (but he will continue to have blood work done every three months). There was even more significantly less swelling in the lymph nodes around the neck (ok, how many are there and how big are they supposed to be anyway?). So he is healing wonderfully, and his blood work looks great, which makes us very happy. Now, that wasn't so scary, was it?

Race for the cure

OK, I know it was a while back (Oct. 7th) and I'm not thrilled at the pictures (Running really isn't a glamorous sport), but I figured I would go ahead and make the post. On Oct. 7th I did the "Race for the Cure": a 5K to raise money for the Susan G. Koman foundation for Breast Cancer awareness. I'm #24; Geri Craven (the other orange shirt #26) was my partner representing Seminole High.
I know I did the run in 32 minutes (which is pretty good considering there were about 10,000 people probably in the race; walking & running!).

Fun, fun, fun!

Umm… don't ask who the guy is, we really don't know...he was just an innocent bystander who looked into the lens at an inopportune time.

It is Finished!?

Well, sort of.
The port is now out. The last vestiges of cancer treatment are gone. The only thing left is the scar on his chest and the patch of hair missing on the back of his head. Now, all we have to deal with are the follow-up exams - Oct. 24th is his next PET scan.
Such fun. I will try to get pictures soon...

De-ported?

That's what Gil keeps calling it. On August 24th around 10am, Gil will officially be rid of all remnants of cancer treatment - he gets the port out. YEAH! We are very excited about all this.

In the meantime, we now have to figure out how to keep his blood pressure up and his triglycerides (a component of cholesterol) down. Is that possible? Should be fun.

TTFN!

Free & Clear

"Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last"
OK, Gil didn't say that (Martin Luther King Jr. did), but I think that's how he felt when Dr. Ball gave him the all clear. There is some swelling of lymph node(s) in the neck area but is suspected to be scarring and dormant, so he is cured. Now we are just waiting for an appointment to get the port out, and from here on out, it's just a matter of follow up exams (3 months until his next PET scan & Dr. appt).
So, CELEBRATE!
It's Over!

Oh, sorry...no pics yet. My goal is to get one of Gil & I, and one of David in his pretty pink cast (which will be sometime next week?).

About David...

OK, I promised a pic of Gil, but haven't managed it yet (someone out there also wants to see my hair and how it's grown, so...)... I will get it in time.

In the meantime...some "Breaking News"...Literally!
David broke his right ankle just a few hours ago while skateboarding. It seems he "dropped in" on the 4' half pipe (pike?) and, well, we're not really sure but we guess he came off the board on the slope. Anyway, at this time it looks to be a compound fracture and there will be surgery involved. Please pray for him and his family. He was supposed to be starting marching band this year, but now, will probably be out of commission about 2 months or more.

If you would like to send him anything, let us know. Also, if you do contact him, send him good, positive messages. He has already said he is giving up skateboarding, but he was also probably in a bit of shock at the time. I hate to see him give up an activity because of injury.

When you fall off the horse, ya' gotta pick yourself up, dust your self off and get right back on!

PET scan done!

PET scan is done. All went well...except for a couple of sore shoulders. Now we just wait for the results - which we won't get until July 31st when he has his follow-up appointment.
Please pray that all goes well, we can schedule to have the port removed, and resume a somewhat normal life.
Thank you all, again, for your prayers and support. Keep it comin'...we're not quite through yet.
Next post...I promise to have a pic of Gil (you gotta see his "new" hair).

re-schedule

The CAT scan/PET scan machine got fried in a lightning storm yesterday, so Gil's appointment has been moved to Friday the 14th (oooohhh...sounds almost scary).
He's one of about 10 people that needed to be rescheduled. Bummer...we were so looking forward to getting this done and scheduling the follow-up.
Waaaaa!

What we have been up to...

Ah the lazy day's of summer. Not much to do and no time schedule to get things done. I know I haven't posted in a while, but not much has been really going on. Let's see...

We painted/remodeled one of our bathrooms...





I (Carol) turned 40 on June 11th. That week I ran sound for VBS (vacation bible school) at our church...






That weekend we "demo'd" the youth room at church...







Then this last week of June we had David over for a skateboard camp at a skate park nearby (688 Skate park)....


And the small things like taking "training" classes, helping Jason get registered for classes at St. Petersburg College, Cleo (cat) having a massive urinary infection (pill & fluid therapy...I get to stick the cat with a needle...ewwww), having lunch with Gil at the print shop, Gil running the music for July 2nd service at church.

This week is July 4th - Happy Independence Day! Happy Birthday USA!! And July 5th is Gil's Birthday - Woo Hoo. Then on the 6th, he goes in for his PET scan...hopefully THE test that will bring us good news that this cancer ordeal is over.

Hope your having as much fun as we are!

Good News!

Now, for some really good news! Gil had his follow up appointment with the radiologist and he says everything looks very good. If there is anything there, he can't feel it. Gil does need to use moisturizer on the area, but that's about it. So - the radiologist say's he's clean! *sigh*

But that is not the definitive test. July 6th is the Pet Scan and those results will tell us what is next, if anything. So, hold your breath just a little longer...it's almost over.

Greetings from Key West

I finally got a chance to sign on and we are preparing to leave. Probably just as well I didn't sit on this thing all day. I am writing to you from a place called Bad A** Coffee drinking a frozen coffee thing and Gil is watching Law and Order on a flat screen. If there is air conditioning, I can't tell.
Anyway...here are a few pics....

Jason's graduation...YEAH!!

Just a few pics of Jason's big day... I couldn't get him to take the gown off (especially after he got a discount at Steak-n-Shake). Sorry - I couldn't get the pictures in the order they were taken - besides, he say's I don't take enough pics! HA!

The Mask

No, we are not talking about the Jim Carrey movie...but, silly me, I should have waited before making the previous post for this...

Jason had fun trying on Gil's radiation mask.

It's not quite what I expected, but now I understand what he meant about being locked down to a table. You can see the markings where he is supposed to get radiated in the second pic.
~WOW~!

Burns & Boils

Two more treatments to go! Woo Hoo. In the meantime, Gil is dealing with what looks like a nasty sunburn on his face (it's even peeling) and a mouthful of sores. He's lost some weight again due to the inablity to eat at times, but his energy has stayed up and his attitude is good. We are all counting down the days - 2 more treatments, 3 days until graduation and 4 days till vacation!

Gil is told that in about 3 weeks this should all be behind him. I hope that is right. He gets his next pet scan July 6th and I hope that means he is done! All Done!

In the meantime - my next post should be from the sunny island of Key West. Till Then....

Good News?

Well, for a while there we thought we were going to be able to report some great news, but, alas, we were told a little different.

The other day, Gil was told that Friday would be his last radiation treatment (yeah!), but he wanted to meet with the Dr. to be sure. Well, it does turn out that Friday his treatment will change from the general area to a more pinpointed treatment for the next 10 treatments using the information from his last Pet Scan (and I would guess the x-rays they take might help).

Over the weekend I noticed a patch of hair on the back of his head was starting to thin and by Monday it was gone! It seemed so sudden. His jaw is very sore and he is using Orajel to help with the gum soreness.

Other than that all is good. I have Advanced Placement tests happening in the library this week and have started inventory. Gil put in the new soundboard at church...I'll be going with him Wednesday to help finish up what he couldn't complete Tuesday night, and Thursday I will help out with band practice. Jason has been checking on his college application status - looks like he might be spending one semester at SPC before going to a University. So, we are trudging on with life. Hope everyone out there is doing well! ~ Love to all ~

What happens when Gil gets radiated?

Well, apparently not a whole lot! He has said he has some issues with the back of his tongue and his teeth, but no hair loss, no problems with the sun, no tiredness (other than what he has had recovering from Chemo) - at least nothing yet, and the Dr. is very surprised.

It looks like his radiation should be done by May 12, assuming there are no problems with the machines again like earlier this week.

As of today (4/24) he is looking at finishing up May 15th due to maintenance on the machines.

We got our tickets for our mini-vacation coming up in May -
May 18th Jason graduates and May 19th we put Jason on a plane back to Hong Kong, Mom & Dad (Horton) will come up to house sit and we take off for Ft. Myers. On the 20th we catch a boat to Key West where we will spend 2 days of fun in the sun (well, as much as Gil is allowed) before coming back.

We are VERY excited and counting down the days!

Well, until next posting...

Holy, Holy week!

What a way to spend Holy week. At school I'm dealing with SRI testing, running the library, and today I had massive muscle spasms in my neck and right shoulder. Gil has work, started radiation and we are both dealing with services at church (actually, he was only home Monday, but I had a SAC meeting that night).

Anyway, last Wed. Gil had his fitting. As it was told to me, he was strapped down to a table and a heated cheesecloth like mold was stretched across his face, clamped down and he was left to cool & harden. No movement for several minutes! And guess what they used for a handle – one super pointy nose! When Gil saw the mask, he told the nurse he knew his nose was pointy, but it’s not that pointy. She had to excuse herself from the room – to laugh!

As for the radiation, his first day was like a blind amusement ride. They had to do x-rays and the radiation treatment at 2pm Tuesday (4/11). He said he was strapped down, his masked clamped on (which is evidently very uncomfortable) then he rolled around from the x-ray machine to radiation machine in the same room and it was all done. All of about 15 minutes! Now his standing appointment is 4:45pm every weekday for the next 4 weeks.

Only one more month and life will simplify – school will be over, Jason will graduate, radiation & chemo will be behind us, it will be time to relax (a little).

Radiation schedule

OK, here we go adding to "Gil's glowing personality" as he puts it.

April 5th he has a fitting for his "iron mask" (another Gil term). His mask will leave the jaw line and part of his neck exposed.

Radiation starts April 10th and should be about 15 minutes from entry to exit (only about 2 minutes of actual radiation). He should expect some hair loss at the exposed part on the back of his neck, a sore throat and some tiredness (about what he already experienced with Chemo). Realistically, this will just kind of slow down his recovery from the Chemo.

But he has been complemented that he is a big, strong guy and if he could make it through Chemo with one of the WORST drugs (adriamycin), then he should make it through radiation just fine.

That’s my man!