Friday 23, 2008
Hello to all of you,Today was quite the day. I left for my Dr's appt. at 8:00 a.m. and didn't finish until 12 noon when I dashed over to the Huntsman Cancer Center to meet Dr. Ward with Dennis. The Center is really beautiful and the people there are so caring and kind. We didn't know the intention of this meeting, but soon realized it was for us to meet Dr. Ward's whole team. Rozie, Ann, Mary, Lynn and a few others whose names I can't remember were introduced to us and they were all very kind, patient and serving with their hearts as well as their hands.They checked Dennis' incision and said it looked good, except he still has the two drains in it and they are not very close to being ready to come out yet. So, he's still dragging them around with him. The Dr. basically said that we won't know the complete treatment plan until after next Wednesday when Dennis has the scan. The Dr. said that surprisingly enough, they are finding that men with breast cancer are responding quite well to women's hormones. So, his plan is to see how far and where the cancer has spread to, (hence, the scan), and then develop a full aggressive plan of attack. He also said that it would be an advantage if it had spread a little to places that he could zap with a healthy dose of chemo and radiation and with the hormones too. I really didn't understand a lot of his plan, but Dennis seemed to feel good about everything and is still really positive and upbeat about getting started. I just hate to see him get too sick from the chemo, but if it will do something to prolong his life I'm all for it! In short, we were really impressed with Dr. Ward and his whole staff and in the "other" short, we are anxiously awaiting next Wednesday and then getting down to business. We'll be updating as soon as we know anything.As for my appointment (you can stop reading here if you just wanted an update on Dennis, but this will be my "journal" of this time in our lives and so I'm including other things too). Anyway, back to "my appointment", I went into the Neuro Surgeon about my constant back pain. He took 12 more x-rays and basically said that I have osteoporosis so badly that I could not take a risk on having surgery on any part of my spine. The neck is still quite precarious, but surgery might not work and could even make it worse, so we'll leave it alone. The lower back is the main problem now. The two discs are sitting side by side instead of stacked and are bone on bone. Again, there is no way he would do surgery because of my bone density and the chance of being paralyzed or in worse pain than before. Then above those two discs there is more arthritis and bone spurs that need to be removed, but for the same reason this won't happen. In essence, I'm stuck having the pain until the spine collapses and then who knows where I'll be. However, the one bright side is that he wants me to try some kind of injection that an "injection specialist" does, and no, I don't know what it is, but it isn't cortisone. He would put it between the two lower side by side discs and see if that would relieve some of my pain and maybe even help the neuropathy in my left foot. Anyway, ya hoo, one more challenge, boy, does the Lord love us or what???? The answer has to be YES, for Him to trust us with the trails we have been given, we only hope we can be worthy to return to him as "survivors," not "belly-achers". Thanks for enduring the reading of today's novel....shorter next time, I hope. We love you all and again, thank you for your thoughts, calls, prayers, smiles, and the love that streams from your hearts to ours...we feel your love and thank you!Love,he Queen BlogerPosted by The Queen updater at 8:47 PM