Dennis Update - Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Well, the day we've been waiting for finally came and went. We went up to the Huntsman
Center this afternoon to find out what the treatment plans for Dennis will be. Michelle went with us to make sure we were all hearing the same thing.....she is our secretary and bless her heart she takes good notes! We surely appreciate all the time she has taken to go to all the dr. appointments with us and to Teri for all her help a couple of weekends ago when she came down and helped us so much in getting ready for the upcoming events. Little did we know she was pregnant, or we wouldn't have let her do anything!
As it is, around the end of December or first of January 2009, she and Dennis will hopefully both be thru with their ordeals, and Teri will have a new little grandbaby for all of us to love and cherish. And Dennis will hopefully be back to his healthy self again!

Dr. Ward said that he has decided to treat this cancer as aggressively as he can. He said that the bone scan shows some questionable bone cancer spots and he is not taking any chances, so Dennis will have chemotherapy every other week for 16 weeks. He starts his treatments on June 19, 2008. He'll go in on Thursday, have blood tests to make sure he is healthy enough for the chemo, then sit for 3 1/2 hours having the chemo IV, then go home. Then on Friday morning I take him back up for a shot to help speed the chemo up so that they will fight the cancer cells quicker.

The shot will apparently have a side effect of making his bones ache badly that night and over the weekend. He can (if he will) take pain pills for that. He will most likely be nauseated and extremely fatigued over the weekend and maybe feel better by Monday.
Everyone reacts differently, so we are just trying the "wait and see" of how he does. He's been so tough since the surgeries that it will be interesting to see how he handles the rest of this stuff. Some of the side effects are taste buds changing (metal taste in mouth), smelling things differently, throwing up, you know, the rest of the junk that goes with it all.

After the chemo for 16 weeks, he will have another body scan to see where the cancer is or is not, then he has radiation every day for 6 weeks. Hopefully, he won't feel as miserable as he will be tired.

After the radiation he will begin the pill Tamxafin (sp?) for a maximum of five years. Hopefully, all of these things will be successful and he will be cancer-free. Keep those prayers going, it's only just begun!

As the Dr. reminded us again, "take one day at a time", "prepare for the worst and hope for the best", and a lot of other things that went through one ear and out the other!

The nurse then put us in a golf cart and drove us to the infusion lab and gave us a tour.
Everyone there is so kind and helpful and we feel as though we are in the hands of the best medical help to be found. Just wish we could avoid all the side effects that he will have to endure, but we do what we can do and Dennis has such a great attitude that I am sure if anyone were NOT to be sick during all of this, he would be the one. I'm counting my blessings and the very first one is::::Thank you for such a positive, upbeat husband!!

I need to get my two bits worth in too: Friday, I'm having a little back repair, and hopefully it will help get rid of some of the low back pain. I'm counting on it working because I'm heading out garage sale hunting in the morning and going to a baby shower for my niece in the afternoon. They said I'll know if it works because it will reduce some of the pain and if it doesn't work, it won't.......let's hope for the "will".

It's late and our dear, busy bishop just stopped by to hear what the dr. said. What a guy he is. He had a funeral for Jack Zobell today and is heading out for youth conference tomorrow and he and his family are going to Croatia (sp) the next day. He's going to need a little R&R with his darling family after how busy we all keep him! I hope he realizes how much the ward loves him.

Thanks again for your thoughts, prayers, and everything else. We'll let you know how our "Iron Man" does with the treatments after the 19th.

We send our love.

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