Day 2: June 8, 2019

We are only two days in to this thing, but have already started to set baselines for good days and bad days-- which I'm sure will only get more refined as time goes on. Today was a good day. Good day in terms of- no puke stops on the side of the road, Oliver slept mostly all day, and overall just seemed way more comfortable. They only infused two of the chemo drugs, so maybe that helped also. Additionally, we think they may have upped his dosage of Ativan (primarily used for anti-nausea but it seems to just knock him right out). Our goal right now is to make sure he keeps drinking water.


Recap in pictures:


Starting off the day, heading to our house for breakfast. Pancakes requested, check! Per Mom, O was much more chipper yesterday morning and slept great. Success.

The crew down in Seattle was the same was the day before, with the addition of Angel, Bailey's girlfriend. The little boys and I were also able to join for a few hours until they hit their limit of a small hospital room. We are also right on Lake union so took a few minutes to explore with them. Of course, now they want a yacht. Or a fire boat.

For the entire time we were there, this was about all the action, which was a good thing! At one point, Oliver did wake up so he knew we were there for a little while.

The boys got a serious hint from big brother. We hit the car back to the eastside and they both passed out. What!? That never happens, especially with the bigger dude!

We headed to a friends' graduation party, and just for sake of documentation, some pictures from there (told you kid pics would sneak in!):

Watch this attack of the cupcake happen!

The guy who is too cool to look or smile for pictures. 6 going on 16.

While we were at the grad party, I decided that social situations can be (or are) a little awkward right now. One guy came up and said something about how it was a beautiful day and asked if we had been enjoying it. I mean, sure, you can say yes absolutely, but it's also this kind of weight in the back of your mind.... actually, we just came from the hospital. Mention the C word. And people get pretty uncomfortable pretty quick (not that I care), but it is an interesting dynamic. I suppose the lesson in this is the flip side of remembering that you never really know what people are going through, and I guess a sensitivity and awareness in that with whoever is encountered.

Meanwhile back at the hospital, the gang was wrapping up. Although they did one less drug today, it was still a 7.5 hour treatment. But, getting out of Seattle at 5pm vs 6:30pm was awesome!

 

All tucked in tight for the night (photo courtesy of Colleen) after a soup dinner (also courtesy of Colleen).

Again, it was a good day. Pretty uneventful. Lots of sleep for the big guy, which means not only was he comfortable, but hopefully lots of healing as well. And for all the rest of us, any day without cancer is a good day. All about perspective! Day 3 of the first 5 day consecutive treatment is up next, so I suppose we could consider this the hump, and then the down hill. After day 5, there is a couple day rest before heading back in.

Day 1: June 7, 2019

Yesterday was the first day of chemo for Oliver at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance in downtown Seattle. I stayed back to be able to shuffle the little kids to and from school and to their various activities (piano, baseball, etc), but joining Oliver were: Big brother Bailey, mom Colleen, Justin, and girlfriend Lexi. For a small room, it sounds like it was a crowd!


Upon arriving, there were several hours of meetings with doctors, specialists, nurses, etc to discuss his cancer, treatment, medications outside of the hospital, plans for what we need to do outside of the hospital. All of this was relayed to me, but I will just say- it is stuff that never in 100 years would I have considered, having never experienced anything like this before. For obvious reasons (and this I knew), everything has to be super sterile and clean due to Oliver's susceptibility to infection and illness. But what I didn't know was the importance of keeping HIS bodily fluids away from us- IE: using gloves if he throws up and we are helping him, sanitizing the crap out of everything- where he uses the bathroom, sheets for sweat, etc. Apparently he is so toxic from the chemo drugs, that these can pass along to any one of us via bodily fluids, which would obviously not be good. WHO KNEW (not I: not a world that I have ever ventured in to).


Oliver's treatment started at about 10:30am. His infusions are approximately 7.5 hours to 8 hours a day, and as I mentioned yesterday, he will go for 5 days straight as the first part of the 15 day cycles. They up the dosage every day, and check his baselines each day to see how he is doing. Due to the length of his infusions, and the meetings with everyone yesterday morning, the crew was at the hospital from about 7am-6:30pm. Luckily, most got a nap at some point. We did find out that the length of time (8 hours) is a bit atypical of how long these take (in comparison, most people only have 1.5-2 hour infusion treatments- so quite the difference). When meeting with the doctor yesterday, we found that the recent scan earlier this week showed that the relentless C has continued on its aggressive trajectory and moved in to his lungs, which is obviously, bad.


Justin relayed that after this they relayed the numbers/prognosis, nature of the cancer which meant no deviation from super aggressive treatments. One thing I can say was the general consensus by anyone and everyone is that the numbers DO NOT MATTER. We are in this to fight and as long is Oliver is willing and able to, we will do so. We truly believe that all of us will come out of this kicking and screaming in a fight against C that will be (in little brother Owen's words): epic.


A few pictures:


Cousin Eli came to see Oliver yesterday. And I almost died because I haven't seen that kid since, I don't know, he was 14. Ok, stop tripping with me and growing up!

Getting ready to start treatment:

Naptime and the sweetest of pictures of brothers holding hands.

Getting ready to go home for the night. DAY ONE DONE! Little bit of a rough ride home with a puke break on the side of the road. But a little anti-nausea meds saved the day once back here.

Back at our house, the brothers Valente took a step of solidarity in this freaking fight. Or as Bailey said, support in the college kid who can't find shampoo. And as I said, Justin is for hire... as long as the cut is only a buzz.

Love these kids so much. Justin and I went to bed last night thinking, ok, tomorrow we go again. He was exhausted from being there all day- the emotions, the information, etc. I was feeling similar- information overload, juggling the littles by myself all day and trying to maintain a sense of normalcy for them (obviously not the harder job), but despite our exhaustion, we just looked at each other with our heads spinning. You can't sleep. Despite the exhaustion, you can't sleep. Your mind, despite knowing you can't fix anything, WANTS TO and won't let you rest until you figure out how (but you don't, and so the cycle continues).

The absolute hardest part of this seems like it will not be the sitting around. Or the knowledge of what this is. Or the medications. Or the details of what we need to do to stay clean and sterile. Or the back and forth to Seattle. It's knowing that Oliver already is starting to feel the big yuck. Seeing him physically feel how his body on the inside is (ILL) and not being able to "fix" it and make it better RIGHT NOW as parents is excruciating. In all the realness and positivity I am trying to convey, the most used sentence at our house lately has been "this fucking sucks." And not trying to deviate from being positive because we are also more determined than ever to fucking fight, but you NEVER want your baby to be hurting and not be able to take some of that. Helplessness is a truly awful feeling as a parent, and all you can combat it with is love.

I kind of eluded to this yesterday, but it's so interesting (although probably shouldn't be- we all know it), how the  mechanics of your life can change in an instant, and you don't care because you'll do everything you can for the fight and journey you are on. So, onward we go. Day 2!

Resurrecting the blog...the C word way!

I wish I could say that the reason I'M BAAACK was because I'm bored out of my mind and why the hell not start to post daily pictures of my kids again.


Sadly, that is not the case, although no promises that some fun kid pictures won't sneak in as I start to post more and get in to a habit of keeping this updated more than it has been in the past couple of years.


For many of you who are reading this, you know the story. For those that don't, here's what I can tell you (and disclaimer here: I am telling this in this forum so that we can update friends and family in one spot as we go through this journey. Some of the experiences will be from my perspective):


1) In October of 2018 (last fall), our 22 year old son Oliver was diagnosed with testicular cancer. For those of you who are young men or who have young men here is what we have learned about this diagnosis:
-this is the most common type of cancer in young men ages 18-22 (roughly)
-it appeared just like we have all heard of breast cancer appearing-feeling strange lumps
-his GP misdiagnosed it for a couple of weeks in which he was taking antibiotics (GP not even thinking the C word)
 -this resulted in rapid growth and eventual "emergency" midnight surgery to remove a testicle and lymph nodes surrounding it once he was appropriately treated and referred to a surgical oncologist.
2) After October, we were assured that the surgery had gotten it all and he was set up for routine scans. We kind of all moved on with our lives thinking, man that sucked, glad that's over!
3) Flashback a few weeks ago as I was driving home from work and got a call from Justin "so we have a little issue." Insert: complete tunnel hearing, heart dropping, WHAT?
4) Turns out the little issue was a current scan came back. At the time, all medical websites were shut down so Oliver could not access his account/see what was going on and when he called the doctor, he was told that, basically, you need to come in today. Again, with the heart dropping feeling of doom.
5) He and Justin headed in that day to find that the scan showed that the cancer was back, growing aggressively up and towards his spine/kidneys (as a result, staging upgraded), and he would need to start full body aggressive chemotherapy ASAP.
6) Basically the words we thought we had lived through... back again... and worse. It is something that you think you will experience with your parents, or perhaps your spouse, but certainly doesn't cross the mind for your kids.


At this point, we have spent the last couple of weeks getting him moved up to Seattle and his care transferred to Seattle Cancer Care Alliance where a) it is supposed to be one of the best around and b) there are doctors that specialize specifically in his type of cancer.


Starting today, he will be doing about 2.5 months of aggressive chemotherapy, which are 15 day cycles. Each cycle starts with 5 days "on" of chemo infusions, and then he rotates on/off until day 15 when he starts it all over again. They will adjust the chemo cocktail depending upon how his body responds, which is different for everyone so we just kind of have to wait to see how it goes.


We have all been dealing with it differently. I have been doing this:


1) Reading as much as I can about cancer/Oliver's cancer/chemo...which I haven't decided if this is a good or bad thing. The more I read, the more slightly terrified I get, but then again, knowledge is power and that is sort of the stance I am taking.

2) Doing as much as I can to help, knowing that this is really my way of dealing (and remains to be seen whether or not it is actually helpful). The below is called essiac tea, which is a tea that is known to help cancer patients, and many people truly believe it is a strong proponent in curing cancer. I figured, why the hell not- it can't hurt. So I went out and bought some and made some- which incidentally made our house smell both like we killed something and/or were trying to make some random version of our own pot. Funny story about this tea: when I was in high school my dad got a wild hair to have my mom make it after a co-worker of his swore by it after overcoming breast cancer. I remember how god awful it was then (smell-wise), but I also remember him chugging his glass every night. He doesn't have cancer and he is the most meat and potatoes guy out there so if he can do it, Oliver can too!



I think we have all gone through various stages of what I would say mimic the stages of grief.


Angry-it is so unfair and unjust for this to happen? Why? How?
Sad- self explanatory.
Scared-also obvious
Accepting-trying to fix it, find solutions, make it better- focus on the path
Guilty- why not us? Why can't we take this?


In some ways, it is an empowering experience and so we have had those feelings as well. We all kind of live our lives in some sort of fear of hearing that dreaded C word (or at least I did until this point). Once you are in it, you just start to fight it, and it really lessens that fear- I mean, once you are fighting one of the "worst" things that can happen, you kind of start to look at the world in a different manner and perspective. I wouldn't recommend doing this just for that perspective, but, it is at least one positive.

At this point, the conclusion I have come to is that no one is given anything we can't handle, and so we fully expect to handle this and fight like hell. Justin and I compared it last night to almost like the anticipation of labor. You know SOMETHING is going to happen/has to happen, but you have no idea if it is going to be good or bad. Ultimately, the hope is the end solution is the best solution, but regardless, the one thing you do know, is that your life is about to change in some way.

Negatively has absolutely zero place in this battle, and that is another constant we are leaning on. We are focusing on being positive and knowing that not only Oliver, but Oliver with all of us behind him will overcome this. There is a literal full blown, kick ass army behind him (thus the resurrection of this blog because we are all on repeat!), who are asking about him, praying for him, sending good thoughts, doing sun dances for him, meditating for him. However people send the "good" juju out to the universe, to god, to whoever, and in whatever way- so many are doing so. For that, we thank each and everyone of you, and will keep everyone updated through this forum as we move along this journey. Keep it all coming- we can feel the power in your thoughts and prayers.   

Annnd... it’s 2019!

Oops how’s that for a bit of an unplanned hiatus. I am resurrecting this blog, beginning with attempting to see if I can post still. Here’s some fingers crossed!

February 2017

What can I say, this busy season has kicked my you know what. I can't really say it (ASS) because I now have a swear jar and currently owe Owen a lot of money. He understands that those words are for adults only, and really and truly, I feel like they are exposed any way and we are keeping it real,  and I really, really hate having a complex about them, but I also do not want him shouting out a 4 letter word in class... hence the swear jar. Keep me accountable, buddy.

Well that was a tangent.

But yeah, this month. Phew. Somehow all of a sudden it was February 1st and now it's March 5th and I am thinking, WHAT? This busy season has been one for the records. So, I'm just going to do another monthly post because I only got it in gear enough to keep my job and life relatively together, so completely failed on the daily posts and pictures.

SO. February 2017:

 

We started off the month by recovering from the god awful stomach bug plus sinus thing. What the hell was that?! I mean, really. It was a double whammy for sure. It was just in time for grandma and grandpa to come to town to visit for a week while I scooted off to Hawaii to work. Somehow leaving Justin alone for a week with the boys scared the crap out of me after the last time. No thank you.

 

My parents flew in on my mom's birthday, so we had to celebrate appropriately. Owen helped me to make a cake:

 

The next morning I flew out (Sunday) and once in Hawaii had a few hours of what I pretended were vacation. It was nice while it lasted.

 

I got several pictures while I was away, in which I swear the boys grew 4 inches each. They got to do all kinds of fun things with grandma and grandpa and Justin worked away on the house.

 

On my last day there, I was all excited to go on a run as it was a Saturday and I had the day to myself before I flew out. Then this happened: (BOO HOO). 

 

Jump forward a few days, and it was Valentines day! In honor of, I took off work early and Justin and I went on a hike. It was SO nice.

 

We then picked the kids up from Collette's and had a mini-Valentine's day celebration at home (mom fail on the wrapping paper...not like they care).

 

(Owen was having a meltdown at the time of opening his valentine present... which changed upon 5 seconds of seeing what Bennett got in his. Ha!)

 

We've also been resigned to riding bikes a lot inside. Owen has taken up riding inside as well. It's pretty cute.

 

And of course, since it's been so rainy and cold, there's no shortage of nerf wars in our house. I am fairly sure there is no way to get around nerf guns with boys. Nevermind B sitting in the middle on his tablet.

 

We've also managed to see poppy at the gym a few times, which is always a blast.

 

The kids have also perfected making scrambled eggs. At least once every other day.

 

Here is B eating some Valentine's candy as a treat. We ration it out and it lasts all month. I swear there is crack or something in candy. The kids go crazy over it.

 

Another shot captured: how the kids ride up the driveway with poppy:

 

We also made some time to see some of our friends this month! Stacy and CJ and their kids (Elijah pictured with Owen, below....and another Owen, not pictured) as well as Rhett, Lindsay, and Jackson (not pictured).

 

And we got to play with Carter and baby Reece!

 

We also started off chore charts! I really have no idea what I am doing in this parenting gig, and am not going to pretend like I'm doing everything right. But I feel in my gut that kids need to get a sense of helping out around the house. It's part of being in a household. I don't know that they should get steeply rewarded as I certainly don't get paid for doing laundry, but for each star they get, they will get a little something. I think it will help encourage good habits, hopefully for years to come. Hey, we are all just trying to do the best they can. They ended up the week with 22 stars for Owen, and 19 for Bennett. Not too bad! They each got to pick out $10 toys at target (I figured 50% ish of the star count....kind of making this up as I go). I think it will also translate in to helping them learn about money. IE: if they want to save their "stars"/money, they can wait a week and let them build up to buy a bigger item. We'll see how it goes. So far, so good!

 

We also did a lot of art! This weather is crap. But THANK GOD on multiple levels it is March, and that means work eases up and summer is right around the corner!

 

You'll also notice in the background the vanity type thing... yeah... we also started tearing apart the bathroom back there. You know, why not start a major renovation right now in Justin's racing season and my busy season! We never said we follow the line exactly, but life is good, and we are happy! Onward to March!

Daily Owen & Bennett: 2.1.2017

First day of February. New months, new things. And THANK GOD, I think we are finally feeling better. B hit a corner and went and grabbed a bowl of potato chips. Yes!

Daily Owen & Bennett: 1.31.2017

Guess what?! We are not through the sickness. :(