Relay For Life

This year we are walking in the Relay For Life. Our team name is appropriately called Sandi's Lucky 7's ~ Going "All In" For A Cure! This all-night walk promotes cancer awareness and provides funding for education and research. We would love for you all to participate with us. Follow the link to our team page. Thank you for your support!

http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY10PL?team_id=681766&pg=team&fr_id=23855

Bet ya'll want an update....

Well, it's been quite a winter! Mom has been doing so great! Mom, Dad, Tim & I all went to Vegas in January. The highlight of the trip was the Bette Midler Show and Caesar's Palace. It was so much fun! But since then the greatest highlight of the year came earlier this week. Mom received the results of her most recent PET Scan (the cancer test).....It was COMPLETELY NEGATIVE!!! That's right, she's cancer free! This last year has been filled with such highs and lows that we I don't know what we would have done without the wonderful outpouring of love and support from our amazing friends and family. We are forever grateful to each and every on of you!

SHE'S DONE!!!

The day that she has been looking forward to for 16 weeks now has finally come. Yesterday, Mom completed her 16 weeks of chemo. I am pretty sure she would agree that this has been the longest seven months ever. She said she is ready to enjoy her retirement now, and she couldn't be more excited. I know that even as strong of a family as we have we couldn't have gotten through this without all of your prayers, thoughts, well-wishes, and shoulders for us to lean on. By the grace of God, from the very beginning things "fell" into place to get her where we are today. Everything from her initial appointments happening the day after getting the CT scan results, to the surgeon being able to remove the entire tumor. She can't wait to see Dr. Brook (the original pulmonary doctor) again so she can look at him and give him a "Haha, look at me know" smirk for telling her what he initially told her. I don't think I ever posted this but when he initially saw her, he told us from what he saw and given her history and her family history, he "could guarantee us 99.9%" it was small-cell cancer and she had about three to six months left at best. Seriously! Boy, look at her now!

She does have some follow up appointments to make sure she is continuing to heal and nothing more develops. She sees the oncologist in October and has another CT scan then. I'm sure we will all be on pins and needles at that time, but trust in God that she will remain cancer-free.

She's for the most part feeling pretty good. The last treatment was on Wednesday (because of the holiday) and she's feeling pretty good. So good, in fact, they're at the boat right now. She really looking forward to playing in the annual City of Pleasant Hill golf tournament. (Thanks, Nici!) She's not 100% yet, but she's well on her way. She knows that each day brings back more strength and energy she has missed over the past seven months. And how about this for a running weight total, her finishing weight at her last treatment was...........102lbs! That's amazing for someone who started this journey at 105lbs, got down to about 95lbs when she came home from the hospital, then gained back as much as she did while on chemo.

Once again, thank you all for your continued prayers, thoughts, well-wishes, and the shoulders you have let us lean on during this time. We are truly blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful people.

Down To The Home Stretch!

Last Tuesday was Mom's last infusion of "The Big Ugly" and she couldn't be more excited. She has three treatments left...forever! They gave her some extra medicine to take for her last treatment, and it did help, she says her nausea isn't as bad as it has been after the previous big treatments. During her last cycle, she had to miss her treatments for weeks two and three because her counts were too low. But they came back up just like always, which is good. If history keeps repeating itself when it comes to her treatments she more than likely just have two treatments left to go. Her weight is holding pretty steady. Dad says she's eating him out of the house.

She's starting to get cabin fever from being in the house so much that they're already planning their next trip to Vegas in November. And, now that it's cooling off, she's also gearing up to hit the golf course!

Thank you all so much for your continued prayers and well wishes. Don't forget, visitors are always welcome at the Beatty house!

Calling All Photos

We are working on a little project for Mom. We are in need of any pictures anyone may have from Mom's Retirement party or any events from the past year. You may email those pictures to me at kimrey4@yahoo.com or any extra copies can be mailed to me, Jodie, or Jason. We can email the addresses to you if you would like to help us that way. Thank you!

Guess What???

Time to update again, I hear! Once again, Mom had to skip the third week of this last cycle because her counts were too low, just like the last time. However, she was able to receive her treatment yesterday. We're pretty sure this will be a week three thing for the next two cycles. We're not really upset about the skip, she kind of looks forward to having a week off of the side effects.

Even better news, SHE IS HALFWAY DONE WITH CHEMO!!!

She has come so far. So much has changed for her since February 19th, 2009. We pray that helping her reflect on all she has overcome since that day will help her get through the next eight weeks. She is so strong and we know that she will be just fine. She is even ready to hit the links once again. She's looking forward to the golf tournament the city puts on every year. We think we have our scramble strategy worked out...I drive and she putts...you all better watch out!

This week is the Cass County Fair and what better place to celebrate her "Halfway Milestone" than to gather together at the Miller Pavilion tomorrow night to help her celebrate being halfway done with chemo! If you're out and about tomorrow night, stop by and say hello and even join us in toasting her!

One Cycle Down, Three More To Go!

Mom's counts were back up and was able to get her treatment Tuesday completing the first cycle of chemo. Woo-hoo! She tolerated her treatment very well, not getting sick at all. She is doing very well staying on top of her nausea meds. She has three cycles to go (12 weeks). Her treatment this coming Tuesday is another "big one" where she gets both chemo drugs.

She's even becoming a Facebook phenom reuniting with people she hasn't talked to in a while. I think she's getting addicted!

We'll update you all on how Tuesday goes!

Third Time's Not A Charm

Well, Mom's chemo started good the first two weeks. She gets it on Tuesdays. The first week when she received both medicines the nausea kicked in Thursday morning and lasted until Friday afternoon. We didn't even wait to find out if the Compazine they gave her for nausea worked or now, we called for a prescription for Zofran. The combination of the two medicines for nausea really worked for week two when she just received the Navelbien. Last week she was just a little nauseated on Thursday but did really good.

Today, Mom went for her third treatment, she was supposed to get the Navelbien today. Unfortunately, her blood counts were too low to let her get it safely. Her white blood cell count (WBC's) are normally supposed to be 5,000-10,000, they will treat her even if they are as low as 2,000. Her WBC today was 1,700. Another component is the absolute neutrophil count (ANC). The ANC is a count of the immature WBC's. This level should normally be greater than 1,000. Today, hers is 200. Unfortunately, they had to hold her treatment for today. We knew this would probably happen. Dr. Stephenson had told us before that usually the third and or fourth weeks of the cycles have to be held due to low counts. It just stinks to really have it happen.

Her counts are low enough to have an effect on her immune system so you might see her around with a bottle of Purell and a container of Clorox wipes in her purse. She's wanting to stay as healthy as possible for Dad's big reunion this weekend. They are going to St. Louis for a reunion with Dad's company he served with in Vietnam. He is really looking forward to this.

Once again, thank you all for your continued thoughts, prayers, and occasional taxi services for Mom. We are a very blessed family to be surrounded by such wonderful people.

16 Weeks and Counting

Tomorrow, Mom gets to begin the wonderful world of chemotherapy!!! Okay, so much for the excitement. This will be the long day as she will be getting both chemo drugs. The Cisplatin is the one that takes 6-7 hours to take as well as getting the Navelbien. She will get the Navelbien every week as her blood counts allow.

She is a little nervous about the entire ordeal, but is remaining is good spirits. She even has her bag of goodies packed in preparation for the long day. She's planning on watching some movies on Jodie's mini DVD player and reading some of her book. I think she is most nervous about the inevitable nausea. Her oncologist has already prescribed her some Compazine to ward off the evil nausea spirits. We'll see.

We'll keep you all posted on how tomorrow goes!

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!

Thank you ALL so much for your thoughts and prayers! They were answered yesterday. Mom saw Dr. Seligson for another follow-up appointment and things looked really good. So good, in fact, that her CHEST TUBE IS OUT!!! No more air-leak and no more fat-leak! She is very ready for a steak dinner, but Dr. Seligson advised her to take it slow. She can't wait for that filet at the boat. She said it feels so good!

She met with the oncologist, Dr. Stephenson, on Monday and discussed her treatment plan. Unfortunately, it wasn't as she expected. Originally, she was being told that it would be eight weeks. Somewhere along the line it has doubled. She also wanted to do some traveling before she started to feel bad again. Dr. Stephenson advised her against that. He said that the longer she waits to start treatment, the effectiveness decreases. He said that without treatment, she has a 50/50 chance of recurrence. With chemo, there is a 10-15% increase in her favor, making that a 60-65% chance that it will not come back. She thought about it a lot over the last month and is willing to take those odds.

They are going to use two different chemo drugs during her treatment. The first one is Cisplatin (the Lance Armstrong chemo drug). This one will take the longest to infuse, approximately 6-7 hours one time every four weeks. The second is Navelbine. She will get this one weekly with these infusions lasting for 1-2 hours. Dr. Stephenson informed us really well about these drugs and made her feel very comfortable with his plan for her. She is now taking applications for drivers for chemo days on the days that we are working.

She's really hoping the rain will let up soon. She's ready to get out to the golf course for some putting practice before it gets too hot. =-) Thank you all again for your continued thoughts and prayers. We are so grateful and extremely blessed to be surrounded by such caring wonderful people.

Follow-Up With Dr. Seligson

Mom saw Dr. Seligson today for her first follow-up appointment. He is pleased with her progress and said her lungs sound really good. Today's big test was seeing if she still has an air leak and, unfortunately, she still does. He is impressed with the small amount of drainage she has been having. He decided the chest tube needs to stay in for another week. Also, she gets to add more food to her restricted diet. She's pretty excited about that. Dr. Seligson said that she's earned the right to "cheat" a little. When she goes back next week he said that if the drainage stays minimal and the air leak is gone he will take it out. But, if the air leak is still there, he will pull out the tube a little and re-stitch it in to secure it, as he thinks this will help speed the sealing up. Many prayers are needed for this week that the drainage stays minimal and that the air leak seals up. Mom is SO READY to get the chest tube out. She said it's really hindering her sleeping on her right side!

Just In Case You Didn't Hear....

Many of you already know, but just in case you didn't hear, Mom came home from the hospital on Tuesday. She's doing really good. Just being home makes a world of difference in her recovery. She's loving visitors coming to keep her company. Unfortunately, I've had a cold this week so I've had to stay away. Hopefully, it will disappear soon so I can get back over there and help out more. The diet is going okay. She sees Dr. Seligson on Wednesday, so hopefully the leaks are all sealed up and she can get the chest tube out and eat a regular fatty meal. Keep your fingers crossed!

HAPPY EASTER!!!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. Mom had a pretty good day yesterday. She told us all about her visitors on Saturday. Many thanks go to Pastor Kent and Carla for the bunny ears. Also, apparently the nursing staff started to wonder about the crowd Mom runs with after Bob, Kathy, Norm, and Bev came up to visit....all decked out in their biker gear. She loved it though! As for Easter, Mom thoroughly enjoyed her plain potato, steamed vegetables, and flax seed. Mmm, mmm! She is doing really good with the no-fat diet she is now on. The drainage from the chest tube was only 40ml from 1am until 7pm yesterday. This was a HUGE change. Dr. Seligson was extremely impressed that he took one of the chest tubes out and changed the chamber to a smaller one (the new one only holds about 80ml) because she still has the air-leak. He told Mom that he expects it to seal up in about another week since the fat duct issue is now under control. Soooo, this means if the new chest tube goes well today.....SHE'S COMING HOME TOMORROW!!! What a blessing! As you can expect, she's getting pretty antsy to get out of here.

Sorry For Not Updating Sooner

Sorry, sorry, sorry!!! We just enjoyed Mom's progress so much that we forgot to make time to update the blog.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday went pretty well. Mom met with the oncologist. He basically introduced himself and told her that they would meet after she goes home to discuss her treatment options. Yes, they got the tumor out, but they still have people do some chemotherapy to reduce the recurrence. She's been getting up walking a lot. She takes several walks a day. Unfortunately the chest tube is still in. She still has too much drainage to take it out. We'll get to that in a minute. Her lung is doing sell. The area of collapse is gone and it is completely reinflated. Thursday, Jeremy and I came up. This was his first time seeing her since the day before her surgery. I was a little difficult for them both, but they both benefited from the visit a great deal.

We noticed yesterday that the clear light yellow drainage was more like skin milk in color and clarity. We didn't know if this was normal or not. Also, the drainage started to increase. Today, I was here when Dr. Salamat and Dr. Seligson came to see her. According to them, the skim milk drainage is fats. Okay, how's that? Apparently, there is a duct that runs from the intestines where they absorb fats from what you eat. The duct winds up the body and distributes the fats where they're supposed to go. The portion of the duct that was behind her lung in the area that was removed has a small leak. Dr. Seligson said there are two ways to fix the problem. One way is to do another surgery. He doesn't want to do that because she is doing so good otherwise. She just flat out doesn't want another surgery. The other way, is to restrict her diet limiting the fat she takes in and wait for the leak to seal up. She said, "Oh yummy!" Dr. Seligson is on all weekend, so he said if he didn't see any improvement by late tomorrow he will restrict her diet even further and have her get a PICC line put in and have her put on TPN (IV nutrition). Long story short, she's here for probably another week according to Dr. Seligson.

She's making the best of it though. We're grateful that the tube was still in and caught the problem before it came out and she went home and caused a HUGE problem. We've hooked her up with everything from crosswords to movies. We even figured out that her laptop isn't as old as we thought it was. It actually connected to the guest access here so she now has internet to occupy her time. She is remaining in good spirits given the new development. I forgot to give you all her new room number, it is 3055. It's not as good as her other unit, but it's home until they say otherwise.

Thank you all again for the continued prayers. She is definitely one lucky lady!

Post-Op Day #7-Turned The Corner

Mom had a pretty sleepless night last night, she said. However, she said she feels wonderful today. She said she took several walks around the unit and has been up in the chair most of the day. She added that she hasn't had to take anything for pain! Jodie, Aunt Chris, and I stopped in on her this evening, and I have to say she looks amazing. Her cough, color, appetite, and energy are so much better than they have been, even better is that she's not sleepy anymore. She saw Dr. Seligson today and he said he was pleased with her progress. There is still no official word on when she will get to come home. She still has the chest tube in and in order for her to get it out, she has to have less than 150ml per day of drainage from it. Yesterday she was about 800ml, and from then to today she had about 400ml so we think she's on the right path. She can't wait to get home, especially to see the grandkids and we can't wait for her to get home. It's just not the same without her around!

Post-Op Day #6-On The Right Track

Patsy said she had a pretty good night. She was able to sleep about two hours at a time but getting back to sleep fairly quickly after waking to take more pain medicine. She is doing really good with the Darvocet they have been giving her. The Reglan seems to be helping as well for the nausea. For lunch, she ate half a bowl of soup and a few bites of salad. We have made a date for later this afternoon to take another walk. She wanted to take a nap first, I'm pretty sure yesterday's walk tired her out quite a bit. She even made a dinner request for a cheeseburger kid's meal with a Frosty from Wendy's. Her appetite seems to be getting better (better meaning she actually has a small one) without the oxygen on. Dad is staying tonight, so hopefully she'll have as good of night as she did last night.

Thank you all for keeping her in your prayers. We know she still has a long road to recovery, but given the alternative, I couldn't be happier with her progress.

Post-Op Day #5-Making Strides

Well, I'm a day late posting this, but better late than never. On Saturday, Mom made some incredible progress. Jason stayed Friday night and said she had a pretty good night compared to the nights past. Her oxygen was decreased to 1liter overnight and the respiratory therapist said she her O2 sats were 98-99% so he removed her oxygen all together. She remained off oxygen all day. Later in the afternoon the fog of morphine seemed to finally lift and she decided she wanted to take a walk. Jodie & I helped her down the hall. I'm not good at distances, but I would guess it's about 75yards to the waiting room. She made it there like a champ. She did so good, she tolerated it very well and didn't get dizzy or short of breath like we thought she would. We sat there and rested for a little bit and met her sister Patsy and niece Pam there. Patsy is staying this night. Then she headed back to her room, even speeding up a bit. This is a huge accomplishment for her. She even said that it did feel pretty good to get up and walk around. She ate the most for dinner since she's been here. She had chicken and rice and ate about a fourth of the chicken and a couple tablespoons of rice. We're glad her appetite seems to be starting to coming back.

I was getting a little nervous because her telemetry monitor kept alarming that she was having PVC's (premature ventricular contractions, the ventricles contracting out of turn). Occasionally, they aren't a big deal. It just made me nervous when she would have 10 and even 12 in a minute about every 20-30 minutes. Her nurse didn't seemed alarmed, so I'll trust her on that. I eventually talked to a couple that are much more knowledgeable about this and they said they were normal for what she was doing at the time. They would always happen when she would be sitting up, repositioning, or coughing. This is her body's way of getting use to the new change.

Post-Op Day #4

Well, there is not much to update today. Things are pretty much the same as yesterday. The atelectasis is unchanged (good, it's not worse!), but Mom's appetite also remains unchanged. She is still VERY sleepy. Since the morphine/fentanyl incident, they have changed her to oral pain meds which she is requesting very rarely. It's just frustrating because we can't figure out why she is sleepier now than she was the day after her surgery. Her oxygen levels on her blood gasses continue to be normal and they even took her off of continuous pulse oximetry because she is now on 2 liters of oxygen. Today, when I called the nurse to check on her she ensured me that all the critical things (lungs, heart, incision) we are most concerned about continue to be doing just fine. That, we are very grateful for. Jodie stayed with her last night and earlier today. She said she had a pretty good morning. She did, however, have a little elevation in her white blood cell count (WBC's, the infection fighters) to 17,000. According to the night nurse, it's not "bad", they just want to take every precaution to ensure that she doesn't get infected or pneumonia so they started her on Zosyn, a pretty heavy duty antibiotic.

Tonight, Jason is staying with her. He'll do just fine also. He seems to be doing just as good of job annoying tonight's nurse as I did. I got there after work and she was in Mom's room assessing her and turned to me and said, "Oh, are you the daughter?" What can I say, I made an impression....

Post-Op Day #3-Update

Mom's nurse just told us the results of her latest chest x-ray. It showed a "slight increase in the atelectasis of the right lower lobe", meaning the collapsed area has gotten a little bit bigger. We have yet to know what the lung doctor has in store for her.

She is still very sleepy. She did eat a little bit of her lunch today which she managed to keep down. Jodie is working on dinner with her. Dr. Seligson, the surgeon, decided that her tiny body just can't tolerate Morphine like other people so he had the nurse shut it off and switch her to pain meds by mouth.

As soon as we know anything else we'll post it!

Post-Op Day #3-Minor Setback

Mom had a pretty restless night. She had several bouts of nausea. Yesterday around 2pm they placed the Fentanyl patch. Somewhere between then and about 7pm we noticed that her IV had wet bad so as a result, she wasn't getting the Morphine IV like we had thought. About an hour or two after her IV was replaced she started with the nausea. She received 3 doses of Zofran overnight that seemed to help. Dr. Seligson's nurse practitioner, Jo came in and we had the revelation about the combined effect of the two meds. She decided that the Fentanyl patch that Dr. Salamat ordered was unnecessary since she was having adequate pain relief from the Morphine PCA and was the culprit behind her nausea so she removed it on the spot.

She did do much better with her coughing. They almost sounded normal. She was very pleased with herself and was even bragging about it to Dr. Seligson this morning.

Her O2 sats are fine, running at 95-98% even while up in the chair. Sometime overnight they decreased her oxygen to 3liters. This is an improvement from the 6liters she was on last night. She, however, is extremely tired today, only waking to us nudging her telling her to wake up.

Since then Dr. Salamat came to round on Mom and told us (with her"best bedside manner") that according to this morning's chest x-ray that the lower remaining portion of Mom's right lung has collapsed. Dr. Salamat thinks that this is possibly due to a mucous plug in that portion of the lung. She ordered blood gasses and a repeat chest x-ray. Depending on those results we will know if Mom has to undergo another bronchoscopy to remove the plug in an attempt to help "reinfalte" that area. We will know the results in about an hour. Please pray for her. She needs as much help as she can get to get over this hurdle.

I will update this again once we know more.