We're In Texas

Last night about 1030pm we departed New Orleans and headed to Texas. We spent the night in Sulphur and then headed into Houston this afternoon.. Reason we headed here - our hotel in biloxi was closed at noon today. We are at my brother's and will be here until it is safe to head back home..

Saturday, Gustav is coming

After much hesitation - we have decided to evacuate to Mississippi. We will be at the Grand Biloxi for at least a couple of days...Harry is ok but not great -I am finishing up the clothes, emptying the fridge, packing etc.. We will be fine - our home should be fine - you can reach us via email or our cells...

Take care

Results from CT Scan of chest

We went to get Harry's radiation therapy early today as everyone is trying to head out either for the holiday or hurricane. Harry saw the doc in the hallway and he said that it was shrinking. I have no further details. I don't know that if it means lymph nodes or tumors. I don't know by how much. And probably will have no further details until after Tuesday or Wednesday since we will see no doctors until next week.

We have not made any decisions about evacuating yet - we will do that as it(Gustav) gets closer.

But we'll let you know

Friday - Gustav and other stuff

We had the CT Scan of his chest yesterday, but we will not have results until this afternoon. He is still staying in bed until the doctor's visits but we did go out to dinner again. He is now into soups because of the swallowing.

Because of the storm of which no one knows where it is headed they have moved his chemotherapy treatment next week to Wednesday instead of Tuesday. And we have plenty of places to go in case this thing moves towards us. We also could end up with a lot of people at our house if Gustav heads towards Lafayette. Even though he won't be active - he says he'll be happy to have people in the house - especially if he knows they are safe.

Well, I need to make my hurricane list of purchases and medicines to pick up.. so I will post tonight when we find out the results of the scan..

Keep Praying

Mona

Thursday... waiting on Gustav

Hello all - well we had a decent day yesterday. Monday was not much better that the weekend. On Tuesday Harry had his second infusion of Chemotherapy - still no nausea Esophagitis is starting to appear, making it difficult to swallow, but we have 2 new medicines for that (don't ask we are at way too many). The pain is still very evident but is being controlled by mediciation.. his is taking it every 2.5 - 3 hours for the chest pain but the headaches pains are no where near as bad as they have been. We have however been able to go out and eat at night after treatment - so he is up a little a day. Today Harry is going to have a CT Scan of his chest at 4pm; blood work at 4:30pm and radiation at 5pm. I do not know when we get the results but we will let you know. We will also let you know if we are evacuating for Gustav or not as the week goes on. That will all depend on the medicial facilities and whether they tell us to stay or move..

Love ya
Mona

Monday Night

Well the weekend was a long one. Harry really did not want to do anything but sleep. The chest pain has returned somewhat, the headaches are almost gone but he is beginning to have a little trouble swallowing certain things. According to Dr. Monsour - the swallowing thing is to be expected. Tomorrow is his 2nd round of chemo - so we'll be unavailable most of the day.

See you soon..

Saturday Morning

Wow - what a difference a few days make. I think we have truly hit upon the magic pain relief combination of drugs and timing. For those of you who know him well - Wednesday night he was standing in his closet - putting together complete outfits.. I have not been happier than I was that night in a while. Oh and I cut his hair - he is not losing it yet but it had been weeks, so he is sporting that cropped - almost military look.

Since the last post - he has been knocked back a little by the chemo but not a lot. No nausea medicine needed so far.

Yesterday we also went to get blood drawn - so they can keep track of what is going and again if you know him you know his aversion to needles, but the nurse "Christine" did a great job and got him on the first stick. Then off to radiation therapy we went.

After we went to Mandina's Restaurant on Canal so he could have his shrimp remoulade - this is the furtherest we've been since we started treatment and he wasn't winded or overly tired - YEAH!!!!

He is even talking about playing again - so we are definitely headed in the right direction.

Thanks for all the prayers, support and comments - we truly appreciate them.

Chemotherapy, Wed August 20th

Hello all,

Harry had his first chemotherapy treatment and other than it being a 4 1/2 hour event - he came through great. No nausea.. and we seem to have also finally found the perfect combination of time and pain reliever to almost entirely relieve his headaches. Dr. Monsour, his radiation oncologist, is also one very smart guy, He said it would take about 2 weeks (10 treatments) for Harry to get relief. Yesterday was that day - WOW what a difference. He is alert, no real shortness of breath, headache almost gone and he is not sleeping all day. If this continues, he just might be able to drive himself to all his own treatments. We were talking a little today and I want all of you to know that he truly feels all the prayers out there for him. And I know how much better he is feeling, so as far as we are concerned GOD is answering all of your prayers - so please don't stop.

Thank You for all your love and support - from the bottom of our hearts..

Mona & Harry

After Surgery

Harry made it through surgery with flying colors. He was apprehensive all day but we went to radiation therapy at 10:30am; met with Dr. Monsour for a few minutes, he checks in with us every Monday to see how Harry is holding up. After that we checked in at EJGH. They took him back to holding at 1pm and then at 3pm Dr. Karlin, the surgeon, came to let me know that Harry had made it through just fine. We left the hospital around 5:15pm. I went to pick up his new pain medication to take for the next few days, then Harry wanted Taco Bell, so we had Taco Bell. The pain meds are working and his was afraid that he would not be able to sleep on his right side, but he was off and on throughout the night. I will have to check with him when he wakes up how he is feeling today.. Well that's all for now, I have to get ready for work.. Take care everyone and I hope you had as successful a day as we did.

Mona

Surgery Today

Good Morning to all;

We are headed to the hospital a little later for the surgery to put in the Bard port. I will add a post when we get home to let you know how it went.

Mona

Sunday Morning

Harry has been having fair nights and decent days. He is more comfortable in bed so he is there unless we have somewhere to go. He is very fatigued and he is starting to cough a little bit more, but that is expected from the radiation and where he is being treated. He is still a little nervous about the outpatient surgery on Monday but he will be just fine. They moved his surgery up from 3pm to 130pm - so that should make it easier on him - he has to fast after midnight.

If you looked up cancer side effect or radiation side effects - he is having all of them except nausea right now. None of them are severe but are there. The big one - is the food tasting good one day and not the next; his taste buds are changing daily - so no pre-cooking anything. Yesterday - he wanted and had salami on white bread with barbeque sauce and he got it I am just glad I did not have to eat it.

Because he is in somewhat less pain - when he is awake, he is more awake and he is eating better..

Well, that's all for today unless something happens - next post will be after we get home tomorrow night from surgery - it will probably be a late night or early morning post.

Have a great day !
Mona

Medical Summary

I forgot that I had promised to give a history of what has gone on so far so here it is.

Back in January or February of this year - Harry had a swollen gland in his neck, he went to the doctor, they gave him medicine and it went away. We thought nothing further about it.

Then in April or May he started getting constant headaches and was having some chest pain. He started taking aspirin on a daily basis and they would go away. Towards the end of May and all during June he started complaining to me about the headaches and how he never had to take so much aspirin.

At the end of June - I told him to call Dr. Pereda and have him put in him the hospital for a complete physical or whatever it took to find out what was going on.

On July 3rd - he saw Dr. Pereda who thankfully ordered a full blood workup and chest XRAY.

On July 7Th, we had the blood work and chest XRAY done. On July 8Th, I flew out to a job. That same day Dr. Pereda called him and told him they found either a cyst or nodule behind his breast plate and they wanted to do a CT scan of his chest to see what it was.

On July 10Th - while I was out of town he went for this scan. The headaches were still very predominant so he was given the first round of pain killers to assist with this and we requested that he have a CT scan of his brain.

On July 13Th, I returned home and we went on July 14Th for the CT of his brain. That afternoon we got a call from Dr. Pereda who told us that this was a serious condition and he was referring us to another internist in Metairie (Dr. Pereda is now practicing in Kentwood and felt like he was too far away to lead the efforts here) so he referred us to Dr. Wallace Jeanfreau. He also changed his pain medication to Tylenol 3.

We saw Dr. Jeanfreau for the first time on Friday July18Th. He gave Harry a physical, checked his prostate(no problems) and told us he was referring us to a pulmonologist for further treatment. By this time we knew it was cancer but no one would say it because of the legal requirements.

On July 21st we met with Dr. Matthew Schuette at Southshore Lung Center, again no confirmation of the cancer but the films made it pretty obvious what we were facing. He prescribed us Darvocet because the pain was still severe. He referred us to 2 separate doctors, they are Dr. Paul Monsour, our radiation oncologist, to see if would start radiation without a diagnosis and a Dr. Ken Smith, another pulmonologist who has a new bronchcoscopy toy that had a lesser risk of causing a lung collapse during biopsy.

We saw Dr. Monsour on the July 22ND, while we were at the office he went and met with Dr. Smith and they decided not to start radiation until they had the biopsy so that they caused no additional harm. But he ordered a PET fusion scan for Monday July 28Th.

We were scheduled to meet with Dr. Ken Smith on Friday July 25Th and get an additional CT scan of his chest but he was in such bad shape we went to the Emergency Room instead. At the emergency room they did an ECG, blood work, CT scan of his chest, Chest XRAY etc.... he ended up being OK. He quit taking the Darvocet that day. He went back to the Tylenol 3 and ibuprofen that day.

On Monday July 28Th, we went in for the PET fusion scan and then finally went to see Dr. Ken Smith. He told us that he was able to use the CT scan we had had on the Friday to do the biopsy and so we were scheduled for the bronchcoscope on Wednesday July 30Th.

Tuesday I got a call from Jennie at Dr. Monsour's office to let us know that the PET fusion scan showed that the cancer had not shown up anywhere but his chest cavity.

On Wednesday we arrived at EJGH and checked in. They started the procedure at 1pm. Around 3pm, Dr. Schuette and Dr. Smith came out to tell me it was Non Small Cell Lung Cancer, Stage 3B. That means that it not operable, but it is treatable and they tell me we are going to be aggressive and will not talk about prognosis. Stage 3b designates that the cancer is on both sides of his chest. There are 2 tumors in the left lung and the lymph nodes in the center of his chest and right of his chest are also diseased. It is, they believe, the lymph nodes that are causing all the pain, because they are squeezing his left pulmonary artery and probably some other veins as well. The radiation should be able to shrink these and give him relief, but it will take a couple of weeks. Before we leave the hospital Dr. Smith suggest we get and MRI of Harry's brain just to be sure that the cancer has not spread anywhere else for sure. We have an appointment the next day with Dr. Schuette.

We also get a phone call from Dr. Monsour's office to let us know that we are going to have 35 radiation treatments. Everyday Monday through Friday, no weekends and holidays. That means we start treatment on Wednesday July 6th and his last treatment should be around Sept 24th.

Thursday July 31st we meet with Dr. Schuette, he orders the MRI of Hary's brain and he refers us to Dr. Marcus Black, a medical oncologist we are scheduled to meet with him on Monday August 4th.

Monday August 4th, we meet with Dr. Black and he tells us about the Chemotherapy we are going to have, he also tells us that the MRI shows nothing. He suggests that we have a Bard Port surgically implanted in Harry's chest so they can do the chemotherapy and pull blood work through it instead of through a vein every week. It is Dr. Black's intention to use a low dose chemotherapy during Harry's radiation treatments, then probably do a full course of chemotherapy after the radiation treatments are complete. We are then scheduled for a chemotherapy class with the nurses and an appointment with Dr. R. Karlin for surgery.

On Friday August 8th we met with Terry, the chemo nurse and she went through all the side effects, nutritional things we need to know and schedule his first chemo treatment for August 20th after his port surgery.

On Tuesday, August 12th we met with Dr. Karlin. He wants Harry off all aspirin for 5 days before surgery. So we are scheduled for surgery on Monday August 18th at 3pm. Harry will have a radiation treatment before we check into the hospital and we will come home that night with no complications.

So we have been going for radiation everyday and it seems to being going very well. He is fatigued but other than that no real problems.

On Thursday August 14th, we went to pre surgical registration and although it was long it went well. Harry wants Ashley who drew blood on him to follow him everywhere and always be the one to draw his blood. She was very good at it. Then we met with the Anesthesiologist for the surgery and got instructions for Monday.

So that completes the history so far... I know it is a lot but now you know.

Thanks,
Mona & Harry

Friday August 15

Good Morning all,

We had a very long day yesterday. Went to EJGH to pre register for his outpatient surgery and then onto radiation. He is still doing well but is very tired. His pain level seems to be decreasing however the surgery is making him nervous. but he had a good night. He's still eating well and we are looking forward to beating this thing. Hopefully sooner than later.

Thanks for all the messages and support..

MOna

Hello All

This is Mona. I am going to try this blogging thing. I feel like sometimes when I send an email I miss some of you. So everyday or so it is my intention to post what is going on so that you can come here on your convenience and be updated. Again thanks to all for you care and concern about Harry and his condition.

We had a pretty good day yesterday. Changed his pain meds again - something non narcotic and he is doing much better with it.

Today we meet the surgeon who is going to put the port in for his Chemotherapy , then back to radiation therapy this afternoon. Today will make 5 treatments, only 30 more to go!

I will post a summary sometime tonight so that those who do not know the whole story can come here to get it..

Mona