Thursday, January 19, 2012

Hello all... Momma again, or Maw as Jimmy calls me. On Tuesday we went to LGH (Lancaster General Hospital) for a CT needle guided biopsy of his colon. He wasn't able to eat from midnight on... and Man, he said it felt as if he were starving... Since he had gotten his freedom to eat ANYTHING he wants.. And boy does he take advantage of that, not eating for almost 12 hours was tough on him!! At 6'1" his lowest weight was a little over 130lbs. I hated seeing that!! This morning he weighed 162.5 before his chemo treatment. But I am getting a little ahead of myself... We were at LGH for the biopsy... He went into the procedure a half hour late- we sat in pre-op and watched these crazy people going miles underground... For various reasons- the craziest being to run a marathon... Weird... Someone actually made a track... Who does this?!?! When he went back I went up to the 5th floor to visit a friend for about 45 min. Headed back down to be close to post-op when my buzzer went off. Didn't take long once I got down to first floor. The buzzer went off and I was taken back to my boy. It took about an hour like they had predicted.When I got back to his room he was sitting up and very alert. I wouldn't have guessed he just had a procedure if I didn't know!! He said to me "I'm allowed to eat. Do you remember that cafe down by the elevators?! I saw a pepperoni hot pocket type of thing in there. Can you get that and a soda for me?" lol... Really? Haha- I figured he would need to eat crackers and such first... What the heck do I know?!ok I went for this pepperoni diddy- it ended up being a sausage & pepperoni calzone and a wild cherry Pepsi!! He devoured the whole thing!! We had to sit there in post-op for 2 hours to make sure he would be good to go and he wouldn't bleed. His orders were no lifting or driving, and just take it easy the rest of day. He also had to give up 2 shots that day- his blood thinner called lovenox, he wasn't too awfully upset about 2 less stabs that day!! He was doing well and they let us go 1hr15min early!!
We left there and made a beeline for a wonderful little place called Lyndon Diner!!! He got 2 huge blueberry pancakes, bacon, coffee & chocolate milk. Haha... He was not able to finish the food!! Lol but he gave it a good college try!! We took a TRUE BLUE fresh made eclair home with us... it just looked too good!! Jimmy had some of that the same night- he said how good it was and that I HAD to try it- OMG, he was right... it was SOoooo good- I am sure that we will be stopping there again!!!
We then took the pedal cars that he got from an auction to get an estimate on fixing them up- kinda like pimp my ride!! We are very excited to see how it turns out- he chose to do only one right now.
Today he has chemo. We are sitting here at LCC in Greenfield Corporate Center in Lancaster, Pa. He saw his wonderful oncologist, Dr. Tracy DeGreen at 8am then started chemo. Addy, if some of you don't know the name.. is his girlfriend, took the first shift- she sits with him and then I will come in and sit the remainder when she has to leave. The biopsy, we found out, was to see if he would be a candidate for another chemo med added to his regimen-the name of the med is erbitux, and he is... so now we have to struggle through getting it approved by insurance, so we couldn't do it today. It is a supposed to give us a 24% better chance at kicking this cancer in the head!! They still don't want to give the Evastin because one of the side effects is tearing of the lining of the intestine- and since the tumor is most likely attached to wall- Dr. DeGreen doesn't want to take the chance. So, I guess they will have to fight to get Erbitux for him. AND if ANYONE can do it, it will be Kat, she works here at LCC and is the BEST at getting Jimmy what he needs. She works VERY hard and we are SOOO thankful for her!! She has come through for us MANY MANY times when insurance denies us!! So, once she gets it approved, we will come here once a week to have the new one administered... the first treatment will take 3 hours because they want to go slow enough to watch for reactions. The other treatments will be 2 hours then once a week here at LCC. We really do LOVE all of the people here at LCC. One of Jimmy's comments this morning while waiting in the room for Dr. DeGreen to come in was "everyone knows everyone here by name". It is true- when you walk back the halls, they will call out your name and give you warm greetings. I can see how one would get attached to people here!!
So, we are on Chemo #7. We have 5 more to go, we hope, then surgery. We are holding our hopes high and staying positive for the end result!! Thank you all again for your thoughts and prayers!! << can't say that enough!! <3 <3 <3