Remembering Dave

Deb it is not unusual to have to have a transfusion, I had to have one. Hope all is going better. You and your husband will be in my prayers. David C

I had carboplatin and VP 16 and do not remember having headaches. They gave me something for quesiness too, in IV prior to the chemo. One thing they heavily empasized was to drink, drink, drink and then drink some more!! Extremely important to stay hydrated. I had a quart plastic bottle I carried around with me EVERYWHERE filled with water and made myself take a drink every couple of minutes or so. They also emphasised to eat a lot of protein. The chemo was poisoning the good cells as well as the bad cells and the protein would help the good cells rejouvenate quicker. Hang in there the journey is just beginning. I had great results with chemo. Don't let it worry you, you can do it. A lot of us here have done it. Just make the best of it and picture the chemo coursing through your veins killing all those bad cancer cells. You will be in my prayers. David C

Ditto from Karen - how're ya doing?

I just talked to my Mom this morning, her surgeon had just come to visit her with results of her pathology from her colon surgery on Friday. As a recap, when the surgeon went in to remove the section of the colon containing the tumor he saw a metastasis on her liver, he took a biopsy of it then "burned the hell out of it". He told us that in RARE instances a colon cancer can physically jump over to the liver without going through the lymph nodes. Well, guess what, her lymph nodes were clear!!! Yipee!! So they are pretty sure that her liver just has/had the one spot on the surface with no other spread anywhere else. They are presenting her case to the "Tumor Board" this morning to decide the best line of treatment but more than likely she'll still have surgery to remove that part of her liver and chemo. Gosh, as long as Dave's bonkitis turns out to be just an infection and not a mets, then I think we may, once again, actually have beaten the beast back in all of us! My Dad continues to be 110% after his heart procedure last week. Now, if I could just get some rest . . . . but yes, am looking forward to Aunt Margaret's cooking and Uncle Wade's biting sarcasm (no, he's a great guy). Karen C.

Places to go, things to do, and people to see. Never forget it!!!!!!!!! As always Sandy, my prayers are with you. Let us know what happens/happened. David C

Happy belated Anniversary!!!!!!! Sorry about the pain, I hope and pray all is better by now. WOW 45 years!!!! Awesome!! Heres to many, many more. David C

Hello all, Another update. Things are getting better. Iam scheduled for surgury tomorow, Thursday at noon, to get a bone biopsy to see if it is an infection and see if my sinus is blocked and drain it and roto rooter it out if necessary. I went to the hospital yesterday and got more CT's, xrays and blood work and did the pre-op registration. Monday the doc called me and said to come to her office on the southside of Richmond (approx 20 miles the opposite way from home from where I work, which is 35 miles from home, geeze) and see her for the pre-op doc check. I did not mind since I knew the ball was rolling. When I was in the hospital yesterday I went up to see Karens mom and she was doing great, well as great as she could be a couple of days after surgury on her colon. They had her up and walking the halls, she had had 2 good meals, her first food in 5-6 days and she could drink fluids so she was in a pretty good mood. They are going to do a CT scan on her today and then release her and let her go home. Her Onc. wants her good and healed and strong before she starts any treatments for her Colon Cancer. Her sister and her Husband (Aunt Margaret and Uncle Wade to Karen) will be coming over to help her during her recovery time at home. They are pretty neat folks from W. VA., Wade loves to fish on our river and Margaret fixes some mean Catfish so I am sure we will get some good meals while they are here. I came home yesterday and mowed our entire place which is 7.8 acres and I mow about 3 1/2 acres.........not a good idea but had to be done and I certainly wont feel like doing it anytime soon after my surgury on my eye. Also got the poontoon boat all ready to go. My sister and her family from Northern VA are coming down for the July 4th weekend so we are all set for a merry 4th on the Mattaponi River, my eye allowing.....hey thats what pain pills are for.....right? They tell me I will be all black and blue like I got punched in the eye and will have an eye patch. Good Pirate material. Anyway, things have calmed down a bit around here and the course has been set, now all we have to do is what needs to be done. That and pray as always. I am sure Karen or I will update y'all on my surgury. Until then Thank you for your prayers and support and God bless us all. David C

Doin' the 3mjig!!!!!! Way to go.

Come on folks theres not a thing wrong with HOOTERS. I am kinda partial to the T-shirts myself although Karen would never let me have one. Theres just something about that Owl. Great photo of the gang. As you can tell I am a firm believer in changing out the photo's. The more the merrier. Keep the family photo's coming T-bone. David C

OK, Ginny, now THIS is the kind of thing we want to hear! Sounds like the oncologist is a half empty glass kinda guy and the radiation onc. is a half full glass kinda guy! Hang in there, you guys are terrific! Karen C.

Andrea - I'd like to share resources with your paralegal if at all possible - have you been able to talk to her? Is there any information about it you can share with us? I guess we really won't have enough info to do much research until she gets some scans and stuff to see if it's gone anywhere else, and the results of the pathology from her lymph nodes, but I want to get a head start on it. thanks! Karen

Jane, from the Chapmans, thank you so much for donating the money to get the site back on-line. I think it is a wonderful tribute to your brother and the love he left behind. The Chapman Family

I briefly did a search yesterday but just came up with the usual ACS and something else similar - and they were sooo general they weren't all that helpful. I need to find out as much as I can on this monster. I'm am so exhausted this morning it isn't funny. My Mom is doing well, she has a epidural so she can't feel anything around her incision or lower which is good and helping her rest. The incision is only about 4 inches long, blows my mind they can do all that work in your gut through a four inch incision. she's all bruised and swollen a little down in our groin and thigh where the cardiologist did the cath, it looks worse than the gut incision. The surgeon didn't think she'd be up to hearing about her metastasis until Monday but he popped in to see her last night around 8 pm and she was doing so well he told her. She took it so well, just said, well, I'll just do what I have to do and not worry about it - Dave just went through it and he did fine. She is such a strong person and I never ever thought she was, well, after her breast cancer diagnoses I saw it but she is one tough bird now. well, off to try to get some more laundry done and clean up our tornado stricken bedroom (I literally can't find anything to wear) and clean up the kitchen. Dave has done an awesome job running things at the house and taking care of Faith this week while I've spent all my waking hours at work or the hospital. Thanks for the support everyone, and if anyone has any good internet suggestions on colon cancer resources, especially mets to the liver, please PM or email us with it or post it here, thanks. God Bless us all, Karen c.

Hello all, This is a continuation of our Bone Scan posting. Just to sumerize--Karens mom went to the emergency room last Sunday and recvd 4 pints of blood due to low counts and has been in the hospital ever since, Karens dad had a heart catheterization on monday (at a different hospital) and stayed overnight, he had 2 blockages 1 90% blocked and 1 99% blocked, the put stints in and he was released on Tuesday, He went home grabbed his keys and went back to K's mom's hospital, Tuesday K's mom had a colonoscopy which found colon cancer, Wed. she was moved to the hospital K's Dad was in because it is a much better hospital and she had a heart cath there, it was the fist time the cath lab had a husband and wife in the same week, her cadiologist wanted to make sure her heart was OK before she went under the knife, it was, and Thursday they started cleaing her out for her surgury to remove the tumor. OK I think that was all in the Bone Scan posting. Well Friday they operated on her and found that it has spread to her liver. None of us really know much about Colon Cancer or the spreading of it yet. She will have to go through some chemo and they mentioned surgery on her liver in the future maybe. Karens mom is being very strong and is in amazingly good spirits, she said--well we will just have to do what isnecessary. I think she will do fine, she is a strong individual and has a positive attitude. As for me................. Karen and I were getting really pi**ed at my ENT Doc because we never heard anything. I even called her office about 3:00 on Friday and they said my tests did not come back yet.....but they would call the lab. I never heard anything else, I was at work, I tried calling at 4:40 but the office closed at 4:30. I decided I was going to start taking some Cipro I had laying around since all the docs seemed to not want to give me any Antibiotics but kept telling me I had an infection and probably needed some-grrrrrrr.. Well Karen was at the hospital so I picked up Faith and played Mr. Mom, as I had all week, and we went home. Let me tell you that girl loves her vegetables. Karen had a pot roast with potato's and carrots and onions in the crock pot and Faith all of her plate and then ate 1/2 the vegetables off of my plate, I started getting scared she was going to explode she was eating so much!!! She really has been an angel all week. We went to see Karens mom on Wed. night and she was so well behaved in the hospital and we have had a lot of fun this week, just her and I. ANyway, when we had finished eating dinner at about 20 to 6:00 I saw we had a message, I checked it and it was the ENT Doc. she gave me a number to call her back and nobody answered when I called. I did the dishes and was going to take a cipro pill when the phone rang and it was the doc.. She said the lab tests came back and I did have a sinus infection and she was calling me in an Antibiotic and that I would be having a biopsy of the bone over my eybrow which covers the sinus to see if itwas cancer or a bone infection. She did say that on the list of possibilities cancer is very, very low on the list just because of where it is located. They will cut from the inside corner of my eye up and around the underside of the eyebrow and take a piece of the bone and also see if my sinus cavity is plugged (possible reason for the sinus infection-possible side effect from PCI). there is something deffinitely going on with my bone up there and if it is a bone infection I may have to go in the hospital and get IV Antibiotics for several days depending on how bad it is. I must say my faith in the ENT Doc is restored, calling me at 7:15 on a Friday night. We still do not know when the biopsy will be done, I will have to have a special CT done and an xray before it can be done. The scheduler told us July 1 o July 8 is a possibility. Of course I want July 1 but don't know ifI can get the CT scan done by then. I will have to call early Monday and get them rolling on that one. I am sure Karen will call to. She has a Take No Prisoners attitude towards the medical community which usually works, ha,ha. Well keep Karens mom in your prayers and either I or Karen will update as soon as possible. As always, you are all in my prayers. David C

I've been wondering about them myself. Karen C.

Ok, let me see if I got this straight: 1. Rick and Katie use their own time, their own money, and their own expertise, to build a website for lung cancer victims and their families and it is absolutely 100% free for anyone to access and use; and 2. When it goes down for a few days (no matter the reason, they are doing all of this voluntarily) people actually get angry at them because they're cut off from the free thing being GIVEN to them? 3. That just don't add up. Katie and Rick, all the moderators and members of the board of directors - THANK YOU for what you do. I feel like a total loser because all I do is use the board ALOT. I'm talking to Dave as soon as we get a minute to spare about sending you some money. Please please please to those of you who sent the hate mail, please tell me you didn't KNOW how much of their own time and money these two put into this and you didn't mean it? Please? Karen C.

Thanks, ya'll, but last night I thought the cracking was happening. ugh. all is better with me now. all of this and one boss at work hassaling (sp?) me about taking time off for yet another family crisis. he actually reduced my raise b/c I didn't apply for FMLA for the time I took to care for Dave last year. told me I didn't protect myself. what a jerk. and I took nothing but my own vacation time and three days off without pay THAT HE APPROVED. anyway, I asked for the FMLA package and HR told me I shouldn't need it becuase I wasn't taking that much time and besides, it was my time to take (vacation time). I insisted, got the package, and told him I was in the process of protecting myself, ha, but my other boss heard this from me for the first time and "spoke with him" so hopefully this is nipped in the bud. long story behind it all of the usual psycho co worker and office politics. I honestly don't care I told him I was sorry he felt that way, I had no clue he felt that way, but it didn't matter because I didn't care how he felt and my husband was far more important to me than a lousy job and I could always go back to my old job which is very true. Ok, prayers that my mom's colon cancer had not spread yet AND that Dave's biopsy comes back clear. then, as I like to say, we will have once again gotten away with it all! thanks for the support everyone, glad the site is back up in time for my online therapy. Karen C.

I want to say one more thing about my mom. She is a breast cancer survivor. hers was caught EARLY with a mammagram - it was the size of "grains of sand" and a lumptecomy and radiation got it. that was about eight years ago. my mom rocks! Karen C.

Andrea, you can kick one boss's butt. He was being a typical weinie (who's going to open my mail? who's going to send my faxes? who's going to hold my pathetic weinie hand????) so when my other, cool, female boss told me to "don't worry about this place" I said, now, how am I supposed to not worry about this place when Mr. Weinie is whining about it to me? I then told her that if he didn't back off I was going to look into getting my old job back at the law firm. So she went over and told him to leave me alone. He had to send one more whining email about whether or not I was taking care of something that I told him four times already I was handling so I replied and told him that I thought it was unnecessary to ask me about it again when I had repeatedly assured him it was being taken care of and I didn't want to discuss it again. So, yes, come kick some lawyer butt, you lawyer you. Ha, I feel better already! Karen

GEEZ, Ricky, you owe no one an apology - we owe you guys for putting together such a wonderful website with your own time and money! You and Katie ROCK! Karen C.

Kim, how sweet of you to stick around when you don't need to. This sort of encouragement is priceless, please know that. and yes, I can't imagine sending hate mail to someone providing a free, service to people when it is costing them hundred of dollars out of their own pockets. That's just hard to imagne. Thank you for your kind note, and I hope that your life is continuing well without your dear husband. God Bless, Karen C.

I posted an update on Dave under his "bone scan" thread. Karen

Whew, it's been quite a week. I sure have missed the board but I haven't had time for it anyway! 1. My dad rushed my mom to the hospital on Sunday morning she thought she was having a heart attack. Crushing chest pain, numb left arm, shortness of breath. She did not have an actual heart attack but instead her hemaglobin had dropped even lower and her heart was freaking out because it didn't have enough blood (and therefore oxygen and iron) to work properly. She was admitted to the hospital and given four pints of blood over two days. Yesterday she had an endoscopy and colonscopy which discovered the source of her blood loss: a tumor in her colon. but just one one . . . malignant tumor. 2. On Monday my dad was admitted TO A DIFFERENT HOSPITAL for a scheduled heart catherization. They found two of the three arteries to his heart blocked - one 99% and one 90%. Thankfully he had an excellent, experienced cardiologist who was able to fix them right then and there with stents. He spent the night in the hospital. My brother took him home the next day, he walked into the house, picked up his car keys and drove himself to the hospital where my mom is (he took her there instead of to "his" hospital on Sunday because it was literally 3 or 4 minutes closer). Mom's admitting physician is a cardiologist since they thought she was having a heart attack. We love him, he is Vietnamese, my mom adores him I can tell. Once the GI doc found the colon tumor the cardiologist said he wanted to do a heart catherization on my mom immediately to make sure there was no damage to her heart before turning her over to a surgeon to get the tumor cut out. We all agreed that my mom should be moved to my dad's hospital because it is a heart specialist hospital and frankly the hospital my mom was in SUCKS. So this morning she was moved and around 10:00 she had the catherization and her heart checked out fine. Mom is having her colon surgery tomorrow. NOW TO DAVID: We saw the ENT doc today (in fact were sitting in the waiting room when my dad called to say my mom's heart was OK). The ENT doc said she could definitely see green stuff up his nose (she poked and prodded up there with all kinds of fun toys) and took a swab and is having it path'ed so she can prescribe the exact antiobiotic for the infection. She said that radiation to the head (Dave had PCI) can definitely damage ducts leading out of sinus cavities causing back up of fluid and bacteria infection. also said there was "striations" on the bone which could have been caused by infection eating away at it OR cancer spread, although she agreed with the oncology radiologist that it is an unusual place for it go to. So to be sure she is going to do a surgical biopsy of the bone there IN THE SAME HOSPITAL MY MOM IS IN. Soon, we are waiting to hear when they schedule it. If it is an infection of the bone he may have to stay in the hospital for a day or two and get an antibiotic IV. I will say it was funny to go into the cath lab at the hospital and see my mother laying in the same recovery cubicle my dad was in two days before, with my dad sitting there looking like a million bucks, and the nurses all gathered around making over my parents. they said they were going to put a plague up in that cubicle dedicating it to my parents, ha! It was really nice and they are a great bunch and I enjoyed visiting my mom and talking to them. they told us all to stop back in as we're there to say hello and I plan to do that. Hopefully my mom's tumor was caught early - it is small and she had a colonoscopy three years ago which was clean - and Dave's thing is an infection and easily resolved - and in about a week or so everyone will be on track to NORMAL AND HEALTHY. Thanks for listening and God Bless! Karen C.

Geez, I don't know what to say. I tend to agree with Addie. Ginny, you have been a wonderful inspiration to me during the last year. You are the perfect, adoring, supportive wife (I read your story and from what you say there's no doubt of all of that) and I wish there was something that could keep your precious Duke around alot longer. You remind me of the Reagans (hope you don't mind that) in your adoration for each other, and even though Pres. Reagon hasn't been "all there" for years I know Nancy would trade anything to have one more day with that dear man. Please keep us posted, and I will pray for you two. God Bless, Karen C.

My Onc did not really say but one time in the middle of my chemo regime I had to see one of his partners and he was joking around about drinking alchohol as a source of liquids. I drank beer on several occassions during treatment with no ill effects other than getting more tired quicker. Fluid intake is a very important part of the process and I don't think alchohol.....in moderation.....is that bad. This is my opinion only, I am not a Doctor, I just play..... David C