The Blog
Tough few days.
February 18, 2008Its been a tough few days for Misty. When we got home from her 7 hr Chemo on friday she felt quite sick. She has felt quite sick each day since. Its tough for her to eat anything, so we are battling a bit with dehydration and lack of nourishment. The worst part is seeing her upset that she can’t care for her daughter like she wants to…
But Olivia is a champ. She walks over to the couch and gives mommy hugs and kisses when she is resting. And often lays next to her on the couch at night, falling asleep to an episode of My Gym Partner is a Monkey. She really does make us smile. Today I left her in the living room for a minute by herself only to come back around the corner to her standing in the middle of the room blowing her nose into napkin that misty had been using as a coaster. This nose blowing thing is her latest trick. It’s pretty cute. Especially since most of the time she gets more on her cheek than she does into the napkin 
Anyway, we are anxious about the next MRI…7 days and counting. We are praying for good results.
Chemo Tomorrow **update**
February 14, 2008Misty has the priviledge of another half day chemo session tomorrow. Hopefully, that will go well. 10 days later we get the scan to see if this has been halting the cancer. we are hopeful.
UPDATE:
So the chemo went pretty well. It took a little longer than we’d planned. We were there from 8:30am till 3:30pm. Misty didn’t feel great, but it wasn’t terrible. Now she is quite tired and bit nauseated, but thats pretty much what you’d expect. Hopefully, that will clear up soon. We are of course, remaining hopeful that in 10days her MRI shows significant improvement.
This evening…our Valentines Day
February 13, 2008I’m excited about today.
I will be taking my wonderful, beautiful and incredibly strong wife out to dinner tonight. Its Valentines Day (as observed in the LeBlanc house, due to chemotherapy schedule –friday– combined with the burning desire to eat dinner in a “non-super-over-crowded” restaurant –tomorrow–). I believe we have found the most exquisite restaurant in NJ (but i really should wait till after dinner to make that judgment) – So expect a review!
A great day.
February 7, 2008Today was a great day.
Early this afternoon, I heard back from the doctor about Misty’s chest X-Ray and it turns out that she doesn’t have pneumonia after all!! It’s likely something less serious. On top of that…she is starting to feel better today and has been having a pretty good day.
I was able to get out of work a little early and I ran home to pick up Livi. I took her out to the beach to go take some pictures and walk around in the sand (it wasn’t all that cold….not exactly warm, but not freezing either). So we made the long 2 block drive over to the beach. Well, she didn’t like the whole sand thing. I think it made her feel unstable. Oh well. So, I carried her and we took some pictures. We got “attacked” (read: “they landed very close around us looking for food I guess”) by one of the largest flocks of sea gulls I have ever seen. Olivia was saying “bihr”, “bihr” repeatedly as we watched them stand in the sand looking at us (quite literally, they surrounded us). She has a bath toy of a sea gull that we call “bird” so she’s pretty familiar with these things. We also saw some beautiful clouds with light rays beaming through…it was quite nice. Then we get back home and Misty is feeling pretty good to boot. It was really a nice day.
Click on the picture below to see the photo gallery of our beach trip:
today…
February 5, 2008It seems that misty has pneumonia. She has had trouble breathing for a while and starting coughing. Its tough to know what symptoms are from what…but today we saw a general practitioner to get checked and and sure enough, Misty is now on an antibiotic. Hopefully that will put that to rest quickly. She’s actually not feeling as badly as you might expect…so thats good. She actually spent quite a bit of time playing with the little one tonight.
Speaking of the little one, Livi is loving life. She is asking for just about all her foods by name now…apple (we’ve had that one down for a while), blue (blueberry), bed (bread), may (tomato) , chia (cheerio), etc. And she’s pretty consistent with a few animal sounds too…if you say “cow”, she says “moo” and “sheep” is “bah”. Its fairly amusing.
Round 1
January 31, 2008Misty had her first round of the new chemo cocktail today. It took quite a while (6hrs of IV) but this process will get quicker as we move along. All in all, she did great with it. Felt a bit sick in the afternoon, but by the end of the day she had begun to feel better and any nausea was gone. This is good news…
Also, the insurance company approved payment for this treatment. This is also good news as its not an FDA approved drug for brain tumors. Truth be told…there are no approved drugs for brain cancer, so any and every treament gets scrutinized quite heavily. So we are very pleased with that. (PS…we just switched to Blue Cross Blue Shield and are very happy. I’ll tell more about this later)
Sincerely,
Hopeful in Long Branch
The rollercanster.
January 29, 2008I’m not always sure how Misty does it. I mean…she gets pretty down at times, of course, but she manages to live in a complete rollercoaster of emotion and stay pretty level headed and focused. We pretty much get the full spectrum of emotion on a weekly basis and she is keeping her head up.
So for the happy stuff…Today, our little girl ate chicken cacciatore (yes, we have progressed to big kid food) off her own fork. I mean, we had to help her get the chicken on the end of the fork (it was more like a spork anyway), but she lifted it up and fed herself. And yesterday, I got a fairly complete sentence out of her. I had just read her this little pop-out book about “Aunt Phybian” (the amphybian) and she picks it up, walks over to my lap and says “more book dada.” I of course melted and read it like 19 more times. Then….on top of our fun with Livi, we get the privilege of seeing our best friends beaultiful new (less than a day old) baby girl, Lyla!
But in the midst of the joy there is also discouragement. Today we got the pathology report back of the tumor sample from the second surgery. It showed a progression to Grade IV. So while we were hopeful after the first pathology, our fears were confirmed today.
Really though, it doesn’t change too much. We are starting a new chemotherapy on wednesday and one way or another Misty will be healed. Grade IV just means its a bigger miracle I guess…
Still Stage 3!
January 22, 2008Misty and I just got back from NYC. We visited the hospital this morning to get Misty’s staples and stitches out and discuss the pathology of her tumor with the neuro-surgeon. Pieces of the tumor were sent away to the lab to get studied and determine the stage (or grade) of the cancer. Depending on how quickly the cells are reproducing and other factors (like if it has its own blood supply), a grade is assigned to the cancer. The good news is that the biopsy from the first surgery is back and its still a stage 3 (there are 4 total stages). This is the same grade as it was a few months ago, so from a medical perspective, this is the best that could have been hoped for. Generally, when a tumor becomes agressive after being supprespsed by a chemo, the resulting cancer is a higher grade. We are waiting to get the pathology on the second surgery but this is very good news. Our spirits are lifted today.
a good day
January 17, 2008We have had a rough week…physically, spiritually, emotionally…but I think we are on the way up. Misty started to feel a bit better today. She had the strength to do some dishes (against my will…) and played with Livi a bit more than usual. It was a nice day.
We are thankful that her pain has subsided (no need for serious pain meds anymore) and that she is getting her strength back. We are praying for her hand function to come back completely and the swelling to go down on her face.
As the plan stands…we will be starting her new chemo in about a week…
First day home
January 14, 2008It was nice to wake up in NJ…the familiar sound of Marmalade (our cat) scratching on our door – She inevitably wakes up before us and expects that we should be up to feed her and let her out.
Anyway, the day was restful. We had some help from my parents to watch Olivia and Misty was able to rest all afternoon. She is still having a good bit of trouble with use of her right hand and she is missing a few words here and there, but she’s doing pretty great compared to what we expected.
And Olivia knows how to blow her nose now…I’m so proud!