Karen's doing GREAT. I am here in St Barnabas waiting room. It's 11AM and I just spoke to Doctor Chamberlain about 20mins ago. I had to take a few minutes to absorb what he told me before jumping online to share.
We got here at 5:30AM and were seen within 15mins. They prepped Karen with IVs and a couple of tests, all went smooth. By 7AM she was wheeled into the prep-area. She and I got to meet all the doctors, anesthesiologists and residents. She has a huge team and the all have the appearance of the utmost competence.
We had a few minutes together and Karen's spirits were really good going into the op. We were nervously laughing and joking and making fun of the residents as we waited.
At 7:25AM I had to leave her as she got her epidural.
At about 9:30AM Stephanie came out and said the laproscopy had gone well and no new disease had been found. That meant the rest of the operation was going ahead.
About 25mins ago Dr Chamberlain himself came out and briefed me. I'm still in shock. He has taken out a portion of her colon and some of her left-liver lobe and the big news is he thinks he can take out the right lobe TODAY!!!
He said "in two more hours she will have no more visible disease"!!! Unbelievable.
She's still in the operating room right now. It's a long procedure with about 2-3 more hours to go. Her gall bladder will be next and about 30 or so lymph nodes. Then the entire right lobe of her liver.
Everything's going great and I am light-headed with the news. I will try to write more later.
Much love to all and thanks again for all the kind words, Karen told me they really do lift her spirits.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Checking into St Barnabas
Karen's doing well, hungry and working through the prep but in good spirits. All preparations are in place and so this is just a quick note around logistics.
St. Barnabas called this evening, they'd like us there tomorrow morning at 5:30AM. So we'll call that "sometime around" 5:30AM. Surgery starts at 7:30AM. I expect to see someone come out around 9AM to let me know what's going on. She should be done with surgery by 12:30PM.
There is Wifi in certain parts of the hospital and I will try to update the blog once we have some news.
Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes. They really do help.
St. Barnabas called this evening, they'd like us there tomorrow morning at 5:30AM. So we'll call that "sometime around" 5:30AM. Surgery starts at 7:30AM. I expect to see someone come out around 9AM to let me know what's going on. She should be done with surgery by 12:30PM.
There is Wifi in certain parts of the hospital and I will try to update the blog once we have some news.
Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes. They really do help.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Surgery Day's A Comin'
Well here we are again. We met with Dr. Ronald Chamberlain this past Monday the 23rd. It was basically a pre-op review and time for any last minute important question that you could possibly try to muster up in your brain. What is proposed to happen is this.
First Dr. C. will perform a diagnostic laproscopy to see what the deal is before the "first incision." Then in "general" what could happen are these three scenarios. These scenarios all have their own sub-scenarios and so on but I won't get into all that.
So the first one is surgery can't take place for any number of reasons, (too much scar tissue, too much tumor etc). If this is the case Dr. C. assured me he will still do radio frequency ablation (rfa) or microwave ablation http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16227498 to the tumors.
The second one is both sides of the liver are resected to remove said tumors, during the same surgery as well as part of the colon where the primary tumor originated. We want that crap gone!
The third is that the liver resection will take place in two stages, to, as I understand it, safeguard me from liver failure. But the colon resection would take place. With the two stage deal, one section of liver would be removed. I would recover 7-10 days in the hospital come back in 2-3 weeks and the other section would be removed. Dr. C. is sensing the latter scenario will take place. The end goal being to all of this is me have no evidence of disease or (let's be wild shall we...Cancer Free!!). Does all this make sense?
I am incredibly blessed, fortunate and grateful to be in this position. That is not lost on me. Just to have the word "option" in the life of someone with cancer is a golden ray of light. I am grateful to still be able to hear that word.
I really like Dr. Chamberlain. He is very thorough and articulate and obviously very intelligent and good at what he does. I don't know how I have been so lucky to have gotten such an incredible team.
Dr. Moriarty has been guiding and navigating me through these horrible, scary unknown waters and has never given up on me. I don't know what I would do, or where I would be without him or Kathy, Sonya, Kim, Chris, Gina, Miriam and Mylene. The woman, and nurses that care for me always.
And now I have this surgeon who seems to have his stuff together and is ready to go.
Since I met with Dr. C. on Monday I have been at a greater peace. I have been struggling in prayer. Jesus what do I ask for? I just want to be healed, completely healed and I know you can and are doing it. But then the thought sneaks in "well what if your supposed to stay sick, what if God's will is that you die from this?" This has been my internal spiritual struggle.
Then I was praying and felt so strongly Jesus saying to me "Karen what would be the opposite of what your asking me for?" I thought about it and said it would be unhappiness misery and death. Jesus said "I am not here for you to live like that" I am here for life and for joy." Okay so that was pretty heavy and while I was in the bathroom of course.
Then at the end of my meeting with Dr. Chamberlain I asked him if he prayed and he responded a very strong yes. He wrote down a scripture on an unopened gauze wrapper handed to me it was Jeremiah 29:11-14 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity.
Yeaaaaa I think I want this guy to be my surgeon.
I am fully at peace. Jesus has plans to GIVE me hope and a future and I'll take it.
Thank you all for everything. Every prayer, thought and kindness is deeply appreciated and as always humbling. There are so many people out there who needs our prayers. So lets keep praying for each other. We all need it.
Fran will be posting the happenings as best he can after surgery.
My sincerest love to all,
Karen
First Dr. C. will perform a diagnostic laproscopy to see what the deal is before the "first incision." Then in "general" what could happen are these three scenarios. These scenarios all have their own sub-scenarios and so on but I won't get into all that.
So the first one is surgery can't take place for any number of reasons, (too much scar tissue, too much tumor etc). If this is the case Dr. C. assured me he will still do radio frequency ablation (rfa) or microwave ablation http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16227498 to the tumors.
The second one is both sides of the liver are resected to remove said tumors, during the same surgery as well as part of the colon where the primary tumor originated. We want that crap gone!
The third is that the liver resection will take place in two stages, to, as I understand it, safeguard me from liver failure. But the colon resection would take place. With the two stage deal, one section of liver would be removed. I would recover 7-10 days in the hospital come back in 2-3 weeks and the other section would be removed. Dr. C. is sensing the latter scenario will take place. The end goal being to all of this is me have no evidence of disease or (let's be wild shall we...Cancer Free!!). Does all this make sense?
I am incredibly blessed, fortunate and grateful to be in this position. That is not lost on me. Just to have the word "option" in the life of someone with cancer is a golden ray of light. I am grateful to still be able to hear that word.
I really like Dr. Chamberlain. He is very thorough and articulate and obviously very intelligent and good at what he does. I don't know how I have been so lucky to have gotten such an incredible team.
Dr. Moriarty has been guiding and navigating me through these horrible, scary unknown waters and has never given up on me. I don't know what I would do, or where I would be without him or Kathy, Sonya, Kim, Chris, Gina, Miriam and Mylene. The woman, and nurses that care for me always.
And now I have this surgeon who seems to have his stuff together and is ready to go.
Since I met with Dr. C. on Monday I have been at a greater peace. I have been struggling in prayer. Jesus what do I ask for? I just want to be healed, completely healed and I know you can and are doing it. But then the thought sneaks in "well what if your supposed to stay sick, what if God's will is that you die from this?" This has been my internal spiritual struggle.
Then I was praying and felt so strongly Jesus saying to me "Karen what would be the opposite of what your asking me for?" I thought about it and said it would be unhappiness misery and death. Jesus said "I am not here for you to live like that" I am here for life and for joy." Okay so that was pretty heavy and while I was in the bathroom of course.
Then at the end of my meeting with Dr. Chamberlain I asked him if he prayed and he responded a very strong yes. He wrote down a scripture on an unopened gauze wrapper handed to me it was Jeremiah 29:11-14 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity.
Yeaaaaa I think I want this guy to be my surgeon.
I am fully at peace. Jesus has plans to GIVE me hope and a future and I'll take it.
Thank you all for everything. Every prayer, thought and kindness is deeply appreciated and as always humbling. There are so many people out there who needs our prayers. So lets keep praying for each other. We all need it.
Fran will be posting the happenings as best he can after surgery.
My sincerest love to all,
Karen
Friday, February 20, 2009
4th Colonoscopy
Karen's doing better. The malaise from the shingles has cleared up. Tomorrow (Friday) is colonoscopy day which makes today prep day, not fun. Karen's 4th colonoscopy in 2 years.
Sydney turned 5 today also and she is just a doll. No other word for it. We'll go out to dinner as a family after K's procedure and Sydney gets to pick the place.
Sunday is Syd's party which makes Saturday cake baking day.
Monday is Chamberlain and pre-admin testing all day at St. Barnabus.
Life is good.
Sydney turned 5 today also and she is just a doll. No other word for it. We'll go out to dinner as a family after K's procedure and Sydney gets to pick the place.
Sunday is Syd's party which makes Saturday cake baking day.
Monday is Chamberlain and pre-admin testing all day at St. Barnabus.
Life is good.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Karen has Shingles
Karen has shingles. She's running a mild fever the last two weeks and most recently this has amped up. She's in bed resting with a confirmed case of shingles. I won't go into the details but think painful chicken-pox.
Shingles is normally not expected until you're over 60. Then again colon cancer is not expected until you're over 50. Karen'll be 34 this year! Go figure. Google says this is fairly common in long-term chemo patients. I myself have a mild cold so she probably caught some of that too.
It's a virus so she's on anti-viral medicine. We're hoping this will clear up in time for surgery (March 3rd) and not interfere with the preparation. With a colonoscopy coming up on Friday 20th and Sydney's birthday on the 19th (she'll be 5) we already have a packed schedule.
Timing could be better but like everything else we'll deal with it.
Shingles is normally not expected until you're over 60. Then again colon cancer is not expected until you're over 50. Karen'll be 34 this year! Go figure. Google says this is fairly common in long-term chemo patients. I myself have a mild cold so she probably caught some of that too.
It's a virus so she's on anti-viral medicine. We're hoping this will clear up in time for surgery (March 3rd) and not interfere with the preparation. With a colonoscopy coming up on Friday 20th and Sydney's birthday on the 19th (she'll be 5) we already have a packed schedule.
Timing could be better but like everything else we'll deal with it.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Protein Folding Continues
Karen's doing well. Getting stronger and prepping for surgery.
I wanted to post a very quick update on our Protein Folding team which is making great strides in the area of Cancer Research.
As you can see from the team stats page, we are ranked 6519th out of 152,887 teams worldwide. Not bad!
I've written about this before and here's How to Help.
If you're interested in the mechanics of protein folding and how it actually works, here's some stuff I've figured out along the way: Parts 1, 2 and 3
I know this isn't a very interesting update but it's important and does help the field of research.
I wanted to post a very quick update on our Protein Folding team which is making great strides in the area of Cancer Research.
As you can see from the team stats page, we are ranked 6519th out of 152,887 teams worldwide. Not bad!
| Report generated on | 18:56:54 February 02, 2009 |
| Date of last work unit | 2009-02-01 18:23:19 |
| Active CPUs within 50 days | 7 |
| Team Id | 144824 |
| Grand Score | 169488 (certificate) |
| Work Unit Count | 203 (certificate) |
| Team Ranking (incl. aggregate) | 6519 of 152887 |
I've written about this before and here's How to Help.
If you're interested in the mechanics of protein folding and how it actually works, here's some stuff I've figured out along the way: Parts 1, 2 and 3
I know this isn't a very interesting update but it's important and does help the field of research.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Cleared for Surgery - March 3rd 2009
Karen's doing great. We met with Dr Moriarty on Monday, and Dr Chamberlain today. They've spoken and are in agreement that based on Karen's most recent PET scan, she's cleared for surgery.
They are hard men to read but I get the impression they're both pretty amazed at how well Karen has done. Her tumors are still active but barely and perfect for resection. After ~18 months of uphill emotional and physical battle, Karen's gone from terminal cancer to having a possible curative surgery.
Surgery has been tentatively scheduled for the 3rd of March at St Barnabus [LINK] in Livingston. The good Doctor Chamberlain was named in the Top Docs 2008 list [LINK] so that's encouraging.
Surgery will not be easy, as we know. The idea is to open up K's existing scar and possibly elongate it. There will likely be scar tissue from the old surgery which will complicate the procedure. The plan is to remove Karen's right liver lobe and either cut out or ablate the tumors on the left lobe. Her gall bladder will come out and possible 10-12 inches of colon, along with lymph nodes and other sundry items. They'll do an intra-operative ultrasound to be sure every thing's removed and then sew her back up.
There's also a possibility that the procedure will need to be done in 2 surgeries instead of one. The doctor won't know until he gets in there. In the event of two surgeries, the first would actually tie off the right lobe but not remove it. This will trigger growth in the left lobe. Karen would come home and after 2-3 weeks the left lobe would be big enough. They'd go in and remove the right, leaving the larger left. Make sense?
Assuming one surgery, Karen'll be in hospital between 7-14 days.
Between now and the 3rd will be another colonoscopy, one more Erbitux, some pre-admissions tests, Chamberlain and Moriarty visits and likely some pre-operative prep.
The surgery is not without risk, both doctors have said they would not attempt this on a sixty year old woman, but we know what to expect and are ready for whatever comes.
"No Evidence of Disease" does not mean "no disease", it just means no visible tumors. There's also the chance of a recurrence after surgery but Karen's been off chemo since July 2008 with no new tumors appearing so this is a good indicator. If there were tumor cells ready to grow they have had time to do so.
The goal is to have Karen leave the operating room, visibly cancer free. As doctor Chamberlain put it, that would indeed be a true miracle. No one has worked harder for it than Karen.
They are hard men to read but I get the impression they're both pretty amazed at how well Karen has done. Her tumors are still active but barely and perfect for resection. After ~18 months of uphill emotional and physical battle, Karen's gone from terminal cancer to having a possible curative surgery.
Surgery has been tentatively scheduled for the 3rd of March at St Barnabus [LINK] in Livingston. The good Doctor Chamberlain was named in the Top Docs 2008 list [LINK] so that's encouraging.
Surgery will not be easy, as we know. The idea is to open up K's existing scar and possibly elongate it. There will likely be scar tissue from the old surgery which will complicate the procedure. The plan is to remove Karen's right liver lobe and either cut out or ablate the tumors on the left lobe. Her gall bladder will come out and possible 10-12 inches of colon, along with lymph nodes and other sundry items. They'll do an intra-operative ultrasound to be sure every thing's removed and then sew her back up.
There's also a possibility that the procedure will need to be done in 2 surgeries instead of one. The doctor won't know until he gets in there. In the event of two surgeries, the first would actually tie off the right lobe but not remove it. This will trigger growth in the left lobe. Karen would come home and after 2-3 weeks the left lobe would be big enough. They'd go in and remove the right, leaving the larger left. Make sense?
Assuming one surgery, Karen'll be in hospital between 7-14 days.
Between now and the 3rd will be another colonoscopy, one more Erbitux, some pre-admissions tests, Chamberlain and Moriarty visits and likely some pre-operative prep.
The surgery is not without risk, both doctors have said they would not attempt this on a sixty year old woman, but we know what to expect and are ready for whatever comes.
"No Evidence of Disease" does not mean "no disease", it just means no visible tumors. There's also the chance of a recurrence after surgery but Karen's been off chemo since July 2008 with no new tumors appearing so this is a good indicator. If there were tumor cells ready to grow they have had time to do so.
The goal is to have Karen leave the operating room, visibly cancer free. As doctor Chamberlain put it, that would indeed be a true miracle. No one has worked harder for it than Karen.
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