tuesdays with trisha...

so today is the first day of the last round of chemo...
a couple more tuesdays and the weekly treatments will be complete.

its 10:40am the blood draw just completed, and we are heading down to doc carlson's office...

hopefully trish's counts are chemo ready...


more updates later..


1:40pm update
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12:40pm: dr. carlson and dr. pose came in and examined trish. dr. carlson continues to be pleased with trish's progress, and informed us that her white counts are back up to a range in which she can get chemo.

after we finished with our visit with dr. carlson and dr. pose, we headed to the pharmacy to drop off some prescriptions and pick up trish's prescription of emend.

its 1:45pm and nurse denise is getting trish started on her typical three predrugs.

we are hanging out in suite c1 today and trish is getting comfy on the bed.
we were joined for the morning hours with special guest star nicole, but she had to leave to go do real work... but it was nice having her around so trish and her could gab.

this past week has been an interesting one...
trish's ANC counts were really low, but on their way back up.
they are still technically low, but good enough to get her infusions.
the past week has by far been the best trish has felt since beginning the FEC+H regimen.
again, her ANC counts have nothing to do with how she feels, just how well her body reacts to germs/virus/infections. its been really nice to see her feeling good.

we still need to keep trish healthy, so we will keep her in a mini bubble... bella is gonna get kicked out in a week, and we will put the house on mini lock down again... the period of 7-10 days after the "big chemo day" is when her immune system will be its lowest, so we will be extra cautious during this time.

we have switched trish back to the "old" white cell drug, neupogen. so instead of coming in to the cancer center on saturday for her 1 shot of neulasta, ill begin giving her shots of neupogen again... 10 days in a row... oh joy.

trish has felt really good this past week, but we have been making sure we keep her in a clean environment. sunday we broke all the rules and had a party for caden's 2nd birthday. we had the part out front, and kept the house off limits, so most of the germies stayed outside..


so the week in review....
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wednesday, thursday and friday:
pretty uneventful as i cant even remember what went on. i know we spent most of the week getting things ready for caden's birthday.

saturday 9/27:
hmmmm... saturday was a rough one, a really emotional day for us.

september 27th was the due date of our baby girl.

in the morning, trish, caden and I headed out to find the perfect tree at the redwood city nursery, so we could plant it in our backyard in memory of our little angel.
as we searched for a tree, it was obvious when we found the perfect one...

a 'pink weeping cherry tree', that will someday look like this as it grows up and begins blooming its flowers in the springtime.

we also came across an evergreen shrub that blooms small pink flowers in the winter and spring, called a 'pink breath of heaven' and felt this would be perfect in our front yard.

both will be beautiful additions to our home

ive spent the last couple weeks making a decorative concrete block that holds a recessed plaque inscribed with the touching words trish's brother, steve, wrote on april 17th, that will sit beside the tree.


the baby will forever be in our hearts.


sunday 9/28:
with the downs, comes the ups...

sunday was caden's 2nd birthday party, and it was pirate themed complete with a pirate bounce house and pirate's chest full of treasures for the kids to dig through and discover, eye patches, bandannas (trish had a nice pink pirate one on)
it was a really nice day with a bunch of caden's little friends. the kids had fun, and i think the parents did as well (even if we didn't have a tv with football on... sorry... house was on lock down from the germies). trish was able to get caught up with a lot of folks she hasn't seen in a while since she has been staying away from story time and the caden's gym class.

monday 9/29:
caden officially turned 2 on monday at 2:13pm.
at 5:30pm i brought caden to the pediatrician getting him looked at for a little cold. caden woke up with a really sneezing, runny nose and a puffy eye. we decided he shouldn't go to his gym class at the rec center. he was a happy little camper, but we wanted to get him looked at, more for trish's sake, in case it was an onset of pink eye or something funky... dr. lynch said it was just a typical kid cold, and not surprising since there was a bunch of kids together the previous day. his eye was just a little puffy from being congested, and nothing crusty or oozey to worry about.


tuesday 9/30:
its today again... and about 2:45pm now..
nurse denise has given trish her predrugs and zofran, and is gonna get started on the rest of the stuff soon.

we will be back tommorrow for a quick hydration, and again on friday for trish's second dose of 5-FU and another hydration...

ill post another update later, once the chemo is a flowin...


trish and i just want to congratulate trish's chemo buddy, christine, who finished up her chemo today!!
trish and christine have seen each other every other tuesday for several months here at the cancer center, and have shared a lot with one another. its great to see both of them on the home stretch.


4:15pm update
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nurse denise is finishing up the push of trish's chemo drugs, and she will soon hang the 1 hour bag of cytoxan... after that we should be good to go home...

till then, we are watching christina applegate talking with oprah about her breast cancer & double mastectomy.

for our angel