Hey…here, I am 😝

Such a bad blogger….all this stuff in my head, needs to go down on paper 🤦‍♀️.

I was driving to 7-11 tonight (in a snowstorm, to get my hotdog for dinner at 9 pm) and I have had so much on my mind lately. It’s amazing how songs come on and spark memories or make you cry and make you start thinking about so many things. This last little while has been crazy and good and rough, all rolled into one. Even before Dave got sick I have been involved with cancer patients, I have donated many companion Maine Coons to people with cancer. I don’t make a fuss about it and I don’t want a pat on the back, if my furry creatures can bring them as much happiness and joy as they bring me, it’s worth it. And Maine Coons are funny, they know if their person doesn’t feel good, and they never leave their side. I have seen this over and over again, and even my mom got the flu this week and called me and said “the weirdest thing, Molly has not left my side all day”, I laughed, I said that is not weird mom, that’s a Maine Coon – they are completely loyal. Anyway, I’m off subject.  Last year I had the honor of meeting  Preslie and her husband Chadley.  Preslie has been battling breast cancer that went into remission and came back metastasized. I have watched her battle so hard this last year…she is always on my mind. She actually contacted me to purchase a cat, Otis, a perfect fit for her, long story short, I gave her Otis and they came and purchased him a friend, Minnie ❤️. Then when we first found out Dave was sick and he was in the hospital, in the room next to him was my moms friends brother-in-law (say that a couple of times). He is also really good friends with our electrician friend, Merlin. Well over the last 7 months we have spent a lot of time up at Huntsman Cancer Hospital, and so have they. I have run into all of these people in the chemo infusion room, at the BMT clinic at the lab, waiting in the hallway, in the elevator at the valet 🤦‍♀️- so what I’m saying is they become your friends, the people who have the same look on their face as you, because you both know what you are actually facing when the outside world can just slap a smiley face on it. We know the odds, we know the survival rates, we know what we are looking at and to be honest, it sucks!!! It’s not what I signed up for. I signed up to spend the rest of my life irritating Dave….that’s what I want to do. I asked my dad, so how do we even plan for the future? Is 5-10 years our future? Anyway, Louie is the guy who was in the room next door. His wife and I have talked a lot as well as Chadley and me. We swap what’s good in the cafeteria, and “hey did you know there is frozen yogurt up there now” 🤣🤣, but we are so happy we have Huntsman right in our backyard. Louie got really sick right before Thanksgiving, he is not going to pull through, I feel so bad for his wife and family right now, maybe that’s what bringing out all these emotions. I also need to contact Chadley and check on Preslie, I’m worried about her. So David goes in tomorrow for his last round of chemo… what happens next is we wait about a month and they will do a pet scan. Hopefully it’s all gone, but if anything shows up they will biopsy it and come up with a plan. The positives, 1. We know the cancer is reacting to the chemo 2. The majority of the lymph  nodes have already returned to normal size 3. After this week he will have had 12 spinal taps with chemo injected into his spinal fluid. Every test on his spinal fluid has been clear, which is very good 4. There has been no evidence so far that it has spread to his brain 5. The kidney looks much better. We are glad to be done with this…we honestly hope this is it, we know the odds and we hope we are in those favorable ones. If everything is clear after the pet scan, they will scan Dave every 3 months as well as do complete blood work. I will be getting back to my cats full time. I just have not been able to leave while he has been going through this….thank you for understanding 🙏

I was just thinking about the blog, so I thought I would hop on and do a little update. Dave had been at work last week every day (up until Thursday). He works for Downeast Home and Downeast Clothing….I’m going to just put in here that everyone needs to go and support these companies. The things they have done for Dave and I has brought us to tears, there are not people or companies out there like them anymore. They have also shown up at the hospital every couple of days just to show Dave support. They would bring him puzzles, sweatshirts, all sorts of stuff. The stores would send him cards. Our A/C went out in the middle of this and during a heatwave here. Their guy came and fixed our A/C..I know that really doesn’t sound like a lot, but when I am driving an hour each way to be at the hospital and my house is 110 degrees, it’s a lot. So Troy, the kitties and I are so indebted to you, you have no idea – you saved us. Anyway, Downeast had their Corporate meetings last week. Dave was there and they wanted him at every meeting and lunch so that everyone got a chance to see him, hug him, talk to him, it’s was a very emotional 3 days. Dave had no idea how many people truly cared about him, and what an impression he makes on people. I knew, I mean, I’m the person who gets to love him, but he had no idea what impact he has in peoples life’s- well I think he does now. Anyway, back to Wednesday. He went to work early, he went to all the meetings, he had to walk a ton, then he went to the mountains where they had the whole company come for a barbecue. Well there is very little Dave can eat, he can’t stand the smell and taste of pretty’s much all food. So by that night he was extremely tired and unsteady on his feet. Soo he called my Brother. My Brother rounded up some people to go get him. He didn’t feel like he could handle the ride to our house…so he went to my moms for the night and came home later the next day. We have left cloths of his at my moms house from when he had to stay there for a couple of weeks, just for situations like this, and it worked great. My parents are so amazing….there isn’t anything they won’t do to help Dave. If there is a problem and I am still in Morgan, you can bet my parents will be right there, I will never be able to thank them enough. Needless to say, Dave didn’t go back to work Thursday or Friday, he was wiped out. But he was back at it yesterday, he just needs to take it easy, and if he starts feeling tired – that’s his hint to go home ❤️. But he comes home and I am the one person who doesn’t treat him like he has cancer. I don’t codel him and we only talk about it when necessary (which is way more often than I would like). We still have to live our life….even though it has changed quite a bit. We don’t plan for the future, right now we just kind of take things day by day…..we’ll enough for today, Dave is having a full body scan on Saturday and we will meet with Dr Shah next week. Now is the time to pray, cross your fingers and all those other fun things.

Hi……It has been a while since I posted, so I am here with an update and what’s going on in our life.

Dave has continued with outpatient Chemo; he goes every 3 weeks. The day after Chemo he goes back, and they do the Chemo in his spine, and they give him a shot that starts his system rebuilding white blood cells. In between Chemo Appts we have to be there for labs. His red blood cell count and his platelet count are always extremely low, so low that it usually requires him to get a blood transfusion and a platelet infusion. Last week at his appointment they gave him the flu shot, the covid booster and the covid antibodies…. then they did the chemo which they have added a new drug to. Needless to say, he didn’t feel good at all this weekend. But he is going to work (when he can) and he is back home with me. It was a little bit of a challenge when he came back home. Our house is up and down…tons of stairs, and Dave’s legs were not working after that last stint in the hospital, and him rejecting the methotrexate Chemo. We are hoping that the damage to his knee’s is temporary and not permanent, but we will have to wait and see. Next week they are going to do a full body CT scan to see how the cancer is doing. Both Dave and I are excited for that, I want to know that everything we have been going through is worth it …….it has to be working.

So that is how Dave is doing, he is doing really well considering everything he has been through. How am I doing???? Well ultimately it doesn’t matter how I am doing; I will do whatever I can to make this all work. Getting Dave healthy is all that matters in life right now. I am working, taking care of my cats, and I now have to start getting my babies to their respective houses. I sell cats all over the United States, that also requires me to travel all over the United States and deliver these babies. Of course, this has all been on the back burner because of everything that has happened, but now I need to be making money so I’m extremely busy at all my businesses. The one thing cancer doesn’t do is give you advance notice. All of a sudden you are just thrown into the unknown. Your still in shock because you did not see this coming, there was no warning signs. I think Dave and I are still in shock and trying to absorb everything, the unknown is the worst. Then there is the financial side of cancer, no one tells you about that…and you haven’t had time to plan….to look into everything, you just have to go with it. We have amazing insurance; I don’t know how anyone does this without insurance. Even with amazing insurance you have the maximum out of pocket. Most people don’t have that money just sitting around, so you have to continue to work, you have to have an income, life doesn’t stop. The bills are still there, the house still needs to be paid for. So that’s my responsibility, I need to make enough money to cover everything. It has been hard to do everything, I have taken over taking care of our house, yard, farm, animals etc., I will be glad when he is all better.

Dave started his outpatient chemo today. We had to be up there at 7:30…am 🤦‍♀️. Even though it was outpatient chemo, it was still a 4 hour event and Dave’s anxiety was through the roof. They give him premeds before they do the chemo so he doesn’t get sick. I wheel him around in a wheelchair…..and I usually run him into a few walls and doors in the process of getting him there. They are doing 4 different kinds of chemo each time and he takes prednisone. We are hoping the prednisone helps his legs…he still has to walk with a walker. Next week he will go in for labs and they will do another spinal tap and insert chemo in his spine. If this cancer were to spread it would go to his spine and brain – thank god it hasn’t spread and with putting chemo in his spine it circulates around his brain so nothing can penetrate it.

Dave is still at my moms and he is doing better every day. His legs still hurt but he is walking more and more. We had an appointment today with our oncologist. We were both pretty down going into this appointment, it was still showing in his my chart that he was to be readmitted on Thursday. As you can imagine, we were both still dealing with a lot from the last time he was in the hospital. They told us today that they were doing outpatient chemo from here forward. His body can’t handle the extreme chemo they were doing. We both left there feeling so much better.

lol

The last couple of days have been a whirlwind. Dave finally got sprung yesterday 🙌……the doctors were all a little hesitant, but Dave needed to get out of there for awhile, so we were leaving no matter what – I think they knew that. So per the agreement, Dave is at my moms house – she is closer to the hospital than our house, and there is no stairs. They have home health coming in..mostly to do physical therapy on his legs. He walks with a walker, but he was doing better today. He walked around my moms back yard a couple of times. My dad brought dinner to my moms house and he could actually eat it. Nothing tastes good when you are on chemo and he has lost a ton of weight. He has also lost muscle, so he will have to work hard to get that back, and I will be loading his smoothies with protein. Whatever we have to do, I will do it. So we don’t know what the next step will be, They have to change everything because he can’t have that certain type of chemo again. So send lots of hugs and prayers to my big teddy bear, things need to go better from here on out. Me, I’m still running all over, driving an hour each way to see him. Yesterday I stayed home to mow, do some laundry, clean the house and hang out with my furry creatures…even the goats, and the goose came over when I was feeding grain, she everyone is fed and happy 🤓

So I have decided I’m one of the worst bloggers 🤦‍♀️, so bear with me, I’m still trying to figure out this site. Anyway, today has been a long day. Taylor has been here with me for a month. Not only did he help me a ton with my kitties and everything else, it was so nice to spend time with him. I am going to miss him something horrible. They are finally letting Dave out of the hospital tomorrow (he has been in there 3 1/2 weeks)……but, he has to go to my moms house because she is closer to the hospital and she doesn’t have stairs. I’m so glad I have parents that love him as much as I do and would do absolutely anything for him (and me). But I’m lonely, I really want off this ride. Dave is having a very hard time walking, why, well nobody knows. He also got a small lump on his neck and it ended up being MRSA, so we are treating that as well. Right now his white blood cells are are coming up and the chemo that has been stuck in his system is down to .08, so it should be gone by Sunday. Dave has a genetic marker that made him reject this last chemo. Chemo is not supposed to stay in your system for a long time. They like it in and back out….well with this last chemo drug they used, it shut his kidneys down and they have had to use a reversal drug to try and get it out of his system, they have been working on getting it out of his system for 3 1/2 weeks. His kidneys have started functioning, not at 100%, but functioning. My theory is the chemo settled in his leg joints – knees, ankles, feet and that’s why he can’t walk, but I guess we will wait and see what happens.