Sandy's Parents' Visit

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You may have noticed that the scope of the blog has broadened a bit, particularly over the last month or two. I just wanted to tell you that was by design, and partially in response to some of the more common inquiries that we get. The other reason is that our lives, as a family, tend to get a lot more complicated around this time, even under the best of circumstances.

How is Sandy doing? How are the girls? Are they swimming for the Sharks this summer? Is lacrosse season over? Will, are you still coaching? What makes Teflon stick to the pan?

Just kidding about the last one. Most of you appreciate just how slammed we are during this time of year under normal circumstances. You can rest assured that we have managed to maintain the same frenetic pace this year, as well!

Perhaps some of the stories and information we share here will help you to see a more complete picture of how we are doing collectively.

Finally, I want to encourage everyone who reads this blog and has a story to share, to take the time to write it and send it to me at wlh29@comcast.net. It does not have to be long or detailed or impressive, and no one will critique your writing. There are relatives out there who remember stories about Sandy as a little girl, friends from college who must remember her doing something questionable during those years, and adult friends who have been with us through the formation and maturation of our families. These are really great stories. I can't think of a better forum and I can tell you that everyone, including Sandy and I, would appreciate hearing them.

Let's "Nike" the blog. Just do it.

Weekend Update

Just a quickie here: Sandy’s white blood cell count did indeed recover well. By Friday, they made the call to not introduce hormones and to allow her to resume chemotherapy. Sandy took her first greatly reduced dose this morning. Now, therapy consists of a single pill (Xeloda @ 500mg) taken twice daily. She is not excited about it, but I think there is a certain degree of relief to getting back in the saddle.

It was a good weekend. Sandy and Haley enjoyed their couple of days together, as did Hannah and I. We had great weather, low humidity and a nice breeze during the lax tournament. Hannah's team dropped a couple of games and did not advance beyond the first round, though Hannah played some of her best ball ever. She played aggressively offensively and defensively, moved the ball well, and racked up a couple of goals and 2-3 assists. My team played exceptionally well in their first two games, and then dropped a frustrating third game on Friday. They returned Saturday morning to play an excellent team from the Mass(achusetts) Elite club and really took care of business. The good guys won.

We capped off the weekend with a great dinner at the Grandy's house. I faded faster than Sandy by the end of the night...that must be a good sign! Let's hope that the reduced dose will be tolerated better. I'll let you know how things progress.

Hurry Up and Wait.

Don’t you just hate the “hurry up and wait” mode? That’s where we have been for about two weeks now. They took Sandy off of the chemo to allow her symptoms to resolve, and then we waited and waited for them to resolve.

The worst of them faded over a period of about a week to ten days, but some linger on. The most frustrating of all to Sandy is the continued hair loss. She has lost more than half of her hair at this point, but she wears it well! Interestingly, she now has some peeling skin on her hands and feet where she had experienced the pain. It is nothing gross and is only noticeable if she shows you, but certainly interesting given the blistering sensations that she felt. Fortunately, that pain is gone. I promised myself and others that I would not to go into unpleasant details on this blog, but I thought those were pretty basic and could be appreciated by all.

Sandy actually ceased chemo 2.5 weeks ago, to be exact. She has been eager to resume, strangely enough (good soldier/do as she’s told), but her white cell count is too. Given that her immune system is already compromised, a falling white blood cell count could be dangerous. Chemotherapy tends to beat the snot out of your body as it is, and a person needs to be well enough to fight off infections. White blood cell counts have to be high enough to withstand the treatment, as well. The plan was to run labs a couple of times this week to see which direction the white cell count is headed. If it is recovering, then we’ll give her a few more days to get it where it needs to be. If it is not recovering, then we’ll introduce some growth hormones by injection… and enter her in the Babes of Baltimore Body Building Bonanza, Hon. (If you don’t get the Hon reference, watch Hairspray…it’s a Baltimore thing). Either way, we should know this afternoon what the plan is.

We have another big weekend ahead of us—Hannah has a lacrosse tournament for her Sky Walkers team in Mt. Laurel, NJ. Games start this afternoon and go through Saturday. My team (the team I coach) is also playing, but the schedule works out well enough for me to see Hannah’s games today. Sandy and Haley will not be going this time. It took Sandy two days to recover from last week’s tournament, and Haley has gymnastics practice tonight, anyway. The two of them will hang out here and enjoy the beautiful sun and low humidity. Hannah and I will be hard at work on the fields. I can’t wait. I love it.

I know, I know...I need to post some recent pictures that include Sandy. She has been reluctant to get in front of a camera, despite the fact that everyone thinks she is looking great. I'll keep working on it.

Have a great weekend.

Weekend Update

Sandy completed her first cycle of chemo on Tuesday. The regimen is two weeks of chemo (twice daily), followed by one week off, repeated for four months. If you saw the update earlier this week, you know that she was sicker than a dog (fortunately, she smells better).

I talked with her lead medical oncologist earlier this week. Those are the guys that deal with the chemotherapy side of cancer treatment. Radiation oncologists, as the name suggests, deal with the side of oncology that applies radiation therapy to cancer cells. With the discussion about her side effects, the medical oncologist concluded that Sandy was clearly overdosed. He directed us not to resume chemo until she returns to baseline. This should provide some relief, and she seemed to confirm that this morning when she said that her feet still hurt, but it is no longer excruciating. She may be off for a week or perhaps longer. I told her to just enjoy it, but she is concerned about being a good soldier and doing as she is told. To Sandy, this means that she shouldn’t have to change the course of treatment. To the doctors treating her, they often adjust dosages and this is a completely normal step. When she resumes, it will be at a substantially lower dose. The expectation is that Sandy should tolerate the treatment a little better at lower doses.

We have another big weekend aheaad of us—Hannah has a swim meet tomorrow, Sunday, and Monday. She will have to miss school for her morning events. She is swimming something like 10-12 events, as they usually do at these meets. It is well into the 90's as I write this (at 6:04 pm EST), so I am not sure how much time Sandy will be able to spend at the pool over the next three days. The heat and humidity are draining for anyone...and she certainly has a good excuse to not be there. Something tells me she'll find a way to be there for a lot of Hannah's events.

I never posted an update about last weekend lacrosse tournament. Lax Splash is the biggest lacrosse tournament in the world and both Hannah’s and Haley’s teams played in it. The weekend turned out pretty well- check back for an update on this...

A buddy of mine from college we call Wags sent me this pic this morning. It is a picture of the girls and Riley that I sent him in 2002 - I haven't seen it in years and felt compelled to post it. The girls have aged a bit, but Riley looks just the same!

Hey BengalBoy! GO RAVENS!

Just to Let You Know, Chemo Sucks.

Just to let you know, chemo sucks.

One cycle down. Two full weeks of chemotherapy (Xeloda, taken orally twice daily) has hit pretty hard. They warn you about “possible side effects…” and then add, “But we don’t really know how any one person will react.” That’s understandable, but Sandy seems to be the iconic case illustrating every last one of them. I won’t excite you with the details, but they include fatigue and nausea (as if she didn’t have enough of that already!), hair loss (it starts with the eyelashes, and the hair on her head is thinning), a few other things that I don't think she wants me to share with you…and extreme pain in her feet. Weird, I know. Who would have thought it would be in the feet. The pain is so bad that it took her about a minute yesterday afternoon to hobble from the back door, across the deck and yard over to my office door. That’s about 40-45 feet. The pain is worse this morning. You have to just accept these things and deal with them. A minute is inconvenient, but at least she got my lunch to me on time.

Sandy finished the first cycle last night, and now she gets a week off with no chemo. I have no idea whether she will be able to recover from these symptoms fully in just a week, but my gut says that it will give her at least some relief. Hopefully, her feet will stop hurting her. I think she could manage the rest of it if the pain in her feet would just go away.

This experience is in stark contrast to the first round of chemo and radiation treatment she did last August and September. Then, it was the radiation that was so difficult and the chemotherapy was not nearly as toxic (we think, but what do we know?). Radiation was given every day for 7 weeks, and chemo was administered by IV once per week. It was a different chemo drug, too.

PS—just kidding about the lunch.