Catching Up

As things have gotten more normal at our house, the frequency of me updating this blog has dropped way off.  In general, I think it is a great we are not having too many “exciting” things happening with Val’s health.  Last week, a family friend mentioned she hadn’t heard from the blog in a while and that I should post an update.  So here goes…..

Active treatment has been done for just over a year now and Val is on maintenance treatment.  She takes a handful of different drugs and is regularly seeing one of our medical team about every three months.  It is actually hard for me to keep up with all her meds, but she is doing a wonderful job with which ones, how much, etc.!

As you may or may not be aware of, one of the side effects to Val’s chemo treatment was heart damage.  Before chemo treatment started, they did some base line heart  function testing to have something to compare to post treatment.  Everything tested very good pre treatment.

The end of this summer the medical team started to test run tests to compare her heart function post treatment.  This post treatment testing showed she suffered some concerning heart damage.  After the first test she got lots of questions like; are you experiencing shortness of breath, having your feet or ankles swell, etc. etc.  They were questions you don’t hope to get asked until you are on Geritol.  Fortunately she wasn’t experiencing any of the side effects the team was asking about.

So about September we got a new medical team member; a Cardiac Oncologist (didn’t know they existed).  He is a great guy who handles all our (my) questions very well. 🙂  This fall they started Val on two different drugs to see if the heart function would improve.  The challenge is that the two drugs are also used to treat high blood pressure (which she does not have) and they need to be balanced in order to not cause her blood pressure to drop too low.  Always fun when you are looking at your wife and wondering if she is going to pass out….

Over the fall and winter they have done testing, upped the meds, tested her tolerance and then rinse and repeat.  She currently has gone through three rounds of testing, upping the drugs, waiting…..waiting some more and then testing again.  Currently the max dose of both drugs have been reached that still allow her blood pressure to run normal.  We just had our latest meeting with the medical oncologist and her heart function has improved, just not to the level that we had hoped for now.  The doc is hopeful that with time her function will get better and we just need to wait.

One other wrinkle tied into all this is scheduling her final reconstructive surgery.  The temporary implants she has in her chest also have metal in them.  The presence of metal keeps the heart doctor from being able to run the MRI testing he really wants to do to get the most accurate picture of her condition.

Val is scheduled for her final reconstructive surgery on Thursday, March 1st.  The plastics doc is all set to install permanent implants and the cardiac doc is all for this because it allows him to get the MRI done.  So the current schedule is March 1st for outpatient surgery.  She will then have a few months to rest and recuperate before having an MRI in May.  Unfortunately this last round of surgery includes the temporary installation of Val’s favorite medical device, the drain tube….  Look back in past blogs if you don’t remember the “fun” that was had with past drain installations.  We then will see the cardiac oncologist again in June to evaluate where things are at and make a longer term game plan.

Overall we continue to do very well as a family.  It is hard to believe just about two years ago we started the fight of our lives.  I love looking over at my wife and seeing her healthy glow back along with a full head of hair.  The lessons that God has been teaching us over the last two years continue to resonate with us; live each day and moment, don’t sweat the small stuff, love each other like crazy and lean deeply into our Father.  Thank you Susie for the reminder to update the blog.  It is always good for me to think through where we have been and marvel at God’s loving hand in our lives…..