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Wednesday, February 26, 2014

A Plan

We finally have a plan! Well, at least sort of. :)

We are going ahead with chemotherapy first. So the current schedule looks like:

- This afternoon we are going to "Chemo Class" which you have to take before starting chemo. It will be interesting to see what it is like.

- Friday Kent gets his chemo port put in. It is a line that will make it easier to administer chemo and get it where they want it.

- Tuesday we meet with the oncologist and MAYBE start the chemo that afternoon.


That is currently all we know, but hopefully we find more out soon. Fingers crossed that Tuesday starts the chemo!!

Thursday, February 20, 2014

A Blessing



We are feeling so blessed right now. Kent got the results from his colonoscopy, and it looks great!! As I said before, there were 2 polyps, but we now know they were not cancerous! We are so thrilled. The Endocrinologist said that Kent needs to come back in a year because he has cancer and because of the polyps, but for now it doesn't appear to have spread through his colon! YAY!!

We are still waiting to hear about when surgery and chemo are going to be, but for now we just feel so grateful that the Lord has blessed Kent with no additional tumors in his colon.


~ President Thomas S. Monson ~



Tuesday, February 18, 2014

I Forgot...

In the last post, I forgot to mention the second surgery.

Kent was prepping for a colonoscopy and started having a lot of really severe pain. We hurried to the E.R. and found that his colon was closed off. The infection from his ruptured appendix had spread and created a large abscess on his colon. This wasn't any old infection either. It was this crazy infection that is REALLY bad if it isn't caught quickly. The statistics we were originally told were like... 90% fatality rate. Not what we wanted to hear. We later found out these were WWI stats. Everyone has this bacteria in their stomach, but after abdominal surgery it can spread.

Anyways... they couldn't see anything on the C.T. scan, so they went in for exploratory surgery. They found all the infection, cleaned up a bit, removed the abscess and a portion of his colon, then started him on IV antibiotics. He was in the hospital for almost a week on antibiotics and with a drain to get rid of all the infection that time. They didn't want to take any chances.

Now he is feeling pretty good! Still recovering from 2 abdominal surgeries, but overall really good!

Let's Start at the Very Beginning

This blog is going to be to update on Kent's health. We have had many family members ask if there was somewhere they could go to get the latest updates, and now there is! :)

Disclaimer: I will TRY to get the new information up as soon as possible. Please be patient with me.



So, let's start at the very beginning. On January 9th, Kent came home from work and told me he was having a lot of pain in his abdomen. He said he was sure it would pass, but I wasn't so sure. I told him we should get him into a doctor. He said no. :)

The next day we were in Salt Lake City, heading to one of my friends wedding receptions. All day Kent had said the pain was getting worse, but that he still didn't think it was a big deal. Just before walking out the door to the reception I convinced him to go to the ER. I was worried about his appendix, and he said he finally thought I might be right. So my mom and brother took Kennedy to the reception to show him off to all my friends and Kent and I headed to the ER.

We were there for a while and they started running tests. They finally took him back for a C.T. scan and when they came back with the results they told him he was so lucky to have emergency surgery that night!They quickly took us up to the O.R. and gave him a rundown of the procedure. They would be performing a laparoscopic appendectomy. Instead of 1 big scar, he would get 3 little ones. They were hurrying to get his surgery prep done, when "CODE BLUE!" and everyone disappeared. So our emergency surgery got pushed a couple hours back for an even bigger emergency.

They finally took him back to surgery, which left me waiting in the hall. I was super nervous, but my mom came and sat with me, which I appreciated. When the doctor finally came out, he said everything had gone smoothly. Kent handled the anesthesia well, and the appendix came out without much difficulty. He said it had ruptured, so we needed antibiotics to clear out any lingering infection, but other than that he would be fine!

Kent was super adorable coming out of anesthesia. I guess he kept asking for me, but he was so sleepy he was saying it in a deep voice, and like he had been slowed down. "Lllllynnnndseeeey Bbbbarrrrkerrrr" (Not sure how to really explain it, but the nurses were all in the giggles over how my husband was SO adorable and how they wanted to take him home. haha. He is a cutie. :D)

The next day, the doctor said the same thing. Things went well, Kent looks good! We'll get him on his way and check his incisions in a few days and he will be good as new. We were thrilled. I had a lingering feeling that something else was going on, but the doctor said we were good so I figured, quit worrying!

3 days later we walk in to the surgeon's office to get the checkup done. We were puzzled by the surgeon's sign. It said he was an oncology surgeon. We turned to each other and said how grateful we were that we weren't there for cancer.

When we were back in the room, the nurse looked at us, shook her head, and just said "How are you feeling?" We were so lost. She just looked so sad! Kent said he felt great and she stared at us like we were crazy. When the doctor came in and saw our smiles (and maybe the nurse said something as well) he said "You guys really need to take this seriously. It is a serious thing!" We were VERY confused by this point. What was so serious about going in for a checkup on an appendix that was NO LONGER THERE? "You have to accept that you have cancer."

....


....


....

"WHAT?!" Out of the blue this comes down. We were not expecting that at all. He proceeds to explain that because the appendix ruptured they weren't able to see the tumor on the C.T. scan. They had no idea it was in there, and there were some reasons for concern. Normally they would have done 1 large incision to remove a tumor. By removing it laparascopically the tumor had been damaged and there is the chance that the cancer cells were "shaved off" into the blood stream, which could mean it is spreading. There is also the fact that... we really have no idea how long the tumor has been there. That means it could have been spreading for quite a while.

We got set up with an oncologist, who explained the options we had based on what information they had. They said his tumor was a T3-T4 (assumed to be T4) and that they are assuming the cancer is stage III based off of what little info they had. Because the tumor was damaged, the appendix ruptured, and a few other problems they were not able to state 100% that it was stage III, but they are pretty sure. They also gave us a bunch of statistics, which I for one did not like hearing. There was also the disclaimer (from multiple doctors) that this is kind of uncharted territory. His age, the type of cancer, and several other factors make this a rare case. There isn't research because it is rare, so they are just having to make educated guesses at this point. Things could have a much more positive, or negative, outlook then we currently know.

We are currently waiting for test results from his colonoscopy to determine whether his next surgery (There will be at least 1 more surgery in which they remove at least a third of his colon and all the lymph nodes and some tissue in the area that was directly around the appendix) will happen in the next few weeks, or if chemo therapy starts in the next few weeks. He will have at least 6 months of chemo therapy, and then they will test and determine what needs to be done additionally.

(The colonoscopy came back with "nothing too scary." Whatever that means. We know for fact he had 2 largish polyps removed, which we have to wait on pathology now. The doctor also said "They may just want to remove more of the colon." So we aren't sure what that meant. That  combined with his "nothing too scary" comment have left us unsure, but we will hopefully have more information later this week.)

So now we sit and wait.

I think that is everything... :)