Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Dustin Embarrassed??

I have been with Dustin for over 21 years and I can honestly say I have never seen him embarrassed or turned red, I wish he could say the same about me. My brother used to embarrass me for sport and Dustin was usually around. Today I a actually saw Dustin turn bright red for the first time (his bald head can get red really quick!!). First I must give a little back story .... We have made it a game to figure out who Dust looks like now that he has no eyebrows, eyelashes and is completely bald. We have come up with Festes from The Adams Family, Voldemort from Harry Potter, Mr Clean, and Dana Carvey plays "Turtle Guy" in Master Disguise. We ( OK..me) have had a lot of laughs with this. Today Dust was to see the nurse practitioner, Julie, she is adorable... She looks like she should still be in high school!!! Before she came in the room Dust was saying that when she examines his abdomen he feels like the pilsbery dough boy... He said he was going to make the "he....he" when she touched his belly!! Of course we were laughing when she came in the room... She started to examin Dust and he got tickled, she touched his abdomen and he lost it, he could not stop laughing, Julie looked completely lost so I told her about the pilsbery dough boy and she poked his belly and said "he...he"!!!! It was hilarious!! Poor Dustin was as red as he could be, but he was also laughing so hard he was crying. We also talked about "who does Dustin look like game", Julie came up with Dr Evil from Austin Powers!!! We left the Dr in tears we were laughing so hard, we know they must think we r nuts... Oh well we would rather laugh than cry!!!

:-) delana

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Too Funny

We saw this on a forum we frequent and we could not stop laughing.  I know some may not find it as funny as we did, but we were laughing out loud the first time we saw it :-)  We have watched it many times since.  Enjoy....





:-) Delana

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Cycle 4

Well this treatment was the beginning of cycle 4.  He has had 7 treatments so far ( 2 treatments equal 1 cycle).  He is going to have 6-8 cycles ( 12-16 treatments) depending on the next PET scan.  We had a heart to heart with Dr M. on Wednesday... we just needed him to explain why he was satisfied with the last CT scan as there really has been no change since the beginning of chemo.  (Dustin and I are in contact with a wonderful site, lymphoma.com...it is a "support group" for lymphoma patients and their care givers...many patients have clear scans at this point in their treatment)  Dr. M explained there was no progression of the cooties so that was a good sign, he would have liked more of a decrease in his lymph nodes but he would take no progression.  He said he was going to get  a PET scan around the 6 cycle mark.  He did offer to get another CT scan now but, after we discussed this option with him, it would not change the treatment plan. We would still need to get a PET at 6 cycles, so there is no need to expose Dust to more radiation than needed.  

He told us if the PET came back "no evidence of disease" or normal, he would probably recommend some radiation of the chest as that is where the largest lymph nodes are.

Me being the person I am,  asked him if the PET came back with a slight decrease or progression  of disease what would be the plan.... he siged and said I was trying to pin him down to an answer (uh yea), but he would still probably look at radiation but without looking at the PET he couldn't answer my question.

We were still satisfied with his explanations (actully Dustins exact words were "He blew enough smoke up my a** to keep me happy for now")....I understand he cannot tell us exactly what is going to happen and what the plan is going to be. I understand medicine is a science and not exact blah...blah..blah, I've heard that for years! I just hate being on this side of the table!!! And I'm not even the one with cooties!!!  Being a nurse is not an advantage in this situation, really all it is doing is making me question how I treated patients for the last 15 years!  I held many hands and cried with many patients but I wish I could do it all over again, I would hold their hand longer and maybe cry a little longer, because this really sucks!!!

Anyway........This treatment has gone well so far, he has not been too nauseous, he is just really tired.  Our hotel this time was by the airport, or in the parking lot of the airport!  When we where walking from the truck to check in a plane flew over us and I think I saw the pilot wave at me!!  Dustin almost fell to the ground, I think he thought they were coming to get him....lol  I was afraid if that was going to happen all night it was going to be a very long night, but I guess Tulsa airport is not that busy, we didn't hear another plane until the morning. 

After we checked in we went to the restaurant in the hotel to get something to eat, it was supposed to open at 4, it was now 415, I asked the waitress if they were open and she said they were "looking" for the chef.  Now everything in me said run, but I was already told the closest restaurant was McDonald's and Taco Bell (no way he could eat that) and they were 5 miles away.  We are getting pretty good about getting around in Tulsa, but this is one area we haven't been to.  The waitress came back to us and said "OK, come on in" (mind you she did not say they found the chef!).  So we went in and ordered.  While were waiting for our food, she came back and said "I'm only charging you half because the hotel manager and human resources manager are cooking your food, but don't worry I told them what to put in it"!  OMG, really!!  Again, we should have left then, but being the sporting people we are (not) we stayed and had one of the worst meals we had ever had!!  Oh, well...live and learn.

:-)  Delana

Friday, February 3, 2012

Eyebrows and Food

Just a quick note to let everyone know how he is doing.  This round went OK, he was given a new anti-nausea medication to try.  For 3 pills the co-pay was $80!  I shouldn't complain, if he didn't have insurance it would have been over $550.  He took one pill the day of chemo, then one pill a day for the next 2 days.  He said it really wasn't any different than alternating the Zofran and Phenergan, so we are going back to Zofran.
After the side effects of chemo wore off he was craving Mexican food, we ate it 2 days in a row, I told him he was worse than a pregnant woman.  But at least he was eating.  He was a little disappointed because even though he was hungry and could eat, he still couldn't taste it.  My mom and I have been teasing him that since he can't taste anything it really doesn't matter what he eats so now is the time to try new food!  For those of you that do not know, Dustin is a VERY picky eater!  He is getting frustrated with not being able to taste food, tonight he actually ate some of my sweet and sour pork!  For him that is huge, normally he would never eat that, but I think he was just looking for flavor.

He has finally lost most of his eyebrows and eyelashes.  He has maybe 5 eyebrow hairs left and i tease him that they are mocking me by sticking straight out...I want to pluck them but he won't let me.  He is quite  protective of his remaining eyebrows.  I guess I'll let him keep them for now ;-)

:-)