Sunday, May 26, 2013

A Tale of Two Cancers

The past year has flown by and is still a blur.  5/24 was the 1 year date for JaNae's surgery.  This year on 5/24, her father, Gary, was diagnosed with cancer in his pancreatic duct.  He was in the same hospital in a room nearby where her's was.

 He was not feeling well over the past week or two and suddenly became jaundiced.  He was hospitalized and had some tests which showed biliary obstruction and during a procedure to relieve it, a biposy was taken which showed the cancer.  He had a CT and MRI which did not show any spread of the cancer.  He will be preparing for surgery in a few weeks and have a Whipple procedure which is a major surgery.  He has been told that he will likely need chemo and maybe radiation.  We are now starting another cancer journey with someone we love and admire very much.  About 10 months ago, when JaNae was just starting chemo, her Dad had some symptoms that were concerning but at that time, no cancer was found.  We were so relieved then that he seemed to be OK, now the diagnosis has been made, our hearts are very heavy.

He asked me to post this to let friends and family know.   We have been trying to get our lives back to normal as much as we can...  but the diagnosis of cancer in anyone you love changes your life forever.  




We will be starting a blog for his cancer journey to keep loved ones up to date on his progress.  Here is the link to his blog Kicking Cancer in the Pancreas.  Just for the record, I wanted to call it "Cancer is a pain in the PancreASS" but was vetoed.
-Jeff

Monday, May 20, 2013

Spring...

I know we haven't been posting much on here...  There has not been a lot to report.  I totally wish I could say that JaNae feels totally awesome and is full of energy but I just watched a good TED talk and decided to not lie.  She still feels like crap.  It's been hard on all of us. But she is getting a tiny bit better every day.  In the past month she has had a CT scan and a colonoscopy and is doing well over all.  As far as we know, she is cancer free and we just have to watch, wait and monitor closely for any recurrence.  We appreciate the concern and support from all of you.

In the meantime spring has sprung.  We had a duck nest along the creek right behind out house and wondered if it was from one of our ducks.  They all hatched and swam away.  It made me think about getting some more ducklings to raise again but... that thought was vetoed.

I did get a chance to take the kids fishing at a friend's pond and they had a great time catching fish. Wyatt and Wes each caught quite a few... Walker didn't have luck fishing but enjoyed his time canoeing around while removing hooks from the fish caught by 2 young women.  He seemed to really enjoy that.