Almost home...!

Dallas here with an update...

So, Pam had her surgery last Wednesday (21/03) and it went well. Copious amounts of fluid were removed from her chest and while the middle and lower parts of her lung did not reinflate (and weren't expected to) there may be some improvement in the very upper part.

Pam had a slight complication in the form of some subcutaneous emphysema (basically air bubbles going where they shouldn't) but that seems to be clearing up OK. We had a walk today and Pam wanted to try some stairs just to see if there was any improvement in her "wind" so we went up an entire flight, which she managed without getting out of breath at all. This is great because it was actually an improvement over pre-surgery lung capacity. Also, the pains she was having in her side (which we suspected were related to fluid pressure) haven't come back either. Great!

At this point Pam is still in hospital and we expect that homecare for the chest drain will be set up in the next couple of days, then with any luck she should be on her way home. Yay!

Triennial Update

Pam with Tintin and friends in Brussels, 2015

Dallas here checking in with the triennial update. There is some news.

As many of you will know, Pam's been on "traditional" (infusion) chemotherapy now since before Christmas - three weeks on (two hours on Fridays) and one week off. Her new oncologist Dr. T. (Dr. B. has retired) had been mindful of the rising tumor markers and wanted to address this with some more aggressive treatment - hence the chemo. Pam had a "port" installed to allow the IV infusion to be done more easily, without having to find a vein each time. That's been very helpful.

The other thing that's been going on for some time is a pleural effusion on Pam's right side. This is a buildup of fluid around the lungs that is often associated with metastatic breast cancer. It causes shortness of breath and unfortunately, has gotten so severe that Pam's right lung has pretty much collapsed from the fluid pressure. The usual treatment is to drain the fluid in the office through a small catheter but unfortunately this was not successful - the respirologist was only able to get a small amount of fluid out and the lung did not reinflate at all. So we had a decision to make as to whether Pam will go for surgery to remove the fluid. We're told by the thoracic surgeon that it's unlikely that the lung will inflate again but there may be some improvement in breathing and relief of some of the pains Pam's been having. Since there is some prospect for improvement, Pam has decided to have the surgery. There is really no downside except for the usual anaesthesia and surgical risks. There will be a small catheter permanently left in situ to drain the PE fluid over time. The surgery is scheduled for 21 March and there will be a short hospital stay of 1-2 days after that, followed by recovery at home.

Although the PE does cause some significant shortness of breath and tiredness it's not terrible, Pam just gets winded when she has to walk uphill or climb stairs at all. Having said that we had a really nice skate on the Red River two weeks ago Sunday with her sister and girls, followed by a huge Chinese food dinner at a local restaurant, so things are not all bad. Pam's also reduced her working to mornings only. She is not expecting to return to work after her surgery, except for the odd day or two to finish things out.

So the chemo will continue for now (as it's been controlling the rising tumor markers) albeit with a short break for surgical recovery, the surgery might help address the pleural effusion. We'll keep you posted...

Some News

Wow - looking back at the blog I see that the last post was from May 2011 - over three years ago!

Quite a bit has happened since then...

Some trips...

Europe 2012 - Tubingen, Germany

Trier, Germany

Burg Eltz, Germany

Vimy Ridge Memorial

Moreuil Wood Memorial, France

You-know-what in Paris

Anniversary drink in Montreal, September 2012

Is that a person riding a tiny unicycle in the background?!?

  

Montreal, 2012

Elkhorn Resort with Curt and Sarah, Feb 2014

At the Elkhorn with pals

Sold our house on Chestnut Street...

Bought a house on Churchill Drive...

Anyway, I wanted to post a little bit of an update on what's going on, since there have been some developments.

Some of you probably know that Pam has frequent blood tests to make sure that her treatments are doing what they should. The so-called "tumor markers" - CA 15-3 and CEA - are important indicators of this.

For the last few months the markers have been on the rise. This usually means that cancer is active somewhere, even if symptoms aren't evident. Pam's doctor has tried various things to see if they would help. Medicine was stopped, medicine was changed, but this didn't seem to stop the markers going up.

So the next step is chemotherapy. Fortunately, this chemo is done with pills at home. Pam has been taking a drug called Xeloda, three pills twice a day, two weeks on then one week off. There are some side effects but they seem pretty manageable for the most part. Again, there hasn't been any indication of active disease except the tumor markers going up, and Pam has been feeling pretty good lately, if a bit tired. She's through the first course and on her "week off". So we are hopeful that the Xeloda will do its job.

There are eight refills so that means the full course is 24 weeks - 16 weeks taking pills with eight "weeks off" interspersed.

We'll update as we get more news. Hope you all are having a great summer!

Grey Fella and Bathroom Crazies

The glass shelves are now installed in the shower niche and look great.  Rudolf (contractor guy) installed these as well as the slide-in cabinet unit when I was in Toronto last week.  There is a story...

When we were having the original work done on the bathroom, we put the cats on the third floor so they wouldn't get underfoot or escape. When Rudolf came to finish up last week, we didn't bother because, you know, what was going to happen?
As it turns out... Lulu was hiding in a hole underneath the floor while Rudolf installed the cabinet. Only later did Pam discover that she was trapped in the wall :-O

Result: Pam had to cut a hole in the baseboard to allow Lulu to escape.  How we love cats... which brings us to our news of today...



This is our new cat, known for now as Grey Fella.  We adopted him from Quagga Stray Cat Rescue, a no-kill cat shelter here in Winnipeg.  The intention is that he will be a friend for Lulu and a moderating influence on Leonard (known by my friend Mike A. as "b!tch be crazy").  He's about a year old.

His name at Quagga was "Diesel" but it remains to be seen what his new name will be.  We need to get an idea of his personality first.  Personally I am partial to "Mycroft" but we'll see if it fits.

Introductions in the household are ongoing... wish us luck! 

Done! (well almost)

I wanted to post some pictures of the bathroom now that it's nearly done!  (The only thing left to do is to install a cabinet into the space behind the tub wall opposite the chair - and that is happening on Monday).

Pam made the Roman blinds herself.  I think they look great!

 

 

Tempered-glass shelves yet to be installed in the "niche".

 

Chair is from IKEA!

 

Heated towel bar is nice in the morning.

 

Had to make some space for our old buddy the Pink Panther!

Almost there!

 

Excellent progress being made on the bathroom!  Here are some work-in-progress pictures from the last week or so...


 Blue drywall is up and mudding started...

Tub installed with protective plastic still on...



 Marble tiles installed around the tub...

 Wainscoting installed and painted, and first coat of paint on the walls...

Faucets and hardware installed and the tub is ready to go!  We had our first showers in the new bathroom last night and it was awesome... no pics of that though ;-)

Renovation Progress

Well, we lost about a week on the renovation due to the inspection.  It turned up some joists that had been "notched" (probably about 50 years ago) to accomodate plumbing.  So we had to get a report from a structural engineer to tell us to screw a couple of 2x6's to either side of the joists.  Really.

So once this vital job was accomplished (haven't received the bill for it yet), the real work could progress.  The boys have been doing some good work.  Tub is installed and drywall is up.  Taping and mud this week.

I like this picture of Pam and Lulu relaxing on the couch!