Mayo scans

Praise The Lord, we are almost home.  The good news is that the lungs are fine as far as the pneumothorax ( lung collapse) is concerned.  The X-ray showed everything is fine.  We had a scare when the doctor got the dates confused but that was sorted out quickly.

As far as the tumors, there was some growth over the last couple months.  I am guessing it was 10-20 percent growth on bath brain, spine,and lung.  It is enough that the doctors say I should stop the current chemo and start a new drug.  They are going to work with insurance to try and get pazopanib covered.  This doesn't surprise me too much since I had noticed things like swallowing that got worse while taking this.  We asked about keeping on the current drug but sounds like their is a fair risk of reactions when drugs are mixed so that doesn't work well.

Overall we are really thankful.  It probably seems like a short term thing to worry about more lung collapse but I was lacking faith and strength to be away from the kids again.  So thanks for your prayers.  Just pray that I continue to have the strength to smile and serve God each day He gives me.

Derek & Leann

Hawaii

We are home!  We got home Tuesday night at 12:30.  Things have been busy getting back in the swing at work, hence a few day delay in updating the blog.  It's been easy for me to adjust to the time zones, hard for Leann.  There are 5 hours difference, so it's not trivial.  We had a great trip.  We did a lot, spent a few days doing nothing.  It took a while to learn how to relax again.  We were on the island of Kauai only, I think we saw it all either by car, helicopter, or boat.  The plants, mountains, and oceans are truly amazing.  Beaches were sometimes hard/sometimes easy depending on how wild the ocean was, how far to walk, how steep, etc.  I was able to snorkel a few times, the easiest was off of the boat.  The hardest thing was getting out of the ocean while waves crashed.  Thanks for all the prayers that we could have a good trip.

Next week is another round of routine scans at Mayo's, on Tues/Wed.  Hopefully it really ends up being routine.  We thought that the last two times and ended up in the hospital both times.  The chemo is going well, no side effects that I've noticed.  We'll find out from the scans if it's working or not.

Thanks for your continued prayers.  We appreciate them much.
Derek & Leann