It's Surgery Time

My lung has been filling up with fluid since I started with chemo. Well, technically, its between my lung and the chest cavity wall, like the picture shows.

I'm getting a lot better at anatomy, now. :]

Because it keeps filling up with fluid, I'm having a surgery on Monday Oct 3rd where they will fix this.

Again, taken from my the family blog. Good writing, Mom:

"Erik has his pleurodesis surgery scheduled for Monday in St. George.  We met with Dr. Bowles and feel comfortable with his knowledge and genuine care. This will be a good thing.  Because of the nature of how this technique works, Erik will get to stay in the St. George hospital for about 4 days.  He will have a drain attached to the pleural space in his lung.  The first day will probably be his worst because of the larger size of breathing tube that they will use during the surgery. Always causes a dry throat.  The rest of the days will be rough in the sense that he'll be in the hospital rather than being in the comforts of home.  :)  Good thing for Netflix, laptops and social media! 

He started his Immunotherapy on Wednesday and received his Xgeva shot (to help with bones).  It was a fast Infusion Treatment appointment.  We were in and out in an hour and a half!  So far, so good on side effects.  He's felt achey and a little yuck... but not as much as he felt when he had chemo.  There is bone pain in spots and again... Lortab and a heating pad are good remedies.  And Claritan for Xgeva side effects." (Blog link here)


Keep running.

Immunotherapy = No More Chemo

For this update, I've taken what my mom wrote on the family blog.
Great writing, Mom:

Onward and Upward & Trust in the Lord

Before Dennis' parents passed away, Bob in 1989 and Barbara in 2007, they had a family motto... mission statement - not sure - but I remember Barbara often saying:

Here we are in September of 2016, pushing forward - onward and upward

The news from Dr. Haslem at Erik's appointment on Wednesday wasn't the greatest.  He said the PET scan didn't look any better.  So no more chemo... it's not working. 

BUT, lets get going on Immunotherapy.

It will take a week to get things set up with paperwork and approvals... because insurances aren't recognizing it yet for Erik's type of cancer.  It has been approved for certain types of cancer... just not Erik's, yet.  It's a trial. We don't know if it will work.  You never know until you try! 

Next Wednesday is set up to start.  It is an IV infusion, taking about 30-60 minutes.  Every 3 weeks.  This can be done in the Cedar Cancer center.  After a few cycles (about 6 weeks) he will be re-evaluated.  Hopefully this is the ticket!

Read about Immunology.

Watch a video about it.

The genomics testing is taking awhile, too.  Some of the sample they got for one of the labs wasn't sufficient.  Erik, was like... ahhhh, "do they need to do another biopsy?"  The answer was no... they have more cancer tissue to use from the main source.  So that's good!

In the meantime, Erik is thrilled to not have the fanny pack chemo pump for a 96 hour stretch with all the side affects that go with it!

He has been feeling better to do a few things and go a few places.

The cancer in various spots is getting more painful, but is manageable... Lortab is his friend.

He had a pleural effusion on Wednesday, too. (lung fluid drained)  The appointment for a consult to have it fixed... a Pleurodesis...is next Tuesday in St. George.  It might take a few weeks to get on the surgery schedule.  Erik will continue to have it drained until then... about once a week or so.  It is the cancer on his lungs that causes it to fill.

I am so glad Erik had the chance and took the chance to go up north and see friends last week.  His plans were on, then off, then on again.  He just didn't feel the greatest physically.  His heart wanted to go so bad and have fun hanging with friends and doing something other than being at home.  It was good for him to finally feel good enough and just go do it!  He continues to say YOLO!
He got the chance to go the Mt Timp Temple... and he saw DeAnn, my sister, who works there.  And was able to go the new Provo City Center Temple.  He had lots of family history names to do.  He hung out with various groups of friends and family from Friday to Monday.  He was too tired to come home Sunday.  He played it safe and got a hotel and came home Monday.  He slept a lot the next two days!


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Keep running.

Your Mountain is Waiting

You're all familiar with Facebook Memories, yeah?

You know, it is really cool: being able to see past adventures, that dumb post you made in high school ("Erik is... excited to go on a cool trip with my family." Really??), and Friendaversaries. All of your Facebook life on a continuous log. Ohhh, the memories.

It's really interesting to me that "past Erik" has really been able to help me lately. There have been quite a number of instances lately where I look at my Memories and see a quote or post that happened one or two or five years ago and it is exactly what I needed to hear. Yesterday, it was a quote about the temple. Last week, it was something about my new move to Logan. I'm grateful that I took the courage to post "inspiring stuff" so that I could have it to look back on some day.

TOOOOOODAY, I stumbled upon this post:

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It brought back the memory of the biggest YOLO moment of my entire life: hiking to the 11,000 ft summit of Mt Timpanogus to see the sunrise. And the best part? A friend (in which I haven't been in super great contact with over the years) posted on Facebook about going on this hike and I thought, "What the heck" right then and decided to do it. I didn't prepare for weeks for it, the hike was happening in two days time. I still remember leaving Logan at 10 p.m. on Sunday night, getting some McMidnight food in Orem ('cause ya know, didn't want to break the Sabbath, and needed some sort of energy food), and meeting at my friend's house. We started the hike at 1 a.m., flashlights, jackets, and all. IN THE DARK. 7.3 miles up. 

Once we got to the Saddle, the high part "before things got real crazy", the summit before the summit, we huddled in blankets and I just thought about how cold I was and how in the heck I was going to survive this blasted hike. We trudged on, reaching the summit not even 10 minutes before the sunrise: PERFECT timing. We climbed down a few steps on the east side of some rocks, where it was magically 40 degrees warmer. We got to watch the sun peak over the mountains across a vast landscape. With my "pro" Utah geographical knowledge, I could see Heber, the Jordanelle, everything. And. The. View. Was. Amazing. Literally one of those moments you see in the movies where the music is all grand and life is just awesome. I also remember that there were some hikers right below us who had brought bacon and a fryer- it might sound stupid, but at that height and that level of tired, they were the most coveted people on the mountain.

The walk down was great. We slid down a small hill of shale (stick to the path, folks), I was able to ditch my warmer layers, and we hiked the 7.3 miles down. Ironically, toward the bottom I thought, "This path just keeps going." And, "Are we ever going to get to the bottom?" Followed by, "I don't remember any of this, or the trail being this long." (Remember, we hiked up in the dark.) Buuut, eventually we made it, we got in the car, we celebrated, we got donuts, and I slept sooo good that night.

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Now, what is the point of all of this? Well, one... journaling. Two... seeing this post from a year ago reminded me that life is grand. I've made some fantastic memories and I think I've really learned how to 'seize the day'- a lesson that I'll definitely carry for the rest of my life. I've climbed mountains. I can do hard things. I HIKED UP A MOUNTAIN IN THE DARK for crying out loud- so what can't I do?

Life has thrown some crazy curveballs and some pretty big crap at me, so it was nice to get a little reminder that there ain't no mountain high enough, there ain't nothing I can't do, and there ain't a chance that I'm giving up on anything.

Dr Seuss says it best: "You're off to great places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, so... get on your way!"

Go climb a mountain, friends.

Keep running.