Round 2

Sorry it's been a while between posts. Things have been slow, then all of a sudden we have appointments back to back! Today we are at UNC Lineberger Cancer Center receiving the first dose of oral chemotherapy. Keith qualified for a study with a new drug that is coupled with a steroid and another oral chemo (one that he has been on before), so there will be many trips to UNC over the next 6 months. Ultimately he can stay on this study as long as he does well, for longer than 6 months if it proves to be beneficial. Also we are looking at the possibility of another stem cell transplant in the future once we get this under control. According to our specialist, this combination of drugs should have the least amount of side effects and should get him in remission fairly quickly. There will be days he will be here 8 hours, days he will be here 1 hour, and days he won't be at UNC at all. All of these drugs are taken by mouth and can be taken at home, but on certain days they need to monitor him with labwork and EKGs so those days he will be in a small private room. Thank you all for your continued prayers and support. So far he is tolerating everything just fine other than not being able to eat for 1 hour before and 2 hours after meds. They got started a little late today so he was starving! Thanks again everyone! Much love....

It's baaaacck.

Well, it's been a short 3 years. Keith has been in remission for the past 3 years but in September 2013 some routine labwork indicated that our visitor may be invading our lives once more. A bone marrow biopsy confirmed that multiple myleoma has once again become an unwanted member of our family. So to keep things simple, I decided to bring back the blog to those of you who aren't on facebook and to those of you who are, you can choose to read the blog instead of lengthy posts on my wall. Keith had an appointment at UNC last Friday and we met with a myeloma specialist who was totally awesome. After lots of big words and several really good options, we are awaiting some labwork to compare to the samples taken last month. Pending those results we will probably opt for an oral chemo cocktail followed by another stem cell transplant. The doctor mentioned to us about a new study that would include the oral chemo, steroids and another drug that we would have to travel to UNC several times per week for labwork and such. Honestly, I don't remember the details, but that's it in a nutshell. Because of Keith's age and good health, the doctor suggested a stem cell transplant sooner rather than later. UNC still has some cells left from last time, and they are viable for about 10 years. It has been 3, so the option to do it again would be a good one. I believe he would also stay on oral chemo regimen after transplant for as long as he does well. We all believe that this is his bet option at staying in remission the longest. We will go to his oncologist at Wakefield Tuesday morning to discuss things further and kind of keep everyone on the same page. We are so thankful to God for placing these awesome doctors and staff in our lives just when we need them. Also as much support as we had last time, I have no doubt we will get thru this obstacle with flying colors. Please be in prayer for us and especially Ben and Bella during this change. Ben is especially sensitive when it comes to cancer and losing my mom, we just don't want him to worry. And of course, Bella is also a worrier so we aren't sure how she will handle this. We just want to keep them as busy and happy as possible. I will update things as soon as we know more, but for now just keep us in your prayers! Big shout out to all of our peeps at Crossroads Church and family and friends from all around that are praying and already offering whatever we need in the future. Much love to everyone.

new beginnings.....

It has been a long time since my last post....so sorry everyone! Things are going very well here! At almost exactly 1 year from being diagnosed with multiple myeloma we got the news we have been praying for....REMISSION! To make a long story short, all has been going well....a few bumps in the road, urgent care visits, one 3 day hospital stay due to adult onset asthma! He did turn some heads while at wake med since his buddies in blue came by to see him...nurses thought he had done something wrong! pretty funny!
Ben turned 6 last week and bella will be turning 2 on june 26! my how time flies!
Keith continues to receive treatment once a month at his oncologist in Raleigh to strengthen his bones. It is called Zometa and it is an IV infusion, and it has side effects of its own, but we do what we must do!
Thank you all for the support and prayers and love. Multiple Myeloma is an incurable cancer, but we are very hopeful we will obtain a very long remission with the stem cell transplant. This disease is one that has lots of promise for a cure with new treatments coming about all the time. Please don't forget us in your prayers, we still struggle every day.
Keith has gained most of his weight back, all of his hair back and a lot of strength back. He is still however in constant pain due to the damage to his bones from the myeloma. The treatment he received will not repair the damage that has been done unfortunately. His bones are very soft and weak still and will probably never get a lot better...but he is alive and functional and is able to play with our children!
He is working light duty still at Cary PD....don't know when/if he will return to patrol or what capacity he will, but he is being taken care of, which is what good people do! I cannot commend the officers and staff with the town of cary enough. they have all been nothing less than awesome and we are so grateful to have such wonderful people on our side.
I will try and do better with keeping up the blog! it has been a busy few months! Softball season has begun for me and ben is playing coach pitch baseball and still in gymnastics!
Thanks everyone!

never a dull moment....

Things have been going pretty well for all of us. Keith returned to light duty work 3 days per week (12 hour shifts) a few weeks ago. He seems to be doing well with it so far. We do miss him when he isn't here!
Other than a few small bugs, viruses and a bought with pink eye, we are all doing well. Ben had an incident with some type of allergic reaction where he had facial swelling and an itchy mouth/throat. We are pretty sure it was a blow up ball pit that bella got for Christmas. He has been put thru allergy testing and are still waiting to hear from latex and ibuprofen allergies!
On a heavier note, a young mother in Lillington is in the fight of her life right now. She was diagnosed with melanoma around the same time as keith got his diagnosis and she is not doing well. From what I understand she can no longer take chemo and the docs recommend hospice, although i am not sure they have actually called them yet. Ben went to preschool with her youngest son for 2 years. She is a wonderful person and is only 36 years old. My blogs are normally filled with my usual dark humor and sarcasm, today it is filled with heartbreak for a family that does not deserve such sorrow. Please pray for them and especially the kids. Her name is Ann Bethune Mewborn and she is the sweetest person and so is her family.
My heart is so heavy for them knowing what they must be going thru and yet not knowing. You can never know what someone is going thru at a time like this as much as you think you do.
Pray for them and for us in the hopes that we will all kick cancer's evil butt and it will never be heard from again. As I read recently: Our God is bigger than cancer.
Amen.

update 2011

So a lot has gone on since I last posted. First of all, the MRI of keith's back showed that what we thought were 2 new fractures were not new at all. They are old ones that are healing. Good news! This means NEW Myeloma didn't cause them. I supposed OLD myeloma did, but at least they aren't new. Bad news is he can't get them fixed surgically. They recommended physical therapy which he has been doing and although it is brutal, it seems to be helping. He still has chronic pain every day, but he is coping well with it.

We went to UNC Dec. 16 for his recheck since the transplant. His CBC (complete blood count) looked fantastic. His other labwork was pending, but I assume it is ok since we haven't heard. They decided to wait until the 6 month mark to do the bone marrow biopsy, which will be March 17. It was bittersweet. Wanted to get it over with and find out results, but Keith was relieved that he didn't have to have the lightpole sized needled stuck in his hip! So we wait......Keith may have to take chemo again at a very low dose with no steroids depending on what the test results say. Doc says some people opt to do that and some people wait to see if myeloma pops up and then do something. We will just have to wait and see and weigh the pros and cons.

He goes back to Dr. Wehbie in Wakefield tomorrow for his monthly visit, then Wednesday for more PT and recheck with the Cary Spine Center.
Christmas was great. All of us except Ben had a horrible stomach bug, but we have all since bounced back. The kids had a great Christmas. It was great to have Keith here with us.

The kids are very happy to see Keith being more active with them every day and so am I. I wasn't sure we would ever get back to that, but it looks promising now.

Thanks to everyone for their continued prayers and support. Unfortunately since this blog, another Cary Officer has also been diagnosed with cancer and will be undergoing aggressive treatment. His name is Matt. Please pray for him and his family and they have a tough road to travel.

oncologist visit

Today we went to Keith's awesome oncologist at Wakefield. Bloodwork looked pretty good, still a little anemic, but can be caused by some meds, and his white cells are good, but has lots of immature ones still that can't fight off stuff. Doc asked that we forward the MRI scan results to him. He wants to make sure it's not myeloma again (new myeloma, not old, if that makes sense) He said that not everyone would be able to recognize myeloma for what it was and that he was very protective of keith like Keith was his "baby" (like special project). Now THAT is what a doctor should be. If they were all like that, more people would go get checked out sooner.

This doctor was my mom's doctor before she ever had cancer. He is also a hematologist. She had iron deficient anemia and he diagnosed her with that. We requested him to be keith's doctor before we knew he had cancer.

Please pray for us and that all will be in remission and his back will be healed. I know he wants to be normal again....well, as normal as he ever was....hahahaha!

it rears its ugly head again.....

it has been a while since i posted, but things here have been crazy. keith got a cold soon after being home from hospital, but has survived it without going back to UNC to stay. I have battled what we think is Vertigo for about 6 days now. Going back to ENT doc Thursday for some balancing tests to make sure it is nothing to worry about.
Ben and Bella are doing well, few minor issues, ben had a small asthmatic episode that kept him out of school for a day, but has bounced back without an ER visit, but did have to get steroids again at doc.
Bella is talking up a storm. No idea what she says most of the time, but she sure does.
We have found out during the last few months how wonderful our church family and how wonderful our friends really are. They have all come together and done things that I didn't think were possible. Our family has also been very supportive.
Keith was able to go out trick or treating for a bit on halloween! Getting out of the house certainly picked up his mood. His blood pressure has been really low but has seemed to finally be getting back to normal.
Today we went to the Cary Spine Center to get a second (or should I say, third?) opinion on his back pain. After reviewing his chart, MRI's, X-rays, bone scans, they did an exam, repeated his x-rays and found 2 NEW fractures in his back. This makes a total of 4. They are going to order a new MRI and then talk it over. There is a procedure that can be done that is a minor surgery and basically it injects cement into the damaged discs to for lack of a better word, lift them up, and it is supposed to take the pain away. I asked the doc what the recovery time was, he said, "cement dries in 24 minutes". WOW. He said he has had peeps come in riding in wheelchairs, and walking out when he was done. This is the only positive news we have heard about his back. Unfortunately, they have to be new fractures, it doesn't work on old ones, but old ones, once they are healed, do not cause pain. So it's a good thing we went. These have happened since March, so i guess they are considered new still (i hope!) Really, cancer, rear up your ugly head again, we will just beat it back down. Every. Single. Time.

Back to regular oncologist tomorrow. Will discuss all this in more detail with him
On a lighter note, the Multiple Mylemoa Reserach Foundation is having their 5k run in Washington DC this Sunday. We have some wonderful and cool friends heading up a team and are running in keith's honor. We are planning to go if doc says keith can handle that much riding.

Thanks to all of you for support and love and prayers. Our journey is no where near finished, but hopefully we have climbed the mountain and it will be a smooth sailing from now on out, so DON'T FORGET ABOUT US! The crisis is over (hopefully!) but we still need all the love and support and prayers we can get. We won't know for sure if he is in remission until after Dec. 16 when he will be re-staged.
Also, if there is anyone out there who doesn't have AFLAC or some sort of supplemental cancer insurance or if you think it is a crock, call me. I can change your mind. It can happen to ANYONE.
Also, a friend of ours has a new nanny. This nanny's sister was just diagnosed at 23 years of age, with some type of acute leukemia. she was airlifted to UNC where she is undergoing treatment (she isn't even fully concious). Please keep her in your prayers. Her name is Janessa Batchlor (not sure of spelling, but story is on my FB page) She is very very sick and her family lives out of state. She is a student in Wilmington.

port be gone!

Went back to UNC Tuesday. Blood counts are coming up!
Today we got the aphoresis catheter removed. What I thought was going to be a little more detailed, was actually a 5 minute gig. Took it out in the little cubby in the hospital. I thought they were going to wheel him to the Operating room, but nope, snipped it out right there. no, i didn't look. would have been at UNC for a different reason if i had.
He goes to his referring oncologist, Dr. Wehbie on the 18th or 19th and then returns to UNC on Dec. 16 for re-staging. This will tell us if he is in full remission!
Christmas should be great this year if all goes well!
Thanks everyone for the continued prayers and support! Keith continues to do well, but he gets very tired very quickly, but that is normal. Just have to be patient. We will explore how to fix his back fractures as soon as we get his reports back and get the ok!

home at last

Sunday keith came home! We are all very happy! the kids are so happy! Bella has been rubbing all over him and kissing on him and of course, ben is beside himself.
He has to go back to UNC Tuesday and i guess we will go from there. He cannot drive or be left alone for more than a few minutes for 2 weeks. I plan on working half days for the next 2 weeks and we actually need some fill ins if anyone has any time on wed and friday this week and wed, thurs, fri next week.
Thanks everyone for your continued prayers and support!
Will update after Tuesday!

homeward bound?

Keith spoke with the docs today. if all goes well, he will come home Sunday!
Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes! He had some blood and platelets, so he should be good by Sunday!
I will keep everyone posted!

update on keith

Today keith is still feeling quite yucky. Mouth and throat pain due to chemo. To only take 15 minutes for one dose, it sure does kick your butt.
He is now on a pain pump and is not eating. All of this is "normal". He has received platelets twice (the stuff that clots your blood). Thanks to all of you that have donated. You are AWESOME!
I haven't been able to speak with keith or skype because it is too painful for him to talk, so we have been texting. If he could get a ticket for texting while intoxicated, he surely would. TWI. Morphine is affecting his typing skills.
Anyway, we are hoping he will be well enough to come home by the end of the weekend. His counts have to go up, he has to be able to hydrate himself without IV fluids and he can't have a fever. He has had a fever all day today and off and on for the past several days. Makes him feel like crap. He is unable to eat due to his throat and mouth pain from the chemo.
Bella has been sick with high fevers at home since Sunday night. Doc says its a virus and will be over in a few days hopefully. If we are not all well at home, keith cannot come home! pray we will all stay well! Poor bella has been so sad.
Thanks for the continued prayers and support! Stay tuned! Will post soon!
Want to especially thank all my peeps at Crossroads Church for all the support and other stuff. you guys ROCK

yucky

keith has started feeling very yucky for the past few days. Mouth sores, throat raw, not eating. Milkshakes and applesauce is about it for food. They told us this would happen, so it is all "normal" so to speak.
Going to visit today, haven't been since Tuesday. Had to work wed, thurs, fri, then had to go to funeral home friday night and funeral today for a co-workers husband who lost his battle with cancer wednesday. I hate cancer. It sucks.

He will most likely get a transfusion of blood/platelets or both in the next few days.

Thanks for all the continued prayers and support. We really miss keith not being here, but hopefully another week and he can come home.
We will have 2 more weeks of "confinement" when he gets home. He can't be left alone for more than a few minutes during that time and he can't drive for 2 weeks either.
Ben and Bella are doing fine. Ben misses keith like crazy and bella just walks around calling Da-Dee, but we will get thru it!

Mickey Mouse??

So today we discovered keith is allergic to zofran (one of the nausea meds). His voiced changed like he had been sucking on helium or immitating mickey mouse. Apparently his tongue was swelling and he could barely speak. A little benadryl fixed that.
He seems to be doing well, just a little stir crazy and bored. His blood pressure was fairly high today. 148/100, so they adjusted some meds, but it didn't change much. We did get out of his room today and walk around a bit. Found some hard candy, which he said was motivation to walk around again. butterscotch, I believe.
thats it for now pretty boring which is what the goal is!
thanks for all the thoughts and prayers!

Sunday

Hey everyone! just updating you on keith. Visited with him a bit today. He is starting to feel icky and tired, which is what they said would happen. He said his throat hurt today, which is a result of the chemo they gave him thursday. It kills all fast growing cells, which unfortunately, isn't just cancer cells, Mucous membranes, GI tract, hair, skin and nails are all affected. He gave me a bit of a scare while I was there saying his throat felt like it was constricting and his voice changed. If you know keith well, you know he is quite the prankster. I thought he was joking, but soon found out he wasn't. Luckily my best buddy was with me and she just happens to be a nurse at UNC women's center. She went and got his nurse because she saw the panicked look on my face. She told him it was normal and not to worry about his throat "closing"! Whew. They may put him on a pain pump and maybe get him a suction machine so that his throat won't be so irritated. His white blood cells have gone from 7.3 to 2.5, which are his cells that fight infection.
His hemadicrit (spelling?) has fallen to 28.8. It was 36.5. If it falls below 25 and if platelets get low enough, he will get a blood transfusion. All of this is totally normal and actually will make him feel better.
We go to the most awesome church. Joe set up a "no hair for keith" type of ceremony today at church at 4pm. He was only expecting a few guys. ELEVEN showed up! including a 14 year old teenager. How awesome was he?! Thank you Ethan. you ROCK. Glenn and Beverly, you guys rock too! Crossroads Church, YOU ROCK!! Video to be on facebook by tomorrow hopefully. I don't know all the people that were involved today, but thank you from the bottom of our hearts. we are not worthy of such love, grace and friendships that you have given us. We are forever grateful and humbled by all of you.
Watch the video, I hear the dude at the end is crazy.
Keith hasn't been eating well today. Breakfast was good, but not so good coming up.
didn't eat much lunch and wouldn't eat dinner. (mystery meatloaf) Delia got him some peanut butter crackers and a couple of drinks to help with nausea. You will have to contact him with the landline in his room or email or facebook. I took him his new cellphone and it doesn't work. Can't call out or in. Planning on taking it to verizon tomorrow.
Love to all of you out there fighting your own battles. Never give up no matter what.
Keep checking in on us, we need it!

it has begun!

Keith was admitted to UNC yesterday. He got his chemo around 4pm. He had a very restless night. Bad headache and nausea. Docs came to check on him today. He was sitting on side of bed and politely asked them to move....he did make it to the bathroom on time! Unfortunate side effect of this chemo. It only took 15 minutes to give it, but it packs a powerful punch. He is getting his stem cells today. This should only take about 20 minutes. He is very nauseous and has a bad headache. The nurse said some people get headaches first few days of being there because the air is so dry (the whole unit is heppa filtered). I had a headache from being there too.
Anyway, other than that, he is doing well. Unfortunately, ben accidentally dropped keiths cell phone in the toilet so it is toast. Waiting on a new one to arrive today.
He does have his laptop and he does have a Skype account, so we were able to let ben see him and chat with him last night. That was pretty cool
The nurses said he can decorate his room however he wanted, so anyone that would like to send cards, posters, pics, encouraging words would be great. No flowers but cards and stuff are fine.
Here is the address and phone number to his room. He should have his cell phone back up and running tonight or tomorrow.
mailing address: BMTU Room 4841 4th floor NC Cancer Hospital. 101 Manning Dr, Chapel Hill, NC 27514. phone number 919-966-6048
Thanks everyone!

so far so good.....

so far, so good. no more fevers. keith is extremely tired, wiped out. he has times when he comes out of the bedroom to eat, play video games with ben, that's about it.
as sad as that is, at least it seems to be keeping him well thus far.
going to a very good friend's house tonight with the kids to swim and cookout. keith requested a steak for dinner, since he can't go with us. Ben asked if daddy could go,and i told him no. Ben said "too many people?", yes buddy, too many people.
Bless his little heart. He understands more than we give him credit for. Bella is just rolling with the punches so to speak....she is such a cool kid....they both are in their own ways...We are very blessed to have a great support system thru our family and friends, but especially thru our church. Our friends there are as much family to us as our "blood" kin, as we say in the south.
The kids spent some time at another very good friend's house friday night....apparently Emily is training bella for a triathalon. Sounds good to me...you go Ems and Bella.
Love to everyone....will post with progress....don't want to bore everyone with our everyday goings on.....Hopefully, no drama for a few days!

Stem cells....

Ok, so keith was able to get his stem cells harvested yesterday. They took about 11 million or so! No more shots for him now! He hated those things. They caused lots of issues, but for now, we are done!
He came home yesterday and crashed. Slept all afternoon and most of the night. Woke up at 2am and had a fever of 101! Not good! He said he felt lousy, had a headache and his throat hurt. He did get up and eat and apparently that helped.
Hindsight, should have called UNC at 2am, but he wanted to see if eating would help. After calling this morning, they said, next time, CALL! No matter what time it is!
Going to monitor him for fever and call if it comes back. Hopefully it won't. Now we just wait.............something I am NOT good at!
In the meantime, he has to have pretty much no contact with anyone if he can help it. He has to wear a mask when he goes out of the house (to dr. visits, etc)

I will post later when we know what/when the next step is!
Thanks everyone!

stem cells getting harvested on thursday

Keith just called from UNC. His counts are as low as they can get. He cannot be around anyone, especially kids, for a few days. He is sad about that, but it is a good thing! Has to follow a strict diet to avoid all bacteria, no fresh fruits or veggies, everything has to be cooked well done.
Hopefully they will harvest his stem cells tomorrow! Then we wait.....

update

Keith is doing well, just tired, but that is to be expected. He went back to UNC today to get his labwork done. They said his numbers were looking good and if all continues to go well, he will be getting his stem cells extracted either wednesday or thursday or both. It will be outpatient, he will just be hooked up to a machine that is like a dialysis machine. It will basically filter out the stem cells and give them everything else back. They will then freeze them and then call us when they have a room open in the special unit he will be staying in. This could take 2-4 weeks. Keep us in your prayers! Ben starts school on Wednesday!! Hopefully this nightmare will be behind us soon and we can get back to normal....ok, we were never normal, but we will be happy to get back to whatever we were!
Hopefully we will get this all said and done and keith won't have to use too much disability, since unfortunately the Town of Cary doesn't allow people to donate time!
Thanks to everyone for their continued prayers and support! I will post again as things come up!

Round 1

On Monday, keith had his port put in. Let me just say that Monday was a day that unless you were with us, I am not sure anyone would believe it.
We had to be at UNC at 8:30 for check up and chat with doc. When we arrived, we both had to use the restroom. I came out first and waited for Keith. When he came out he had a look of horror on his face. Apparently a gentleman didn't quite make it to the bathroom in time. When keith went in he noticed on the floor a pile of clothes and a pile of poop. As bad as that was, when he looked up there was the poor guy NAKED on the counter washing himself off in the sink. Oh, our day gets better.....
So after the 8:30 appointment, we headed to the other end of the hospital to check in to have his surgery. We were way early, but were hoping they would do it early. hahahahahahahahahahahaha. what were we thinking? Anyway, we were ushered from one waiting room to another one down the hall. After sitting there for about an hour or so, a lady came in with an older lady that was in a wheelchair and on oxygen. They were chatting and you could tell it was polite conversation, one that you would have with someone you didn't know very well. All of a sudden the lady said, OH MY GOD! I NEED HELP! Apparently the older lady said she felt dizzy, then her head slumped and then she began to snore loudly (not like you were sleeping, but like you were dying)
Good grief. Doctors and nurses came from everywhere. Then they called code blue.
After quite a while, I heard that they shocked her and got her back. Lesson 1: If you are thinking of dying, try to do it in the cardiac testing area of a well known hospital. that's your best shot of making it.
Sooo, after more waiting, they finally came to get keith. His surgery was scheduled for 2pm. While we were waiting, a patient walked by and was stopped by a nurse. Apparently, he was splattering blood all over the floor from whatever procedure he had. They had to call a stretcher for him.
They finally took keith back at 4. Unfortunately this caused us to miss ben's kindergarden open house, but luckily I have a wonderful sister who was able to take him and send me pictures. Broke my heart, but at least a lady didn't die, so I'm ok with that.
Today we took Keith to have his first chemo treatment. This went a little smoother. No naked men and no one tried to die in front of us. Nurses were cool and quite funny. Keith of course pulled jokes on them all day. They set us up in a private room with lots of windows, a tv and they even brought me a recliner! Had lunch with my best buddy Delia who just happens to work at the hospital! She has been an angel.
So, Keith goes back tomorrow for another 6 hour day, but at least he will be comfortable. He is feeling pretty good, little tired and little icky, but other than that, he is great. Thanks for all your prayers and support. Starting Thursday, he will have to wear a mask if he goes around a lot of people and when he goes in and out of the hospital. His blood counts should be dropping next week, so he will probably be more tired and have to be even more careful of germs. He will be going back to UNC twice next week to have bloodwork to make sure he doesn't need blood or platelet transfusions. Hopefully he won't, but it wouldn't surprise us!
He will start taking shots to boost his white blood cells Thursday, this will be twice daily for about 2 weeks, then he will go in to have his stem cells "extracted". This may take a few days (outpatient), then we wait for a bed to open. Praying that this will be sooner than later! It could take 3-4 weeks! Hopefully not, but we will do what we have to do. God has it all figured out. HE is probably snickering at our plan.
Thanks to everyone for continuing to pray and for support. Ben is starting kindergarden next week, so hopefully this won't weigh on his mind too much. Trying not to stress too much, but I do worry about the children, they just don't understand and poor ben was so close to my mom, I know he worries his dad will meet the same fate.
I will update when things start moving forward or if anything exciting happens. I'm sure it will!