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December 2015 Clinical Trial Update for Tammy

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Hello all, I thought I should give you an update from last week. We kind of left you hanging because we didn’t have any real answers yet. Tammy went to Houston last Monday (23rd) in pretty bad shape. She was seen by the Dr. and was taken off one of the drugs for the clinical trial that they thought was causing the problems. They added a few drugs to counter act the side effects. They went ahead and sent her home so that she could be back in time for Thanksgiving. She got home late Tuesday night still very swelled up, her rash was what she would call out of control and her blood pressure was still very high. The Dr. seemed most concerned about her blood pressure and wanted her to keep monitoring it to see if it came down with the blood pressure meds that they gave her. Wednesday morning I bought a home tester so she could monitor it. She monitored it throughout the day on Wednesday. It did not come down so they wanted her to stop the other drug until further notice and her appointment in Houston today. Over the long weekend she started to feel better, the rash slowly went away, and her blood pressure slowly started to come down. Since she has been off of both of them she has lost 9 pounds of water weight due to the swelling. When she left yesterday she was pretty adamant that she was not going to restart on all of the drugs again. Her comment to me was that this treatment has been the worst out of everything that she has been on for the last four years. I just told her that it had to be her decision, but at least go see what they had to say and then make it. Brandi (thank you) volunteered to go down with her this time so they hopped on a plane yesterday to see what the next plan of action would be. We had planned on driving back and forth as much as possible but with all of swelling that the drugs cause we have made the decision that she will have to fly all of her trips now. Sitting for 12 hours at a time is pretty unbearable for her.
I finally was able to talk to her about four this afternoon. From the sounds of things she was not really given a choice to go off. The Dr. was adamant that this was the trial that she needed to be on. Her comment was that he kept saying that the science says that with her mutation this is where she needs to be. He said that they need to get the dosing right so that the side effects are manageable, but that is all part of the process. They are lowering the doses a lot and will work them up until they find the right ones. One of the major factors for all of the problems she was having was that the level of cyclosporine in her blood was almost three times the level that they wanted to have. They want her level to be around 125. Her levels we almost 400. Tammy seems to be ok with proceeding. She said that someone must have tipped the Dr. off about her wanting to stop because he came in with both guns blazing and never even mentioned stopping. She will start taking the drugs again and we will see what happens. She is still going to be taking all of the other drugs to counter act the side effects and maybe they will stay on top of them all.
I included “the Anatomy of Courage” in the title of this one because I see so much courage in Tammy and in all cancer patents. I know all of you see the courage also, but I wanted to give you a glimpse into our life and see Tammy’s courage through my eyes. For most of us we do not think twice about taking an Advil if we have headache. We just go to the medicine cabinet grab a few, throw them down and move on down the road. We have a belief that the drugs are made to help us feel better. So with that thought in the back of our mind it is no big deal. We just take them. For a cancer patient that is not always the case. I would like you to imagine this with me as I walk you down the road of the courage I see. Imagine everyday, twice a day going to your pill bottles. You reach for them knowing exactly what they are and what they represent. You open the bottle but you are not supposed to touch the pills with your bare hands. You would think, what difference does it make, they’re going in me anyway. Then you remember that it is not a caution for you. The caution is so you don’t touch someone else with it. You load the required dose into the cap of the bottle so you have no contact with it. You then have to make a decision. You know that if you put them in your mouth and swallow there is a really good chance that you are not going to feel very good for at least 12 hours, then you have to do it all over again. In the back of you mind all you see is pain, discomfort, and misery. You put them in your mouth and swallow then down anyway. That is true courage my friends. I hope this was not too much info for you, but as I was waiting to hear the news today I was thinking about how courageous Tammy and all cancer patients really are and how in my everyday life I sometimes let my courage falter for a whole lot less. Thank you for the continued love and support. Tammy is still traveling down to Houston every week until after the first of the year. My hope is that I have nothing to report until we finally get some results back on the 6th of January. Love you all.
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November 2015 Update for Tammy

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Hi friends, we thought it was time to update everyone on how things were going. It has been pretty crazy around here. I have been in Houston for three out of the last six weeks and Tammy has been there four out of the last six and is leaving again in the morning. It has been a wild ride for sure. Our two-week stay was pretty uneventful except for having to stay three extra days that we were not planning on. There was a computer issue with getting her enrolled in the clinical trial that took two days to resolve so we were stuck waiting to get started. When the problems were all solved it was pretty smooth sailing except for some very long days at the hospital. We did however find out that she would have to be in Houston every week for five weeks for a blood test and a check up. After the five weeks then it will drop back to every other week. Tammy started off doing really well. She had a few bouts with nausea but for the most part was feeling ok. We got back Saturday the 14th with Tammy taking full meds and doing ok. Her mom and dad left with her on Wednesday the eighteenth to drive her to her first weekly appointment back down in Houston. They drove all night to make her appointment at eight in the morning. Tammy had her appointments and they turned around and drove home and got back home around one forty-five Thursday night. Tammy was planning on going to work on Friday but that just wasn’t in the cards. She woke up Friday morning with full body swelling, her eyes we almost swollen shut. Swelling is one of the many lovely side effects of these drugs. Its seems that the drugs must be building up in her system because the side effects are starting to add up. Her back, chest, shoulder and neck are very painful. She says its like she lifted weights really hard and she is very sore. She has a rash over the same areas including her face. Her head is very sensitive. She says it hurts to wash her hair. Here is a weird one for ya. All of the curl that she got back when her hair grew back is now gone. The one that is causing her the most anxiety is her blood pressure. She tested it tonight and it was 149/110. Her normal range is 98/74 so she has been a little concerned. We finally got ahold of a dr. down at Md Anderson tonight and they told her to stop everything. Tammy decided earlier today that she was heading down there no matter what and we booked her a flight as driving was really hard on her. She is going straight to the hospital and they will be waiting for her. Hopefully they can figure something out to help ease some of this as it has been a pretty tough week on my girl. She was scheduled to have an appointment on Wednesday anyway so as of right now she will come home Wednesday night unless they can move some things up and let her come home sooner. Tammy’s mom is going down with her. Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers.

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October 2015 Update for Tammy

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What if time stood still. What would I see if I had an extra instant to look into my past. A year ago, three weeks, 5 minutes ago. We are very strong believers in everything happens for a reason, and sometimes if you try to fight it, life will fight right back. As I sit here and write this and reflect back on three weeks ago and our infamous trip to Chicago I see now that life, in all of its wonder and glory, was sending us a message. Faith it seems was reminding us to be patient. While God was reminding us that we may not understand but he has a plan for us. Life has a way of paving the way down certain paths and setting up road blocks in others. Tonight as we sit in our hotel room we are content in knowing that our path has been paved and that the big guy is watching over us.
We got to Houston yesterday around three in the afternoon. Tammy was scheduled for blood work at four. I had the car drop her off at the hospital and I went on to the hotel to get checked in because we were expecting a late night as Tammy was scheduled for her CT at seven p.m. So I get back to the hospital and Tammy is already drinking her special drink for her CT. The pavers were out in full force because we were done and out of there before six-thirty. Life was good. We went and had a nice supper and then caught the shuttle back to our hotel. The night before doctors appointments are always harder on both of us than we let ourselves believe. Tammy usually falls asleep early then wakes up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep. I usually can’t settle down to begin with so I’m usually falling asleep about the time she wakes up. This always makes for an interesting morning, some of you know about “Mann time” and the intricacies of waking up someone afflicted. I was up at 6:45 and couldn’t go back to sleep and Tammy always thinks that she can be ready in fifteen minutes. It was kind of funny this morning because she did admit that, and I quote, “wow it sure seemed like it took a long time for me to get ready this morning,” I just smiled and said “riiggghhhttttt.” She threw on her shirt and we ran downstairs to make sure we didn’t miss the 10:30 shuttle. Did I mention that her appointment was at 10:30. Got to love her!!!
Last week she had an oncologist appointment in Salina and at that time her CEA levels in her blood had risen 7 points in 2 weeks and we were nervous as to what that would actually mean in these scans. The doctors don’t put a lot of emphasis on the CEA because it can fluctuate in a short amount of time, but for us it was scary. Her doctor back home felt that things were starting to ramp up again and felt like Lonsurf, the new drug just approved, would be the natural course right now. He wanted us to go to Houston and make sure there was not something new and better to try before we start it. We have had this appointment on the books since we were here last time, 2 1/2 months ago. We just didn’t know how it was all going to play out if we ended up going to Chicago. So we go in today expecting to go on Lonsurf and see what happens. Dr. Overman comes in and shows us the scans which show some growth but nothing major. CEA has risen one point on the scale from the last time we were here, not that big of deal, so you have two options. Keep doing nothing for a while longer or we have a new clinical trial that I am really excited about for you to try. Two people had just dropped out of study which left a couple of openings. The window to getting in a trial is narrow. No brainer for us, when do we start.
The clinical trial is two pills given together. Not sure of all the details yet, but everything looks very promising. Around the first of November we will come back and have to stay 10 days for some preliminary testing, blood work, and then finally get started on the ninth day and check blood once on the tenth day. Then she will have to come back every two weeks for blood work and a check up. The drugs are pills that she will have to take everyday so she can do all of that at home. Tammy is very excited to get this going.
As one door closes another one opens. Thank each and every one of you for the love and support that you so generously give to us. We are so blessed with family and friends, near and far, who hold us up when we get weary. If I could ask for one prayer from you tonight it would be to help me get Tammy up at 3:30 in the morning for a 6:00 a.m. flight. Life is always an adventure for us:). LOVE you guys!!!!
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Chicago-The Results

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We define ourselves not in the halo of the light, but in the shadows of darkness.
Late Friday afternoon we got the results of Tammy’s Biopsy. The oncologist sent it in a secure email which neither one of us had ever seen and so had no idea how to open. Tammy was at school and I was at home. After fifteen agonizing minutes I finally found the magic decoder ring and opened the email. I called Tammy right away figuring she was in class and I would not be able to get to talk to her. She answered, and I said did you get the email. She said yes but I’m still trying to get it open. She is very focused on the task and didn’t hear me the first time I said that I got it open. I finally got her full attention and told her the news. The biopsy was negative for the protein. You are not eligible for the trial.
I did a pretty good job all week of handling my anxiety over what the results would be. I was hoping above hope that she had already read the results so I did not have to be the one to tell her. I myself had every emotion going through my body. Sadness that she could not do the trial. Relief because the next eight weeks would have been hell on all of us. Fear, because this was the next step. I asked her are you ok. Yes, she said, this was not what I am supposed to be doing. She defined herself by being my calmness in the storm. She held me up when I thought I would have to hold her. She found the light despite the shadows for us both.
We don’t know what the next step will be yet. Her oncologist in Chicago did tell us that last week the FDA did approve a new drug to treat colon cancer. Its called Lonsurf (TAS102). We know nothing about it at this point or if it is the best option at this time. She will meet with her oncologist here this week and we still have an appointment in Houston towards the end of the month. All we know to do is keep moving forward. Pushing on into our next adventure. Thank you all for the thoughts and prayers the last two weeks.
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Chicago-The Saga Continues

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For some reason the saying that truth is stranger than fiction is stuck in my head. I decided to continue our story because I really don’t think I could make it up any better. We find ourselves in Hannibal Missouri. Bells should be going off in your head about now. I’m sure you all had visions of Huckleberry Finn running through your heads instantly, because everyone know that none other that Mark Twain called Hannibal home. It just so happens that he wrote the saying at the beginning also. I won’t lie. I just found that out when I googled it, but hey, it definitely fits for sure now. So I am going to channel the master of story telling and with and try to relay the rest of our mighty tale. Sorry upfront for all of the spelling and punctuation errors, it will become obvious to you why my brain is not working so swell.
I think when I left off we were back at the hotel room snuggled in to watch an awesome football game on the interweb (Yea SES). We brought Gino’s East pizza on our way home and had stuffed ourselves and were feeling quite fat and happy. My cousin Shad and his wife Maggie Thaxton had come over and we had a nice visit while we watched the game. they left around 11:00 pm and everything was good. Tammy settling in to bed and me just doing what I do at night. Then, our journey began with three nice wholesome sneezes. Hachoo, hachoo, hachoo, wow, those kind of hurt. Fast forward 20 minutes, we have to go. I hurt really bad, and I can’t get a full breath. Ok Honey, we are out of here. Now some of you might know the magnificent mile of downtown Chicago, some of you just imagine with me. It is one a.m. on a Friday night in downtown Chicago, we are about five blocks from the hospital. Our car just happens to be in Wichita Kansas, its cold outside and Tammy can’t catch her breath so walking is out. Oh, and by the way, we have no idea where the ER is. So what does one do in such circumstances, hale a cab of course. Lucky us, one just happened to be going by. He pulled up and I went, Oh boy. Please take us to the ER of Northwestern University. Now under normal circumstances I would not have batted and eye about this, but as we were sitting in the cab on a fast and bumpy ride to the ER, my thought was. I wonder how many times on a Friday night has this guy picked up two people running out of a hotel, screaming for a cab, and saying get us to the ER stat. Boy I’m sure he has some stories to tell about that. I will leave that to your imagination to fill in those blanks.
We pull up to the doors and are greeted with a man across the street screaming at the top of his lungs at what must have been an invisible bull frog standing next to him.  Ok let’s get inside please.  Ok let me get the door for you dear. In we go and are greeted by a very drunk Pharrel wanna a be complete with hat. They had propped him in a wheel chair for safe keeping. They nurse at the desk was asking him if he was allergic to anything. He was mumbling something and I quietly told the nurse, “I think you should put down alcohol” to which I got a small smile out of her. We told her why we were there and promptly got put at the front of the line and were in the back in room in fifteen flat, away from the drunks weirdos and such. uh huh, that’s what we thought. So off to x-ray Tammy goes, back in five, In the bed she goes, the nurse comes and so here we are. One thirty in the morning, downtown Chicago, in the ER, oh ya it’s also Friday night. So after they get the guy standing in the hall with his sheet wrapped around him and nothing else on, screaming “give me my pants back,” back in his room. The Doc comes in, nothing has changed in your lung. oxygen level in blood still good. Lets try to manage you pain, and maybe breathing will be easier. They give her some pain meds through and IV ,she settles down, breathing goes back to normal. All good in the world, and its six a.m. in the morning. We need to start to drive to Kansas today. Oh did I mention that by the time I got our flights cancelled and Tammy settled in for the night, all of the rental car places were closed. I still don’t got any wheels set up yet. Oh well, another short cab ride to hotel. I got to get some sleep. Seven a.m. in bed falling fast asleep.
Fast Forward: Ten a.m., frantically calling every rent-a-car place within downtown. Who would of thought, places that rent cars, actually don’t have cars to rent. So instead of a short walk to a rental car we take a nice cab ride to the airport that we can’t fly out of to get a car from New Jersey that we are taking to Kansas, with a short overnight stop in Hannibal. Did I mention that a famous writer was from there. Any way, before we could leave I had to walk to Walgreen and fill a prescription for pain meds for Tammy to make it home, and check out before twelve noon. 12:05 I hand them the keys and we are gone. It just so happens that the one cab in all of Chicago that has a Doctor as the driver picked us up. He is from Nigeria and is trying to retake all of the tests to become licensed here. Very interesting conversation, time flies and the meter keeps on running. We have arrived! $580.00 we have a car and we are on our way. Made really good time except for the one or two or seven potty breaks for me because I drank one or two or seven cups of coffee. And now, Holiday Inn Express I love ya. Here we are, you and me sitting around telling stories.
Thanks for indulging me by reading all of this. All of this did happen in the last eighteen or so hours. At some point every bad experience just becomes funny because there is really nothing else we can do besides laugh. Tammy is feeling much better and traveled pretty good today. She has a little allergy to the pain meds they prescribed so she does a chaser of Benadryl when she takes one. It knocks he out so it was a pretty quiet day. We hear a lot about what cancer takes away from us, but sometimes you have to keep it in perspective. I know I talk about that a lot, but in all our lives it is so important. How we view and react to what happens in our lives has a direct relationship to how happy we are in this life. Cancer sucks, but it has forced Tammy and I to do things that we would have never done if she didn’t have it. This week was crazy, but we made some memories that I will never forget. Who knows, we still have six hours of driving to go from Hannibal, this story may not be over yet. Oh ya, did I mention that someone very famous was from here.
Love you all. Thanks for all of the thoughts and prayers this week.
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Chicago 2015 Update for Tammy

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Hi everyone, a lot of you have been wondering how things are going to I thought I would post something to save me some time trying to get to everyone. We got into Chicago on Wednesday and met with her oncologist here. It was a great meeting and we found out a lot of information about the trial that we didn’t know or understand before. We are pretty new to this world of clinical trials and sometimes what we think we understand is not right. some of the things that we learned were:
     – the protein that they are looking for has never been tested for in Tammy and she had a 50/50 chance of it being there.
     -this is a phase 1 trial. We knew this but didn’t quite understand what that means. The two drugs that she will be given have been given separately (one to about 800 people and the other about 80 people) but never together. This first study will consist of two to three people. From what we gathered, Tammy will be the first, ie. the first human to have had these two drugs in their body at the same time. Wow, eye opener for us. Tammy will definitely be breaking new ground. In all honesty, it scared us a little.
Those were the biggest things we learned and Tammy was good with signing all of the papers and getting going. Thursday she was scheduled to have an echo cardiogram, a CT, and her biopsy. Echo went great and we moved on to CT, and as the saying goes, that’s when it all started. She went in and started prepping for CT like normal. They always do a CT w/ contrast on her, meaning that she has to drink barium before. All fine and good at this point, then Tammy says to nurse: should I be drinking this because I have a biopsy at one this afternoon (no food or drink before). the nurse looked at her and said, sorry sweety, that’s not happening today. Nurse starts calling around to figure out whats going on and we end of getting the biopsy scheduled for six Thursday evening. This included several people staying late for Tammy so that we could stay on schedule and make our flights etc. So we think great we will be back in five hours and get this show on the road. Tammy was a trooper. She had to stop eating and drinking the night before so she was definitely getting the munchies for sure, not to mention a little thirsty. So we show up at about four to start to prep. Life is good and things are moving right along. She gets her IV in ready to go and wouldn’t you know it her cell phones rings. It’s the doctor, she has some cavitation on her tumors and Docs that are doing to biopsy don’t like the risks of doing it in the evening when the hospital will not be fully staffed. She is at a greater risk of her lung collapsing with the cavitation present. Can we do it tomorrow(Friday) at one in the afternoon. What are you supposed to say. No, I’m sorry our flight leaves at 9 we are out of here. Tammy gets unplugged and dressed and we are out of there to get her some food because she is starving and I get on the phone to make a new reservation at the hotel and change our flights to Saturday because they don’t want you to fly until 24 hrs after lung biopsy.
So here I am now sitting next to her at the hospital. The biopsy is done, everything went good. She does have a little air around her lungs so they are taking a series of x-rays to make sure that more doesn’t get in there. The biggest fear now is that the lung could still collapse at some point, but everything is looking good right now, BUUUUUUT, they think we should not fly and drive home. So at some point here I am going to have to find a rental car place and get us a ride and also cancel our flight. Southwest is probably going to put us on a watch list because we have changed our flight so many times in 24 hours.
Tammy is feeling good right now and the are getting ready for the next x-ray. If there is more air then she could possible have to stay overnight with a chest tube. If no change she could possible leave to the hotel. I will comment when I know what is going to happen for sure.
This has been a frustrating trip so far but we really have to keep it in perspective. We have been very lucky up to this point that everything has worked out as far a scheduling is concerned. The staff at Northwestern has been great. Everything that they have done/ changed has been for the benefit and safety of Tammy. I cannot be angry at them for that. After four years we are pretty good at “going with the flow” as I like to call it. We are very thankful to be here and getting all of this done. The next seven days are going to be pretty stressful as we sit and wait to see if this mystical protein is present, but if this is what Tammy is supposed to be doing, then the protein will be there. If not, something better is out there waiting on her. I have no doubts about that.
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September 2015 Update for Tammy

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Well it appears that the vacanceration is over.  I wanted to get the word out that our plan has changed again, as we knew it would.  I think I mentioned before that we were making a trip up to Chicago to meet with some doctors.  We made this decision after speaking with my cousin Shad, who is a research Doc at Northwestern.  We went to Northwestern to expand our options for clinical trials as Tammy is at the point where we will be looking more and more for new treatments for her to try. Anyway. long story short, we got conformation last week and got scheduled on Monday to hopefully get in a trial in Chicago. I say hopefully because next Wednesday we head to NWU for Tammy to have a biopsy done to make sure that a protein that the drugs target is still present in her cancer cells.  The protein was there two years ago but cancer mutates, so they want to make sure it is still there. If it is still present then she will qualify for the trial. We will have to wait seven days for the results of the biopsy and if everything is a go she will go right back and do some more tests and then hopefully get started.  You would think with four very active kids we would be used to chaos but I have a sneaky feeling that life is going to be just plumb crazy. She will have to be in Chicago for at least 3 days for the first treatment.  They will test her blood, then give her a treatment, then she has to wait 72 hours and then they will test her blood again.  Then she will be able to leave.  Then she will have to be in Chicago once a week for four weeks for just a treatment.  Then another 72 hour wait, then another four weeks of treatment followed by another biopsy. 

 

We are excited and worried at the same time.  We are excited to be moving on to something else.  The vacation has been nice, but we don’t want to lose hold of the beast and let it run out of control.  We are worried about the time commitment for Tammy as she will have to miss a lot of family, games, and work. She was really thinking about it a lot the other night, and I just told her that at some point we just have to have faith.  Faith that things will work out, and tomorrow will be a brighter day.  We don’t know how things will work out past next Thursday (literally), but I know that providence is hovering over us, and she will get to where she needs to be when she needs to be there.  Thank you all for all of the love and support over the years.  If I’m having a rough day I always go back and read all of your posts.  This cancer road seems to be very lonely at times, but when I reread your thoughts and prayers I know that we don’t walk this path alone.

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August 2015 Update for Tammy

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It seems that life is full of ups and downs, good and bad, and tragedy and miracles.  One of my favorite quotes is from Forest Gump, “life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.”  It seems like that has been our family motto for a while now.  Our expectation coming down here was to steel ourselves for some bad news.  Just to fill you in on some of what has been going on in the past few months, it has definitely been trying to say the least.  About a month ago Tammy had a severe reaction to her oxalaplatin drug.  This consisted of something like severe hives.  She described it as her body being on fire.  This came on after only eleven minutes of after starting that drug.  She is fine, they gave her drugs to counteract and after an hour and a half she was pretty close back to normal and they let her go home.  Her doctors had warned her that this could happen when you go back and retry drugs for the second time.  She was on oxalaplatin her very first go round back at the beginning.  Long story short she will probably never get that drug again.  For us that is ok, but it does create another problem in that basically she is running out of drugs in the colon cancer standard of care realm, translated-ones that they know work.  There is one drug left in the standard of care, it is called Stivarga, and none of the doctors seem real gung ho about using it because the benefit seems to be very small. In our minds, that left us with clinical trials. Our expectation coming down here was that cancer has grown because of not getting the treatments because of reaction, and moving on to clinical trials because there is nothing else.  To say that we have been uptight would be an understatement.

 

Now back to that box of chocolates.  When the doctor came in and showed us the scans I think we were both somewhat in awe.  There has been no growth in her spots in her lungs, and the area in her abdomen has stayed the same.  I think the results in her abdomen had even the doctor a little stumped.  He said as fast as it came on he expected there to be some change in it, but there wasn’t.  His recommendation at this time is to take a break from everything.  No chemo for two months.  Then they will check it again and evaluate what to do from that point on.  We were definitely not expecting that piece of chocolate to fall out of the box.  Tammy is very excited about this.  She has been on chemo for a long time; the only breaks have been during surgery.

 

Cancer is a world of mixed blessings.  We are excited that she gets a break, but also nervous about what might happen in that time.  For the last few days I have been trying to organize, filter, and really get a sense of what my true feelings about this are.  I’m still struggling a little bit with how I feel, but one thing that this appointment has definitely taught me is that if we get so worked up about what we expect to happen, we are not focused oh what was really important at the time.  I need to be thankful in the moment and when that miracle chocolate falls out, enjoy it to its fullest.

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May 2015 Update for Tammy

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Hello everyone

Just wanted to post a little update on Tammy.  We met with doctor in Houston today.  The spots in her lungs have grown minimally which we were some what excpecting.  Her CEA level (cancer level in blood) has slowely been rising over the last few months which has concerned us but not the doctors so much as they would rather go by what the scans show as it is more reliable.  They do have a area in her abdomen that they are concerned about.  As of right now, what they can see is inconclusive and so we are once again in a waiting game.  Doctor is wanting to be proactive and they are switching tammys chemo drugs around.  She will go back on FUL-FOX treatments, which is the same drugs except that irrenotecan will be replaced by oxyplaten.  They will add avastin back in now with new regiment.  Biggest side affect with oxyplaten is neuopothy.  Basically it messes with your nerve endings.  She will be very sensitive to cold, with tingling in her hands and feet.  She generally can not eat or drink anything cold.  So Ice cream and ice cubes are out. 

Next week she has an appt at Northwestern University in Chicago.  Through a family connection, we were hooked up with the doctors up there.  This has been in the works for a while.  We are excited to go up there and see what they have to offer.  We are hoping that there could be some options up there that are not different from MD Anderson, but just have a chance to get into the trials sooner than we can at MD.  Everyone that we have been in contact with up there has been great and we are looking forward to going.

Once again, thank you all for your unending support of Tammy.  As we move into our forth year of dealing with cancer we are so thankful for everything you have done and continue to do to help us along the way.  I have tried to write something to say thank you on many occasions and every time my words seem so very inadequate.  Each one of you have blessed us in so many ways.  We know that everyone has their own problems and challenges to deal with.  For all of you to take the time, money, and energy to help us with ours is so humbling and so special to us.  Because I do not know what else to say,  THANK YOU!!

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March 2015 Update for Tammy

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We met with Doctors today and overall it was a good appointment.  There has been some growth but it is still pretty minimal.  Her CEA levels have increased somewhat too.  All this was expected as she has had only one chemo treatment in the last two months.  We are very thankful that nothing really significant happened while Tammy had surgery and is recovering.  Treatment will stay the same for now and we will come back down in two months instead of three just to make sure that she is staying stable.  Thank you all for the prayers, thoughts and support. We are truly humbled by all of you, and are so thankful for each and every one of you.