Saturday, Feb 7, 2009 - the shortest blog entry!

Hiya Bloggy,

This is the all time shortest blog entry I will have done. The reason being, I don't remember when my last entry was, which means I'm long overdue for one... at the same time, I am one knackered camper since we did have all day auditions today for TUTS. Soooo, since I don't remember what I wrote about in my last entry, I don't want to duplicate and sound like a broken record. On the other hand, if there is any new information since the last one, I don't want to leave it out :D So, you can see the quandry I'm in.

BUT, I definitely need some zzzzz's because I have to be up at 6am again tomorrow to get down to Granville Island by 8am to set up the computer equipment before the first auditionees get there. Then we will be busy, busy, busy until 6pm'ish. Tonight, I got home about 6pm and was sooo knackered, I had to lie down for a few minutes... which turned into a 3 hour deep sleep nap . So how I think I'm going to fall asleep now ... well, it's going to be interesting but it is almost midnight so I do need to get some beauty rest and re-energize before tomorrow morning ;)

We shall see what time I get home tomorrow and whether I end up snoozing the evening away, or if I'll be up to do a weekend round-up for the blog :)

Huggggggs,

Cheryl

Monday, Jan 26, 2009 - Oncologist Appt.

Hiya Bloggy!

Geez, I can't believe I was waiting until I went to the appt. with Sharlene Gill today before I entered a new blog entry... but I was going to talk about the weekend as well as the appt. Like getting dressed up and going to the Ovation Awards (celebrating Musical Theatre in Vancouver), but darn it all anyways... I didn't write down the winners and I don't want to miss anyone, and I didn't take any pictures! So I have nothing to report other than it sure was fun seeing all sorts of musical theatre folk in one hall (they were held at the Academy of Music). Of course, I didn't get to talk to as many people as I would have liked to ... but a good time was had by all!!

Today, I went to my oncology appt and because I'm being incredibly lazy and want to go to bed early tonight because I'm sleepy... I'm going to copy and paste a the relevant part of an email I sent to my family tonight. It goes into fairly lengthy detail, so I'm just going to put it here... and will hopefully be up to having a chatty, just for fun, blog entry one of these days real soon... complete with pictures!! LOL!!

Here goes...

Ok... have I mentioned how much I adore my oncologist recently?? I know I've told you all this in the past, but I tell you, she is the most wonderful, compassionate, confident, person a gal can have as the head of her team. The difference I feel after a visit with her, compared to the consultation appt. and, even the lung ablation procedure, with Dr. Brad Halkier, the radiologist who did the lung procedure... is like night and day. Don't get me wrong... the fact that he blasted away the largest of the spots/tumours and a couple of hours later I was walking out of the hospital with my two girlfriends and having a nice visit over tea with them, just goes to show he is skilled at what he does... and I have no qualms about his skill and I am very grateful for him having ablated the tumour that he did. BUT, his bedside manner and overall attitude... well, let's just say he and I were never on the same page. And I felt it was important that I tell Sharlene (oncologist) this because it did set me back (attitude/depression) for about 4 days after the consultation appt. with him, even though I left it with him saying he would do the ablation. I also said to her that, in hindsight, after thinking about all he had said prior to doing the ablation.. and that he even admitted that he was trying to talk me out of it because he didn't see just how much benefit I'd get out of the procedure when he thought the better treatment would be for me to go on chemo.. I understood what he said, but I still thought that if we could ablate the spots/tumours that lit up the PET scan, indicating they were cancer, that this WAS a benefit to get rid of them. He was of the mind that these are only 2 of probably many more to come, so it would be better to go directly to chemo, than pick them off one at a time.

Sharlene listened and said that she could certainly understand my frustration and that sometimes she even has a hard time following how some doctors/specialists come to their opinions, which is not to say they are wrong, but that they are not her way of going about it. So then she explained how she sees where we are at with my situation and what we should be looking for and doing over the next while:

1) the spots on my lungs are still considered extremely sloooooow growing... and they are still too small to even light up a PET scan at this stage. Normally, when colon cancer spreads anywhere in the body, outside of the intestine, it grows very quickly. The spots on my lungs should be quite huge by now, and they are still considered extremely small... and so slow growing. Two of the spots have not changed at all since we found them in March so they still could be scar tissue. So really, we are keeping an eye on 4 spots.

2) She does not agree that we should bombard the whole body with chemo, which is hard on everything, for 4 spots that have not gotten big enough to light up a PET scan.

3) She suggests we do the following:

- keep monitoring my CEA levels. I had that blood test taken yesterday but the result wasn't in yet so she will have that tomorrow (Tues) and because of the lung ablation, she is not going to get too excited if it is up a couple of points... surgery can do that to the CEA levels. But we will continue monitoring it on a regular basis to see if it stays low or starts rising. If it starts rising, then we will decide to go for a PET scan to see if we can figure out why it's rising... but she is not going to get excited until we know the lung has totally recovered from it's recent ablation.

- in 8 weeks, we will do a CAT scan as part of the monitoring of the spots on the lungs. I told her that Dr. Halkier wants me to come back to Royal Columbian in 6 weeks for a followup CAT scan and that his office will be in touch with me to set up that appt. I told her I'm not overly confident with the communication from the hospital so it might mean I will have to followup with them and keep hounding. She told me not to worry about it. She will order a CAT scan here at VGH and IF Royal Columbian calls me and has one organized for 6 weeks from now, then I can go to that one and she will cancel the VGH... but we'll have it as a backup in case RC screws up again with their booking ;)

- we will continue to do ongoing CAT scans every 2 months and regular CEA monitoring. IF one or two of the spots starts growing, but the rest remain dormant and there are no others that show up, then she will re-visit us doing the Ablation procedure. She has heard of this other fellow who has moved up here from California and he does lung ablations... but he has not been set up to do them in BC yet. But if he is able to do them and we might need another one done, then she will pursue seeing if we can get a referral to him... if not, she can refer me back to Dr. H. with proof we are only talking one or two on the same lung are needed doing. But it sure would be convenient if it could be done out of VGH!! :)

- if the spots were to start growing faster and/or others were to start appearing or the CEA levels were rising indicating activity somewhere in the body, well we could always revisit using chemo. She just doesn't want us to use chemo and bombard the body if, in fact, there is no reason to do that at this point. We want to save that until we have to use it.

So, I'm feeling a lot more confident ... because I really do trust her and her logic. We definitely are on the same page... and she's very understanding about the frustrations I went through. She says that she can tell when I'm doing well, it's when I have eliminated stress from my life. So the last thing she wants to see me going through is a stress caused by a doctor, even though we both are sure that he did not mean to intentionally cause that. I tell you, it's a full time job eliminating stress from one's life!! :)

Hugggggs,

Cheryl

Wednesday, January 21, 2009 -- I'm home!!

Hiya Bloggy,

Ok, so all plans for doing up a few entries over the last week or so have been shot to pieces. I didn't get an entry/pictures about the fog we've been having (totally clear at the moment), the surprise 40th Birthday Party for Sanjay on the weekend (was that ever fun!) or anything else that I've been up to that has been keeping me busy and out of trouble :)

So, here I am... and I'm going to put in an entry right now because I can't keep up with the email and Facebook messages asking how I'm doing. I'm doing really well! For those who don't know, or have forgotten or thought it was next week, or whatever... I had my Lung Ablation (RFA) procedure done yesterday at Royal Columbian Hospital.

Ok... so it was one of those things that was a Good News/Misunderstood News scenerio. I'm not so sure there was a misunderstanding or it wasn't explained properly or something changed between the consultation appt. and the actual procedure.

The Good News... I had to be put under a General Anesthesia because of the location of the largest tumour, the procedure apparently would have been very painful. So, along with being knocked out, it meant that I would have a breathing tube doing the breathing for me and rather than a blood pressure machine with the cuff around the arm, they put a catheter directly into an artery to monitor the blood pressure. Because of this, I was told that I would have to stay overnight in the hospital, to be monitored because of the GA.

Prior to starting the procedure, Dr. Halkier explained to me that he felt zapping the two tumours we had discussed would be too risky. The reason being that the two tumours were not on the same lung... one on each lung. One of the risks with this procedure is that with sticking a needle into the lung, the lung could "leak" or partially collapse, or even collapse totally. So to do this to both lungs at the same time, it was taking too much of a risk that I might end up with two collapsed lungs. Ok, I'm not sure why this risk would come up now .. I don't recall us talking about not doing the two tumours during our consultation appt. But my friend, Nancie, who was at the consultation appt. with me did remind me that he did say it was risky to do both and that he would TRY to do both, not that he WOULD do both. Ok, so I'll put that one down to maybe my misunderstanding.. or else how he worded it didn't sink in with me.

He also said that he wasn't sure I'd be getting any benefit from this particular procedure. He says that he will only do it if 1) there was a possibility of a "cure" which there isn't in my case. A cure would be possible if there were under 5 tumours and it was a primary lung cancer. I have 7 spots and it is a spread of colon cancer, not a primary lung cancer. 2) If, by having the procedure done, would ease any discomfort from, or symptoms a person was having. I don't have any symptoms. So he said that he was actually discouraging me from having the procedure since I was putting my lung at risk of collapse but with none of the above benefits.

I told him that I still wanted to get rid of preferably the two tumours but if he could only do one, then the largest one (19mm or approx. .73 inch). So, that's what we did. The team came back in and prepped me for the General Anesthetic... and next thing I knew, Dr. Olfray, the anestheologist(sp?) was saying, "Cheryl, are you awake?" It literally seemed like seconds, but apparently it was an hour or so.

Dr. Halkier did manage to zap the largest tumour... and so far (knock on wood), no complications. I was wide awake and back to my usual self, much to the surprise of the recovery room staff... and my colour was back to normal. Hehehe.. the various doctors/techs/nurses were amazed to find out that I had been under GA and was so back to normal... so much so that when they took me down to have a chest xray and Dr. Halkier saw how wide awake I was, he signed the order that I could be discharged after the xray :)

My good friend, Nancie, came to the hospital at 5pm with my toiletries, assuming that I would be staying overnight... only to find out I was being discharged and could go home with her. Also, my dear friend, Colleen Winton, showed up for a visit, again assuming that I would be in overnight. But since I was free to go, I got dressed and the three of us escaped the hospital and went, in the fog, back to Nancie's place for tea and a chat :)

Next on the agenda for this week, I have to go to one of the blood labs and have some blood taken so they can do the CEA test, which my oncologist has ordered. I will be seeing her Monday afternoon and by then she will have the results to the test. The last two times we've run the tests, my CEA has been low... 1.7 and 1.5. Anything below 5.0 is considered normal... and I want to be soooo normal :)

I have to admit, I didn't sleep very well Monday... being that I wasn't at home and knew I was facing the procedure in the morning. We thought I'd sleep well last night with the remains of the GA, but I woke up almost every hour. It's now 5pm on Wednesday and I have to admit I think I may be tired. I've been really cold all day and here I'm ready to go to bed for the night... but I don't dare go to sleep now, otherwise I really will be up at 1am for the night :) Hahaha... then again, maybe that's not a bad thing. If I go to bed now, I can always get up in 8 hours and try to tackle some of the things I could always do on the computer :D

Ok... no pictures in this entry, not even any of the little diva :)

Huggggs,

Cheryl

Sunday, January 11, 2009 - It's been awhile!

Hiya Bloggy!

I know, I know... it's been awhile since the last blog entry. Not a good way to start the New Year, is it??? How many times do I say I'm going to be more regular with my entries and then a week, sometimes 2 go by and once again I'm apologizing for not keeping regular entries? That is sooo not me, since I love to babble and I love to write!

Anywho... not too much exciting to report, but I have been busy! I have to learn to manage my time better, though. You see, I dabble in a bit of this, and then a bit of that, and then add something else, then set reminders for myself to do this, that and the other thing and next thing you know I have 4 or 5 things on the go, trying to get them all done at the same time.

There's got to be a better way! LOL! But hey, last week was my birthday (Jan 7). I had a lovely day/evening... well, during the day I went downtown and got my drivers license renewed. Nothing like leaving it until the last minute, eh?? I found out that I could, actually, have renewed it any time the 6 months before it expired!! Hahahah!! And here I was renewing it on the date it expired... too funny!

Then, in the evening, Jill, Naveen and I went out for dinner at Maurya, a lovely Indian restaurant. I think I could get to really like Indian food... when done properly like it was at this lovely restaurant.

Well, we are starting another week and here it is, already 1:30am... so I must get myself off to bed. I can't believe how I am a night owl, and then surprised why I'm tired in the day. Duh!!

Off to the TUTS office tomorrow and then various appts. and things during the week... which I want to get done before next week when I will once again be going in for the lung ablation surgery (Jan 20). Again, same plan... Bridget and I will meet up with my friend, Nancie, on Jan 19th. We'll stay at her place over night and then it's off to the hospital for 8am. I may or may not be staying overnight at the hospital, if not at the hospital, then I will be staying at Nancie's... then sometime on the 21st, I should be fine to come home and rest for couple of days at my own home :)

Soooo... I'll be back to do more entries later :)

Hugggggs,

Cheryl

Friday, January 2, 2009 - A New Year!!

Happy New Year, Bloggy!!

Here we are, the second day of 2009 and I'm full of hope that this is going to be a great year! Oh sure, we have the economy to be concerned about and the wars still going on, starvation in third world countries and the auto industry about to go kaputs... so one has to question why I have so much hope when things aren't looking too rosy around me. But I do... and I am hoping for all sorts of good things... for myself and those around me!

I'm still annoyed with the Royal Columbian Hospital's lack of communication within their departments, but I also believe there's a reason for everything, even if it doesn't seem quite so apparent at the time. Because the procedure was canceled, I actually got to celebrate the New Year with friends. Now, I had planned on doing that anyways, but in hindsight, I wonder if I really would have been able to party within 24 hours of having the procedure done? Hard to know since it didn't happen... but I certainly had a fabulous time on New Year's Eve!

Here are pictures from the party and I think it goes without saying we all had a great time!! :)

What's a New Year's Eve celebration without a pretty drink??? :)

And a pretty girl drinking a pretty drink?? :) This is Carmen who is soooo much fun!

Here I am with Sanjay, Carmen's husband... and Naveen's cousin.

Here's Carmen and Sanjay... isn't everyone looking just so darn happy? New years do that to people :)

And here is Naveen and I. Naveen made a fabulous meal for everyone... very impressive!

Emily, Naveen's daughter and one of my favourite gals, and myself. It was a night full of hugs!

Alan, Jill and Neera. Alan, Jill and I all work down at Theatre Under the Stars, and Neera is Naveen's sister, who is out visiting but lives in Ottawa.

Menasha, Sanjay's sister and Emily, Naveen's daughter.

Chef Naveen... caught in the act!! What act, I'm not sure, but I caught him in it :D

Let's see... from left to right, Jill, Sanjay, Naveen and Papa Nikhanj, Sanjay and Menasha's father.

Emily, Carmen and Connor (Naveen's son). Can you tell most of the pictures are taken in the kitchen... a kitchen party starts early in the night!

Neera and her mom, Mama Kapahi :)

Moi, Mama Kapahi and Papa Nikhanj

Dancing... everyone was dancing! Crazy, kooky, wonderful family all dancing :)

... more dancing!!

After the dancing, a competitive game of Taboo! Even Nitro, Sanjay and Carmen's dog was in on this... he was intrigued with the game's buzzer ;)

Sanjay and Menasha... a funny moment during the word game :)

It's now around 3am and we all have wound down... and are just listening to music and singing along.

It was a great night, fun party and the New Year started out with more snow!! Yes, it was snowing, snowing, snowing the first few hours of 2009 :)

Happy New Year, everyone!!!

Huggggggs,

Cheryl

December 30, 2008 - Not a Happy Camper!!

Dear Bloggy,

Well, now I'm po'd! The Lung Ablation surgery was canceled and rescheduled :/ Apparently an emergency came up and, of course, as we all know (and I certainly don't disagree with it), emergencies get top priority. If I was the emergency, I would hate to bump someone's surgery but would be ever so grateful that I was getting treated because it was something that required immediate attention. But what I DO have a problem with is that the departments within the hospital, that supposedly should be working together are working in total isolation.

Before I could have this procedure done, I needed to have a pre-admission appt. where they do the paperwork, and do the tests that the radiologist has ordered. I needed bloodwork, a chest xray and an EKG, as well as a consult with an anesthesiologist, and a consult with a nurse. All together, this took about 2 1/2 hours and I had this done yesterday, in preparation for today's procedure. At no time was anyone I saw yesterday aware that there was, or might be, a cancellation of the procedure.

While I was going through all these various tests that had been requested, the interventional radiology dept. was trying to reach me at home to tell me that the procedure had to be rescheduled. While they were calling me, I was actually AT the hospital that they were calling from. Not only was I at the hospital, but I was in the radiology department for awhile at one point getting my chest xray done.

This is what has irritated me more than anything. How can a system be so lacking in communication that the patient they are rescheduling is in their department doing what had been requested... not only there for the pre-admission appt. but actually in their same dept. getting the tests done that the radiologist had requested for the procedure? But the right arm doesn't know what the left arm is doing... and to me, that is scary. I am no wizard, and certainly am not a doctor, but I KNOW if I were to observe what their current systems are, I would be able to tell them exactly what was falling between the cracks and could come up with a system myself that this kind of simple lack of communication could be corrected.

I KNOW they are busy. I KNOW that working in a hospital can be stressful. And I KNOW many patients are not the most fun to work with because for whatever reason they are there, it makes them irritable, cranky and sometimes downright gnarly. But there is no reason something like this should ever have happened when I was right there on the premises for 2 1/2 hours. Had I not been at the hospital and say was just out yesterday, so they couldn't reach me by my home phone and maybe I had left my cell phone at home, then I could understand it and would have been disappointed but perfectly ok with it. But I WAS AT the hospital in the same department and I DID have my cell phone with me and it was fully charged!!

I was just talking to Dr. Halkier's administrative gal just now to get the time for the new date and I asked her why she didn't call my cell when it was obvious I wasn't at home when she did call. She apologized and said that she didn't have a cell number for me on my chart, which I told her that not only did I give it to the pre-admissions clerk yesterday so it would be in the computer, I had also given it to the radiology clerk a couple of weeks ago when I went in for my CAT scan and consult appt. with Dr. Halkier. But, for whatever reason, it was not on my file that she had.

Anywho... I am very disappointed. I was looking so forward to getting this procedure done, and let's be honest, getting it over with. I'm not nervous about the procedure itself... it looks like there's a good chance they are going to put me under a general anesthetic for it and not the conscious sedation. They might start out with trying the conscious sedation but I am going to have to hold some positions for a fairly lengthy time, like with my arms positioned out of the way, so the anesthesiologist said it might end up being more comfortable for me to be out for the procedure (also, depending on how long the procedure will take).

I guess one of the positive things I can look at... the fact I was bumped, my situation is not considered life and death. With cancer, you never know, and too often the doctors do seem to talk doom and gloom... whereas I refuse to look at the doom and gloom side, I will only look at the positive side. Another positive... I really, really liked and clicked with this anesthesiologist, but he was scheduled for another OR area of the hospital for today. But maybe one the 20th, he will be my anesthesiologist and that would make me very, very happy. I'm sure the other ones are great too... but since I've met this one and like him, I want him to be in the room :)

So, January 20th is 3 weeks today... it's really not that far away, but it was a kick in the gut to go in this morning fully expecting to have the procedure done and then to find out it isn't going to happen. Thank goodness I have a good friend, Nancie, who was just a doll... having me stay over at her place overnight so that I'd be close to the hospital and not have to worry about the weather, I could bring Bridget with me and she will take care of her while I'm in the hospital (and took her for walks when I wasn't), drove me to the hospital and back both days... and took the time off work to do this extra running around. The doll is actually going to have me back on the 19th and we'll do it all over again for the 20th!!

Ok... just thought I'd let everyone know the latest update and why it hasn't been done yet. Yes, I'm still grateful that I have the opportunity to be a candidate for Dr. Halkier to do the procedure, but there definitely are some drawbacks when he is the only radiologist in BC who does this procedure. Should an emergency come up, it's not like someone else can take over and cover his Lung RFA procedures.

Huggggggggs,

Cheryl

December 29, 2008 - Post-Christmas/Pre-Lung Procedure

Hiya Bloggy!

Well, I've been meaning to come in all day today to post an entry and it just didn't happen. Now, here it is almost 1:30am and I have to get up at 8am! Go figure, eh? I'm wide-awake right now... but talk to me in the morning. LOL!!

Just a quick note to say that Christmas was great, although, due to the weather I couldn't make it over to my friend, Steve Street's for Christmas dinner, which is a real shame! I hated to bail out the afternoon of, but the roads were just not clearing up on the side streets and Steve lives on a hill, on a road that is considered a side street so never did get plowed or sanded/salted. And getting a cab in this city when it's snowy/icy... well, good luck!! (That's a whole other story about Cheryl and Vancouver cabs! Grrrrr!)

Anywho... for those of us who have always wished we could have a White Christmas, we got it in spades this year!! Here are a couple of pictures I took Christmas morning at Dad's/Pat and Jerry's place...

My car is the black one behind the red one. Since I had only been there since the night before, there was very little snow on it... but you can see by the others, the snow had been falling for a few days!

Jerry's truck. Needless to say, it's not going anywhere soon :)

I'm not sure how tall this tree is but it is taller than me... and as you can see, the snow is creeping up to it. If it hadn't started raining on Boxing Day, this tree might have disappeared!

This road was well traveled and had been plowed a few times over the course of the week. The reason I show this is it is in much better shape than the side streets in my neighbourhood, which never got plowed! So you can imagine what our streets were like ;)

Bridget and Pedro on Christmas morning. Normally, Bridget doesn't care for all the noise and paper crunching, Christmas morning so goes back to bed and misses all the fun. But this year, she was quite happy to be social. But after it was over... she'd worn herself out and had to go to sleep...

Sound asleep under Mommy's coat... and that's where she stayed for most of the afternoon ;)

Ok, I really better get to bed. Tomorrow (or should I say later this morning), Bridget and I are heading off to New Westminster and will be staying at my friend, Nancie's tomorrow night. I have a pre-admission appt. at Royal Columbian Hospital tomorrow morning so there's no point in me coming home after it, only to have to be back in New West on Tuesday at 8am. So Bridget and I have packed our overnight bag and will be heading over to Nancie's in the morning. While I'm at the appt., Bridget will be with Nancie. On Tuesday morning, Nancie will drop me off at the hospital for 8am and Bridget will go with her to work. What remains to be seen is whether I will be discharged later on Tuesday or Tuesday evening or whether I'll be staying overnight at the hospital after my lung ablation procedure. If I have to stay at the hospital, then Bridget will stay with Nancie an they will pick me up Wednesday when I'm discharged. If I'm discharged on Tuesday, then we'll all three stay at Nancie's :) Poor Nancie has no idea if she has Bridget and I for one night or two nights :)

Sooooo, I'll get another entry put up on the blog sometime later this week!!

Happy New Year everyone!!! Send those positive thoughts my way for Tuesday and for the new year and let's beat this monster into submission and a 30 year remission :)

Huggggggs,

Cheryl