Finally...

We are done with chemo. Its a really weird and good feeling to be able to say that. It's been something that we have been driving towards for the last 4 months. It doesn't quite seem real at this point, that hopefully it will be the last time that we enter that little chemo room. It was a little anti-climatic. The nurse unhooked Drew's port and we said our thanks to the nurse for everything that she had done for us and left. No whistles, no bells but we did give each other a high five as we left the building. :) It felt good to be able to say that its our last one.

His labs this week were the lowest they have been since the beginning. His white count, hemoglobin and platelets were very low which again means he needs to be very careful about infection, bleeding and more fatigue.

At this point we are taking this time to hopefully have Drew gain some weight, and regaining his strength. Drew will be getting another CT scan  and labs on Dec 30 and then meet with the Dr again on Jan 3 and see what the next step will be. We are praying that everything look like it should and we will just get to be on surveillance and get check ups every 3 months. Its a little difficult to wait until January 3 to hear what the next step will be but luckily its a great time to get lost in the Christmas spirit and remembering why we celebrate Christmas. We will have to ask for a little patience for Christmas this year!

I hope everyone has a blessed holiday season and has a wonderful time with family and friends!

Last long day!

We are sitting at Lemmen-Holton cancer cancer for our last long day of chemo! Yay! It is super exciting to think the next two treatments will only be about an hour long and then we will be done! As excited as we are it is a bit difficult to be completely happy since drew has been feeling pretty terrible. Starting last night, drew has been feeling constantly nauseated. We are asking for prayers that this Drew will start feeling better and that the nausea will subside. We are very thankful for nausea medication but it can only stop so much. We are excited for the day that Drew will be able to go back to eating and drinking normally.
Thank you to all those prayer warriors out there!

Last round!

I have to apologize for waiting so long to update! With the holiday weekend and work I have been a bit busy! I hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving and great family time!

We have officially started the last round of chemo! We started the last crazy intense on Monday and we are already over half way done! Only 2 more days this week, and then 2 more shorter appointments on the next 2 Mondays! Drew was doing pretty well the first two days this week but today he is starting to feel it more. We got his labs back from Monday and things are looking great! His AFP is down to 13 (from 59) and his bHCG is the same at  <0.1, basically nondetectable! We will finish this round of chemo and then a week or so after the last day we will get another CT scan and tumor markers ( they are working on what day this will be) then we will meet with the oncologist again on Jan 3 to get the results and see what we will do from there. If everything looks good, we will follow up with CT scans and labs every 3 months for a year and then go from there.

A couple special thanks...
My family for coming over and making it look like Christmas in our house!
Everyone who made us a meal!
Nate for snowblowing our driveway today!
Our lovely neighbor who raked our lawn TWICE!
Everyone who has been praying for us!

Distraction

I'm supposed to be studying. I have been out of school for 2 years and I forgot how easy it is to get distracted. Never the less, I'm going to allow myself a couple minutes of distraction to update everyone!

It has been a rough week and an even rougher weekend. Then chemo hit Drew pretty hard this round. It hit him sooner in the week and so far has lasted longer. Today (Tuesday) he felt slightly better so we are hoping that he is turning a corner and will start being able to eat normal foods and keep them down. He spends most of his time on the couch napping or watching TV. Even with the medication switch it is still a pretty rotten weekend. It helps knowing that hopefully that we will only have one more crazy rough week. We are looking forward to lives getting back to normal and Drew is looking forward to eating normally again. He is making a list of foods that he is going to devour once his appetite is back... Fricano's, Russ' Taco salad, root beer floats etc.. He has lost 10 pounds from the beginning of this cycle of chemo so he is looking forward to packing those pounds back on! Speaking of good food...

I'm getting very excited for Thanksgiving. For those who know me, they know that Thanksgiving is probably one of my favorite holidays. The delicious food, bowling (my entire Hoogland side of the family heads to Zeeland lanes for a game) and family time together. I don't know what our plan is for this year, depending on how Drew is doing but I still look forward to taking a day to slow down and be thankful for everything that God has provided. This year we have LOTS to be thankful for... Amazing family, great friends, to be living in a time where cancer is treatable and curable, an entertaining kitty, jobs, freedom and a God who loves us dearly and has a plan for us. So in case I don't have time to update again before Thanksgiving, I hope everyone has an amazing Turkey day!

Round two and great news!

Round two has begun. It started with a appointment with the doctor on Monday morning before the chemo started. He said that everything looks good and we talked with him about 3 or 4 rounds of chemo. He said that we would for sure do the 3 rounds and then do a CT scan and lab draw and see what shows up and go from there. We are really hoping for 3 rounds!. They also drew some lab work on Monday. Every week they draw a CBC (Complete Blood Count) which shows his platelets, hemoglobin, and White blood count, which were all really low last week and have all come back to normal limits this week. They expect this to happen each round- the last week of the cycle all those counts will most likely drop and hopefully come back up before the new cycle starts. At the beginning of each new cycle of chemo they also are going to draw a BCHEM and tumor markers. His BCHEM, which is all electrolytes: potassium, sodium etc, all look really good. On to the tumor markers... (Drum roll please) both labs that they drew went down TREMENDOUSLY! The AFP which was around 600 when he was diagnosed, and then 300 after his surgery is now down to 59.6! His BHCG level was around 9 when he was diagnose, down to 6 after the surgery and is now at <0.1!!! We are super excited about this because hopefully this means that even though the chemo is tough, it is doing its job and killing all those pesky cancer cells!
On to the actual chemo report, Drew has been tolerating the chemo. Again, it makes him very exhausted and nauseated with decreased appetite but we did have his nausea medications changed around for this cycle and seems to be working better than the other medication. We are praying that this weekend will not be as difficult as the previous end of the tough week was for him and with minimal side effects!
Thank you so much for everyone's thoughts and prayers, it is really amazing to feel such love surrounding us.

Medical talk

We have officially started the 3rd week of treatment. It is the last week of the first cycle. We still are not sure if Drew will have 3 or 4 cycles. Today, we headed into the Hem/Onc Center for another short treatment. The nurse drew labs off his port. She notified us the Drew's white count, Hemoglobin and platelets had taken a pretty significant drop. His white count had taken the biggest hit, which means his is highly susceptible to infection.We have to ask that if you are sick or have sick little ones that you keep your distance from Drew as he is unable to fight any kind of infection. The other two labs, the Hemoglobin- dropped as well but not as much as the white count, this could manifest itself with increased fatigue but nothing too significant. The lowered platelets can increase bleeding but they aren't at a crazy low level so we just have to be aware that it is a possibility. That's about it for the medical talk. :)

This weekend was a good one, it started on Friday night going out with family. I went out with my two sisters to CityVu Bistro for dinner and then headed to New Holland to listen to the live band and drinks. Drew headed out with Austin and Brad (brothers in law) for buffalo wild wings for dinner. It was a great time getting out of the house and hanging out with the Family Thanks guys for the girls/guys night out!

Thanks again to everyone for the love and support. We have the best family, friends and co-workers!!
We love you all!!

Recap

I've been meaning to update sooner than this but I just haven't had the time and work on it so here it is. This week has had a lot of ups and downs. Last week we went to chemotherapy everyday from around 8:30am til anywhere between 1:30-3:30pm. It depended who our nurse was and how fast they felt they could run the fluids and the chemotherapy. On Monday thru thursday we went to the holland office, it was was nice that we are able to have our own room. On Friday theholland office is closed, so we headed out to Grand Rapids. It was a really amazing facility, with really beautiful layout and artwork. When we are there we are in our own little cubicle and are able to talk with people around us.
It was reallly interesting how people with cancer really bond when you in a place like the chemotherapy treatment facility. We had a nice older couple sitting next to us who was just diagnosed. We talked with them a bit and told our "story" and they shared their story. It was really nice.
Through the whole week Drew was really exhausted. Most days Drew would come home and go to the couch and feel pretty crappy. This weekend was by far the worst both with nausea and exhaustion. He has started to feel much better these last couple days, even been able to go into work and hang out on tuesday and Wednesday. Hopefully he will continue feeling good and able to get out and keep food down.
Thanks to everyone who has sent cards, messages, gift cards, and brought meals. We are eternally grateful to everyone who has been praying for us.