Relapse

When I was finishing up my finals of the fall 2012 semester I was feeling back pains but thought nothing of them. As the back pains continued, I had a CAT scan as part of my surveillance to insure the cancer has gone away. I received a phone call from my doctor later that week. He said my cancer had returned.

After my chemotherapy in the summer and fall, I thought I had beat cancer. Emotionally, I had put cancer as a thing of the past and I was very ready to move on with my life. From school to finances to my Army career, I was ready to get back on track and start enjoying life with my new wife.

This cancer has brought all of that to a screeching halt. My family and I were very good at handling this cancer crisis the first time around. This second time is going to be much harder. Financially I have lost some funding from cutting classes and need to adjust for thousands of dollars in loans that won't be there or that I'll have to get from somewhere else. For my Army career, I am in far more trouble as my evaluation year gets closer and I am less and less ready.

Though my problems rise I do have substantial support from the school, the ROTC program and my family and friends. God bless them all.

I have stage IV testicular cancer. Five lymph nodes have tumors or show growth in size. There are several large and small tumors that have metastasized to both of my lungs. The back pain I felt was due to lymph nodes with tumors pushing on my spine. Though I beat cancer the first time, it is back and it has spread.

I should be angry. I should feel bad for myself. I should be afraid.

I refuse to be angry. I will not feel sorry for myself. I fear not for God is with me.

I have been through this once before and I will do it again. I will do it again and again and again until I win. I will not back down and I will not give up. God is with me and will be victorious.

Week 4 Begins

I am motivated and ready to get started on chemo this week, seeing as how it's my LAST WEEK OF CHEMO!!!

This week started out with good news from the meeting with the physician's assistant. She tells me the lymph nodes have returned to normal size and the tumor marker numbers are inside of a normal range. Also, I was on two blood thinners, a pill and an injection. For more than a week I had to inject myself in my stomach twice a day, which was terrible. Thankfully, the level of the pill delivered drug in my system is high enough that I don't need to inject myself anymore.

I can't wait to finish this round of the fight and completely crush this cancer.

Blood Clot

So after my third week of chemo, the doctor found a blood clot in my inferior veina cava (the spelling may be way off) I had a follow up CT scan that revealed that the clot was 8 cm long. The nature of this clot was not that threatening so they told me to take it easy, and they put me on blood thinners. This is a little unexpected for me but I know with God I can handle all things. I'll be fine but I will be on blood thinners for 3-6 months.

Chemo Week 3

Week 3 sucked. The Nausea was worse and the mental fog was worse. I had a bucket next to me most of the treatment just in case the worse happened. I usually only sleep the last 2 days of chemo but I was knocked out by the first day. Then the nurses decided that I needed a little more help so they brought out this patch with a name like a Transformer (Chermegatron or something crazy). That was the day I met my new best friend. The Nausea was still there but the mental fog was lifted. I felt mentally awake from Thursday all the way to today thanks to that patch. My mom and I picked up a script for it Monday and tried to get it filled at CVS. For some insurance reason it needed additional clearance. We asked what the price was if we bought it without insurance and they said the price was $1000 plus dollars. I guess that's why it took so long for them to give me the drug.

Nausea is always a struggle and oddly enough it usually leads me to overeating just to make the pain go away. I'm fine now and ready to rock and roll. One more treatment left to just crush this cancer and any thought of it returning. May God give me strength and heal me. Thank you all for your continued prayers and support.

Great News

On Monday, August 6th I met with the doctor before starting chemo for the Third week. My schedule is set up for one week on, two weeks off and Monday of the on week I always see Dr. Hudhud. As usual he goes over how I feel, how the last chemo went, and most importantly my tumor markers. The tumor markers are numbers from my AFP and hCG (If I recall correctly).

So after only 2 weeks of treatment, my tumor markers have returned to normal healthy ranges. In addition, the most recent CT scan showed that my lymph nodes, where the tumors are located, have returned to 2mm of their normal size.

Praise be to God and God bless Dr. Hudhud and the nursing staff for all the great care I've received.

Chemo Week 2

So the second week of chemo was from July 23 to July 28. Week 2 was harder than week 1, but no worries i'm did just fine. Nausea was really the biggest issue and then there was that mental fog. Nausea for me is very weird. There is that feeling of throwing up but it' like i'm constantly close to doing that but never really there. The only thing I can do for the nausea other than taking my meds is eat. So i'm in a terrible situation where I eat to make the pain go away. Between that and the steroids I am packing on the pounds.

The weekend was pretty hard. I had a massive headache on Sunday that really put me out. The week came around and I was up and running by about Tuesday. Halfway done was a very good feeling indeed.

Round 2 of Chemo and more results

We got great news today from the doctor. We were pretty concerned with the PET scan results from a few weeks ago which showed the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes with numerous tumors/spots in the abdomen region and a 'nodule' on the lungs. However, today the oncologist told us that in reviewing the blood results, "the numbers look really good!" The chemo is doing its job! We reviewed two of the labs in particular with our goal for the numbers to be within normal limits. The one is already there (!!!!) and the other went from 143 to 73 within the past few weeks! That is HUGE! We need it to get all the way down to 5 or less, but we know that this is possible with God! Overall, the doc says he is "very pleased." We know this is totally God and are so thankful for your continued prayers.
         Christopher has day 1 of his second round of chemo today and continues to be in good spirits. His port placement last week went very well, and Christopher was very pleased with it this morning after the nurse was able to access it within seconds of the first attempt (good-bye IVs! :-)). After Friday, he'll have 2 weeks off and get a CT before round 3 of chemo. We are hoping to see the spots on the lymph nodes and lungs look significantly better/gone when we get those results. We are also thankful we are getting a little more information out of the doctor with each meeting (like telling Christopher to stay away from sick people-- feeling a little frustrated that he didn't tell us critical information like that sooner; please keep this issue in your prayers-- we shouldn't have to be pulling information out of the doctor). Christopher's immune system is of course down so if you can please keep that in your prayers as well (he's already had to be treated for a skin infection that is thankfully almost completely resolved).
         In looking at all that's happened in the past few weeks with the MRI of the brain being fine, having such a wonderful wedding, the fundraising getting off to a good start, and more-- we are totally praising the Lord through all of this and are well aware that He has his hand over it all. Thank you for your continued prayers and support; they mean so much to us.