Another Hospital Visit

Evan was admitted back into the hospital today because his bilirubin count has reached 10.0. He will get to come home tomorrow after he sees a liver specialist. Hopefully we will find out if there is anything that we can do to jump start Evan's lazy liver.

The battle continues

I have received word that an update to our blog has been requested by many of you. I'm sorry that I am not good at this, it is just very hard to put down in words the struggles we are having.

Evan continues to be weak and tired. He is not able to do very much without it taking too much out of him. His liver continues to not function normally and his bilirubin count is still too high at 6.0. The liver function counts continue to come down so there is every chance that Evan's liver will rebound.

We spoke with his doctors and they are reaching the end of their options to treat him. Right now they have 2 options.. one would be to treat him with chemo but Evan has decided that he doesn't want to do that. Chemo will not kill the cancer but it might prolong his life by a couple of months and that means that he will be miserable for a longer period of time.

The second option would be to take some newer pills that will target the proteins that are feeding the tumors. These pills are not approved by the FDA to treat Evan's type of cancer but they have been proven affective in fighting the proteins that feed cancer. The doctor is going to work with the insurance to see if they will cover it. This pill should have minimal side affects and should be easily tolerated.

When we were at the doctors, we asked him to be frank with us and tell us what the worst case scenario would be and he said that if his liver doesn't come out of this and goes into liver failure, then Evan would only have around 2 months. If his liver does come out of this, then he could have up to a year. Again we have every reason to believe that he will rebound, so for now we are just trying to get through each day one breath at a time and cherish every moment we have with each other.

Thank you for your love and support as well as your continued prayers.

Playing the Numbers Game

Several weeks ago I had a Therasphere treatment scheduled. This treatment was postponed due to my Bilirubin being too high. It is supposed to be below 2 and it was at 5. They gave me IV fluids to detox my liver and bring my Bilirubin count back down. They got it down to 3.4 the doctor told me that it was up to me if I wanted to go ahead but that he was concerned because if you do a Therasphere treatment with your Bilirubin above 2 you take the risk of causing Liver failure.

I chose to go forward with the treatment figuring that it was not going to get better. Well they checked them again recently and found that it went down to 2.2 and then recently it was back up to 5.5. NOT good. So I have been going in and having them give me IV fluids to try and flush the toxins out of my system. I have to keep going back and getting more fluids to keep my liver clean but it should help. Monday they are going to check my Bilirubin again and see where I am at now. Hopefully it is down a bit.

So far so good

So far everything is going fine. Evan continues to get an IV infusion every few days.

On Monday, they did some lab work and the results came back very positive. His bilirubin count was back down to a 2.2 and his other liver function counts are almost back down to normal. This was great news but does not mean we are out of the woods yet.

They say that the thearaspher treatment will continue to be active for another month or so. During that time the liver tissue around the tumor will continue to be affected we just don't know how much it will be affected.

For now Evan is feeling great and he even put up our Christmas lights yesterday. He has energy thanks to the steroids that he is taking for a short period of time. It is so good to see him active and happy. His eyes are still a little yellow but they are getting better.

Night at the hospital

Evan went in for his radiation treatment yesterday and before they would take him for the treatment they wanted to check his bilirubin count. It was back up again to 3.4. We are not sure what is causing his count to be so high but Evan feels that it is something that is not going to reverse so they went ahead with the treatment.

We faced a decision that placed us between a rock and a hard place. The tumor in Evan's liver had doubled in size in a matter of 3 months so it was important to treat that tumor. Treating that tumor now puts him at greater risk for liver failure due to his bilirubin count, so we have spent the night at the hospital so that they can continue to monitor him.

They have a IV continually running to keep him hydrated and help his liver process what is going on. This should help keep his liver healthy. There is a possibility that he will be sent home with an IV for the weekend and we will have the help of Home Care to help with the IV.

Needless to say, it has been very stressful and will continue to be stressful until we know he is in the clear.

Thanks for all your prayers!

Bilirubin numbers

I went in yesterday and they tested my Bilirubin again and found that it was down to a 2.8 instead of the 5.0 that it was at. These numbers have helped them to determine that it is now safe for me to go ahead with my Therasphere treatment. So, I have that scheduled for next Tuesday. (Oct. 12th)

That will be the day that I get to fight and destroy that one tumor that is in my liver that has been determined to grow. If we can get that one knocked down, then I should be in better shape for the rest of my body. I will be back to just my 3 month check-ups.

New Family Photo

Yes, we know it was about time we got a new family photo that includes our Grandson. It has been a long time coming.

We were happy to find this location as it was a great place to take a family photo.

Thanks to all that check this Blog on a regular basis. We really should update it more often but just have a hard time to find things to add. We will try to be better at it.

May every day be better than the last.

No Treatment Tomorrow

Today I have been feeling a lot better but I still had to go to the hospital for some lab work. We found out that my bilirubin count was way up and my radiation treatment has to be postponed until it comes back down again. They will hydrate me Friday and recheck my labs on Monday. If all is good then they will schedule my treatment for later next week. We were very lucky that we found out about my bilirubin today because if I would have waited to get my labs done tomorrow morning, the results wouldn't have come back in time to stop the procedure. If they would have done the procedure, it would have killed me. I guess I should listen to my wife more often when she tells me to call the doctor.

And the pain continues

I dont know if I got sick or if my system is just fighting the Cancer but Sunday afternoon I started feeling sick and weak and by the evening I was running a fever and vomiting and aching. Monday was worse. I had a fever of 104 but today the fever broke and I am starting to feel a bit better. Just weak but better.

This is good because Thursday I have to go in for my Therasphere treatment. Not looking forward to it but will do what I can to stop the tumor from growing.

Ouch..

Well I had the mapping Friday and I have been in bed almost the entire time since. It hurt for some reason this time. Not sure why but they said it went well and they are scheduling the treatment for two weeks from now.

Another Round of Therespheres

Well,

the last doctor visit I had, he said that they decided that they wanted to treat the one tumor on my Liver that has grown a bit so this Friday I am heading in (very early) for the first half of the procedure. It is called the "mapping" it is where they will knock me out and put a camera inside my femoral artery and feed it up to my liver and look around for the Tumor and see where and how they can treat it.

Then the next step is to go back and have the treatment done soon after, maybe a week or so. The treatment is basically the same as the mapping except when they are in there, they will push the radiation beads into my liver and onto the Tumor.

The treatment is pretty much painless but it does mean that I cant lift anything for several days and it does make me a little weak for a day or two. Life should return to normal after that.
Wishing me luck....

Sunday post

Today is Sunday and I thought I would just post another message about my trip to Australia. I am adding a picture that I took that I thought was pretty cool. They have this monorail in Sydney that moves all around the city and allows you to get around pretty easily without a vehicle.

As for other info, we went camping this weekend south of SLC on the Nebo loop up Payson canyon. The weather was perfect and we had a great time.

The weather today has been great up to now but it just started raining (6:30pm) I dont know how much it will rain but lately we have been getting rain that comes down so fast that we have had flooding in areas.