The House of Doo

The House of Doo

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

A Good Weekend.

It is hard to update about such petty things when so many people in Oklahoma are still searching for their loved ones and their children.  I cannot begin to imagine the sheer terror those poor parents must feel as they wait for news.  God bless those people. 

I did want to share a little about our weekend though.  I know many of you have joined me in praying for my stepdad, Allen, and his cancer journey.  He found out around Valentine's Day of 2012 that he had pancreatic cancer.  He had surgery, removing 90% of his pancreas. The pancreas is what secretes insulin, so with so much of the pancreas removed, he had to begin taking insulin through a shot.  It took a long time after that to get his insulin somewhat regulated, so that was hard on his body but then on top of that, he was going through chemo treatments.  He was pronounced cancer-free!  Then, this year two days after Valentine's Day, he found out the cancer was back.  It is still technically "pancreatic cancer," even though he doesn't have much of his pancreas left.  It is in the cavity left where the pancreas once was.  It is Stage 4 - very bad news.  His doctor didn't give him much hope, saying he only had a year to live.  Apparently, (I didn't know this) chemo doesn't normally help with pancreatic cancer.  (I am not really sure why they did it the first time if it doesn't help?)   The doctor can't do surgery because of how it is spread in his body, and they can't do radiation because of it's proximity to his intestines.  They decided to do chemo again, basically doing it until the end.  It didn't look good.  He had 4 treatments of chemo.  Then, about 3 weeks ago, Allen had an MRI just to check the state of the cancer.  It had shrunk to about half of it's original size!  Obviously, the chemo is doing something!  They will do 4 more rounds of chemo and then do another MRI.  Again, I pray that God will give Allen a miracle.  I believe it is still possible.  :)   

Anyway, mom and Allen came to see us on Saturday evening.  We haven't gotten to see them since before Christmas!  Allen is feeling really good and he still has his hair!  He didn't lose it the first time he had chemo treatments either.  Funny how that happens.  He looks great, feels pretty good, and seems to be in good spirits.  They came to our house for a bit, we drove to the new house and showed it to them, then went to dinner at Chop House.  Mom and Allen love to go there when they come to town.  They stayed in a hotel Saturday night and we got to see them again Sunday morning for breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  It was so good to see them.  Colt LOVED Allen.  He doesn't see them enough for me to feel like he should know them, but it always seems like he does.  I got a few pictures of Colt all snuggled up with Allen, but most of them are blurry. :(  I will share a couple of the good ones that I did get. 

 Colt and his Pappy :)
 Friddie, Pappy, and Colt :)

I think I mentioned in my last blog that Colt has another ear infection.  The second one in less than 3 weeks.  I am hoping we aren't on the road to a second round of tubes.  Blah.  Anyway, the doctor gave him a stronger antibiotic than last time, but boy oh boy, it has torn his stomach up.  I'll spare you the gross parts and skip to the part where he has the worst diaper rash I have EVER seen.  No amount of diaper rash cream helps.  He wouldn't let you change his diaper and screamed every time you even mentioned diaper change time.  The skin was broken, so I finally put some Neosporin on it and decided to try Aquaphor.  It is a "healing ointment" and has kind of a vaseline consistency to it.  It was by no means a magic fix, but it has helped the most.  It took about 3 days, but he finally isn't crying when you change him.  Also, giving Colt probiotics has helped his tummy a bit.  We skipped church because I knew they would never be able to change him in the nursery and honestly, I couldn't stand the thought of someone else seeing how terrible it looked.  We have three more doses of antibiotics, so hopefully it's almost over.  The poor kid was miserable! 
Not looking too miserable, huh?  ;)

Update on our house situation:  We lined up a painter to finish painting the rooms we didn't want to attempt like the living room with it's high ceilings and angles, etc.  He will be there Wednesday and Thursday.  I am excited to see how it looks when it no longer looks like someone else's house.  Ryan got to do some cleaning on Sunday while I stayed home with Colt.  There is still more to do, but it's getting closer.  Slowly.  Very slowly.  We are going to try to move sooner than we thought, because we're hoping the "old" house will sell without all of our stuff in it.  Please God, send a buyer.  We need to be down to only one house. 

 We ate Cracker Barrel twice on Sunday.  ;)  Colt loves playing checkers with Granddad.

 He is also a recent fan of Chick-Fil-A's ice cream cones. ;)

2 comments:

  1. Andy's sister is a NICU nurse, and she's always given us this remedy for bad diaper rashes: Aquaphor, Maalox, and cornstarch. You mix the three together until they form a thick paste, then coat the affected areas a few times a day until it's healed. It's worked miracles for Cooper (Clark, amazingly, has been diaper rash free). We swear by it now! Good luck!

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    1. Thanks, Cassidy! Someone else mentioned the Maalox! I'll give it a shot! :) Colt had never had diaper rash until maybe a year ago... This is BAAAAADDD!

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