[The Weekly Update is an email that was started in the fall of 2010 to keep family and friends informed of my medical condition and has continued as a review of family activities. Written by Zelma and edited by Steve. Working on adding past issues to the blog.]
Hi All,
Well, this week we confirmed what we've been told - taking chemo treatment is hard.
The treatment Steve is taking is given in a 3 week cycle and we started week 1 on Monday by spending the day at Strong where he received 1 of 2 chemo drugs. When that was finished, a pump with the second chemo drug was installed that continuously delivers it over 96 hours. Along the way you get to have extra fluids via IV (Mon, Tues, and Wed) plus the antibody treatment on Wednesday.
The first few days I think we enjoyed the honeymoon phase because besides for being tired (not a lot of sleep for either of us) and Steve having hiccups (even harder to get sleep), it wasn't as bad as I think we had expected. They give a number of different medications to control the potential nausea side effects - so those did their job. The one he took the first 3 days has a side effect of hiccups (go figure....).
Anyway, we celebrated Christmas early on Monday night with my son. We had fun and Steve enjoyed teasing Matthew because he found some old Christmas pictures from 2005 on his digital camera and inquired how much it would be worth to Matthew not to post them on Facebook :-).
We also got a nice shot of the 3 of us in our seasonal headgear for this week's photo. I told Matthew he was lucky that I wasn't willing to spend the extra $5 to get the elf hat that has the big pointy elf ears attached.
Thursday, Steve enjoyed not having to go anywhere and Friday the Medical Service came and unhooked the chemo pump. Shortly after that the honeymoon was over and Steve felt really bad most of the evening. Saturday, we were back at Strong to get the scheduled shot that stimulates the production of white blood cells that helps battle infections. He felt a little better Saturday and today, but no where near normal. Suffice it to say there was no biking this week.
Friday, we received a lovely Christmas arrangement from Steve's family and it is sitting on our hearth for us to enjoy. We're looking forward to Sarah and Mike arriving for a quick visit on Monday. The next 2 weeks of treatment is only antibody infusion on Wed, so hopefully it will be less hard. We hope everyone has had a nice holiday and enjoyed time with family and friends.
[The Weekly Update is an email that was started in the fall of 2010 to keep family and friends informed of my medical condition and has continued as a review of family activities. Written by Zelma and edited by Steve. Working on adding past issues to the blog.]
Hi All,
We had a nice Thanksgiving weekend and I was able to enjoy 4 days off from work. Mom cooked a great Thanksgiving dinner and we caught up on a number of projects around the house.
We had unseasonably nice weather Friday - Sunday, so we were also able to get the last of the outside chores done before winter and Steve and I were able to ride 3 days on the canal path. Today it was warm enough that we didn't wear our jackets for most of the ride. We did get caught in a light rain the last couple of miles so we stopped under one of the canal bridges and put on our jackets. Steve and I had quite a laugh as this is the first time all season we've biked in the rain.
It was an unexpected treat to be able to make the 1,700 milestone on the canal path Saturday. We had waited until a bit late in the afternoon to go out so when we got home it was nearly dusk. The team photographer (GJ - my mom) got a good shot with the sunset in the background. We had 60 miles for the week (a wonderful 48 miles outside!), 115th ride on the canal path today and 1,722 miles year to date.
[The Weekly Update is an email that was started in the fall of 2010 to keep family and friends informed of my medical condition and has continued as a review of family activities. Written by Zelma and edited by Steve. Working on adding past issues to the blog.]
Hi All,
Steve had a full day of celebration and surprises. Sarah and I want to thank everyone again for helping us by sending their pictures and stories and keeping this secret from Steve. He was sincerely and completely surprised.
The surprises started early when I caught Steve off guard by saying that since I hadn't been able to think of anything special to do for his birthday that I was going to stay home with him for the day. That got a big 2 thumbs up and a smile. This was shortly followed by Sue calling and singing him Happy Birthday. Michael and Kim also called a little later to sing as well. Steve also received a calendar of Joke's from Sue in the mail. They are from the Prairie Home Companion Pretty Good Jokes. This happens to be one of my son's favorites too so I know we'll get some good laughs sharing them.
Sarah texted him during the morning to wish him Happy Birthday and to say she was sorry she wasn't here (hee hee). In case you didn't know, part of the surprise Sarah and I worked out was her coming to Rochester for his birthday. She and Mike drove in yesterday and surprised Steve by meeting him with balloons as he came off the elevator to go to radiation. I'll let Sarah fill you in on that part and some others.
The radiation team had also helped us with the day of surprises. Steve received a card from the staff and they had put up a Happy Birthday banner over his radiation machine. After radiation we had a meeting with the speech expert to start planning out the next steps of what Steve needs to work on post treatment. I let Steve know that the surprises were going to continue after we got home, but not to expect anything to top having Sarah here.
The next present Steve got was from my son Matthew. He and Steve have a running joke going back and forth about chicken. A few years ago, Steve decided we needed a deep fryer - we never got much use out of it until Matthew discovered that you can make really good chicken fingers in it. Because of that Steve has had numerous opportunities to tease Matthew about the frequency of his deep frying, so Matthew and I decided that the birthday payback would be a gift of a rubber chicken. It's not just just a basic rubber chicken - it's a screaming rubber chicken! We all had a good laugh when Steve tested it out.
Steve had a few presents from me. His favorite is a new cycling jersey. It's a Lance Armstrong - Live Strong jersey. I let him know that I got a matching one for myself so that we can look really cool this summer biking on the canal together. Sarah and Mike are going to take a picture of us modeling them today to send in a future update. [Here is a picture of the jerseys on first outside ride in June of 2011.]
Sarah used the pictures that you sent for either a YouTube video or 2 collage picture frames. So rest assured if you don't see yours in the video, they are part of the traditional photo collection. Her first present was playing the video for him. He was blown away. This was followed by the unveiling of the 2 framed photo collections and reading of the 2 Steve stories. Sarah is going to upload the pictures we took to her Face Book page before she leaves so people can see them. I attached my favorite to the this mail.
-Zelma
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[From Sarah]
Hi everyone! Thanks so much for sending the pictures for my dad, he loved looking at them! I ended up making a slideshow of the pictures and putting them to some music, I included a couple birthday songs as well as a rap song that I used to play in high school, which my dad always got a kick out of and would "dance" to whenever he heard it. When he heard the song he did remember it and started doing the same dance I remember from 8 years ago- it was a pretty good laugh for everybody. We have included the link to YouTube below so everyone can see it. If anyone would like me to send them the file directly just e-mail me at [deleted].
Zelma and I were really proud of ourselves that we actually pulled off all the surprises without spilling the beans, we both admitted that we're really bad at keeping secrets. The look on his face when he came off the elevator was priceless and it took him what felt like 30 seconds to figure out what was going on, it's always weird to see people you know out of context- you almost don't even recognize them! Thanks again to everyone for doing such a good job keeping the secrets as well!
[The Weekly Update is an email that was started in the fall of 2010 to keep family and friends informed of my medical condition and has continued as a review of family activities. Written by Zelma and edited by Steve. Working on adding past issues to the blog.]
[This email was before the Weekly Updates started, when information was communicated on a more frequent basis to family and close friends as necessary.]
Hi All,
We had a nice quiet end of the week and New Year's. Apparently Steve and my son managed to stay up and watch the ball drop - but I didn't. Despite Wednesday being a long day with the extra radiation treatment, it is nice to have a 3-day weekend. The weather has been unusually warm here - in the 50's the last 2 days. It's been great because almost all the snow and ice have melted and I was able to get both cars washed today.
Steve has been doing well - although the treatments [daily radiation and weekly chemo] are starting to make him more tired. He got an early birthday present from me - a small pedaling exercise station that he can use from a regular chair. It's just too much right now to try and go to the basement to get on our regular road bike set up. He tried it out yesterday and to tease me he decided he should retrieve his bike helmet from the garage so that he could be "safe" while he exercised. Picture included below.
So for any of you that needed inspiration for your 2011 fitness goals, Steve is expecting to be ready for the Canal Path Bike Challenge by summer. [Apparently this is something that Zelma made up.]
