Radiant Radiology

Well, this has been an amazing day to say the least. At Joe's primary care doctor he found out this morning that although he has been struggling with sharp spikes in blood sugar and having to take tons of insulin to bring it down his A1C number which is your blood glucose over a 3 month period is 6.5, which, while not perfect is the best Joe's has ever been since they have been charting it.

Then we went and saw the radiologist in Tyler. What a pistol! We were there for 4 1/2 hours. It seems that the VA has only initially sent over a tiny bit of paper work and they listed him as hospice palliative care only. (WOW, I am still MAD /APPALLED at that)  So she was going to refuse the referral, but when her nurse talked to Joe on the phone she told the Doctor that "He sounds rather perky for a hospice patient, I think we should see him."

So she went after the VA for Joe's records. She personally talked to everyone of his doctors. She was hopping off of the walls by the time we saw her. She said that when she asked them why nothing had been done for him they said, "Well, he can't have any kind of anesthetic," her response was, "And your point is?" She said he should have at least had a stint put in the ureter that is partially blocked by one of the tumors because one of the kidneys is enlarged. (news to us)

Anyway, she said that she wasn't waiting for them and their games, they sent him over with no current tests or anything so she did two scans, one with no dye and one with dye in the bladder only. They also got him all set up for the radiation with the markings on him. He has a holter test on Monday and Tuesday and she still needs to get some more heart info on him so they will do the first treatment next Thursday and get the rest scheduled and his exact treatment level nailed down at that time.

She also told us that bladder cancer does not normally metastasize so if it hasn't yet there is a good chance that it wont. Having radiation or chemo will make no difference to that. She said the radiation would be much better with chemo but even without it we will be able to shrink the tumors and possibly kill them. She said that they will respond very well as high grade aggressive cancer responds very quickly to radiation, it is the slow growing kind that is hard to kill. A lot of the doctors had said that don't worry about it because you can live with bladder cancer for years. She said that is true but you definitely don't want to because it is extreemely painful and all that.

I think we are still a bit blown away after so long being told there is nothing that can be done.

Praise the Lord.

Thank you all for your continuing prayers.

Love ya

Radiology

Sorry it's been so long since I have done any updates. First I was exhausted and then I got really busy... well, that is all the excuses I can think of.

This was taken at the first time we went to the
MoJo Coffee house to hear Molly and Co. play.
 Joe Looks like a deer caught in the headlights, Huh?!
I think I should Photoshop a smile on him.

You all know that we have not been able to find any way to treat Joe's cancer... well, a couple of weeks ago he had a very long appointment with his Urologist who is incredibly frustrated that he has not been able to help Joe. After a 45 minute conversation they decided he should go back and revisit Radiation with no Chemo, just to see if we could reasonably safely slow the tumors down. We saw the Radiologist at the VA in Shreveport Monday. She said that since we talked to her last the VA has added fee basis where we can go to certain private doctors under certain conditions. It seems that there is a Radiology clinic in Tyler. It not only is closer, at 37 miles as opposed to 50 miles, the radiation machine is much better and more precise. She said that with that machine a low dose of radiation would have a lot less likelihood of causing harm than the one in Shreveport. We go for a consultation tomorrow, the 38th of Sept. That was just 3 days! The main dangers are that it could increase his diabetes and because he has diverticulitis, which we also cannot treat because he cannot have any anesthetics, that could be aggravated also. We are opting to not do any chemo though as we feel that Joe's heart would not withstand even lower doses.

Since the trip across the US end of July and first week of August Joe has been just a bit weaker than before. It took him about a month to get his blood sugars back under control. He is not responding well to insulin any more so he tries much harder to keep it from going up. He cannot do as much as before without having days of tiredness and chest pain at nigh. Some dear friends traded us chairs. They took the small pink chair Joe had been sleeping in off and on and gave us their big puffy recliner. It was a good deal on both sides as the spot they had the recliner in was too small for it and Joe needed something more comfortable for sleeping in. It was God's perfect timing as he has been having to sleep sitting up a lo more lately.

I, Teri, have been swamped at work. That is a good thing :-), if tiring. I also am still loosing weight, down 22 lbs now and falllllling. I LOVE it!

Brenna came down with a croupy cough right before we left for deputation. We finally got her into a specialist after we got back and come to find out that her lungs are a bit misshaped and she has a longtime infection down in them. She now sees a specialist to treat her for asthma.

Joe held the insolation up while We all ran around
stapling it in place 

Other than all of that we are all doing quite well. We finally, with  lot of help from our friends, got Joe's garage insulated and installed vents in the roof. What a relief for Joe. Now he can comfortably go out and putz on his guitars. This weekend, after Brenna does some face painting at a fundraiser for PKD, she will be helping Joe fix the front forks on the Harley so I can start riding it again now that the weather has gotten over this 100+ degree garbage. Now it is just in the 90's and feels marvelous.

Spontaneously formed group, they called themselves
the Puffy Penguins

Matt Mahr concert. Most of Northwood church went.
We took up the whole 4th and 5th row from the front and
then some. It was an awesome time of worship. I swore
that all the songs were just for me, but then Molly said they
were all about her, Natalie said, "Uh, uh! Me, it was all
about Me" That is the Holy Spirt for you, speaks to
each persons heart individually. Too cool!

The concert was Thursday, Friday a whole bunch of us from
Northwood went to MoJo's in Henderson to support
Molly and Joel as they performed there for 4 hours. I love how this church
just loves to do everything together. 

We packed the church for a surprise 60th birthday party
for pastors wife Gail. 

Brenna and others doing the Macharena (sp) at Gails
party

We have been going to a lot of music events. Brenna sang in a group at the First Friday Coffee house, first in a group and then did two beautiful solos. She was really excited that she did so well. She is writing songs now also. Brenna now does BSF (intercity Bible Study Fellowship) on Mondays. She baby sits for my bible study on Tuesdays. We go to bible study and Brenna goes to Elevation, which is a light bible study and then kids hang out place at the largest church in town, on Wed. We usually have something going Fridays and always on Saturdays and church on Sunday. WHEW. Life is good but, as I said, Busy.

Well, off to bed.

Love you all, and thank you for your continued prayers