03.24.09 Post Surgery

A week ago tomorrow since my rotor cuff surgery, on my left shoulder. Jerry accompanied me to the surgical center for my surgery. Once they called me into surgery Jerry took off. Stef would pick me up after the surgery around 45 minutes for surgery and 60 minutes in recovery. I was wheeled into the operating room around 10:20 am (they had a clock on the wall). My discussion with the anaesthesiologist prior to administering Anastasia was that I did not want to wake up after surgery feeling nausea and vomiting (I remembered that from my previous surgery) from the Anastasia. He explained to me he could give me a neck block which should help prevent the nausea and vomiting. However, he would need to keep me awake while he gave me the neck block because he would need me to give him the indication where the proper placement on the nerve was. He gave me a mild sedation in my IV and proceeded. I remember being in the operating room and him poking me with the needle and some twitching, but after that... I really don't anything until I woke up in recovery without feeling nausea, no vomiting, no pain and alert enough to talk with Dr. Stauber. Dr. Stauber told me the surgery was worse then he anticipated from the MRI. The MRI was done last year and the tear had worsened, he was glad we proceeded with the surgery even though it took twice as long as expected. Stef brought me home and stayed with me the rest of the day until Jerry returned from his doctors appointment. The first few days weren't too bad since I was constantly on pain medication every 4 hours weather I needed it or not. I was starting getting constipated, so I took my last pain pill at 1:00am on Friday. Since then have only taken Tylenol PM or Ibuprofen 800 mg, as needed. The arm sling and ice machine have been on 24/7 until Sunday. Since then I have been using the sling and ice machine, but have to take breaks from both. I removed all the bandages and dressing on Saturday, as directed. However, have blisters all around the surgical area. Contacted the doctor's office about the blisters, they say they are probably from swelling or maybe I had a reaction to the latex tape. Using aloa vera plant to help heal the blisters. Every day I am feeling a little better and am feeling the healing progress. I have my follow-up visit with Dr. Stauber on March 31st.

03.17.09 - Happy St. Patrick's Day

Tomorrow I am scheduled for surgery to repair a partial thickness tear along the articular surface of the critical zone of the supraspinatus tendon. I don't know what all that means by I am having surgery on my left shoulder. This is an outpatient procedure and the surgery will take about 45 minutes. Jerry will be taking me in tomorrow at 9:30 am and my friend Stef will be bringing me home early afternoon. I will keep you posted on my progress, as soon as I am up to it.

03.14.09 - Swollen Eye

This morning Jerry woke up with his eye looking like this...

As the morning went on Jerry said his head was hurting and his eye continued looking worse. I went over to Wal Mart to pick up some Visine A thinking maybe he had an Allergy effecting his eye, but the shelf was empty. I talked to the pharmacist and she said that it probably wasn't an allergy since it was only one eye and not both. She recommended I purchase a lubricating eye drop to lubricate and hopefully push the infection out of his eye. She also suggested I take him in to see a physician. I arrived home and put a few eye drops in his eye. Waiting awhile, it didn't seem to make a difference. So Jerry and I proceeded to the local Urgent Care. By the time we arrived at Urgent Care Jerry's eye was swollen shut with only a slit. The physician on duty said it didn't look like anything she had seen. She didn't think it was an allergy, or pink eye and thought perhaps it might be some type of insect bite. But, didn't really know what to do about the situation. She suggested cold compresses, Benedryl and gave us a prescription for Methylprednisolone. We stopped to fill the prescription and headed home. Jerry took a nap for about an hour and felt better when he woke up. But, his eye didn't look any better. By late Sunday 03.15.09 afternoon his eye looked a lot better and the headache Jerry had this morning next to his eye was gone. Hopefully, his eye and him is recovering.

03.11.09 - Color-Doppler ultrasound

Today was our appointment with Dr. Duke Bahn at the Prostate Institute of America. About every six (6) months we drive to Ventura (about 97 miles one way) for this procedure. Dr. Bahn is well know in the industry.

http://www.pioa.org/bahn.html

Today Dr. Bahn was very impressed with the results he was seeing on the Color-Doppler ultrasound with tissue harmonics which are related to the recent chemo therapy Jerry just finished in December, 2008. Jerry has this test routinely performed where a probe is placed inside of the prostate itself. As the doctor moves the probe around in the prostate the patient can see on a colored screen the black and white images and the red which indicates the blood flow. After the procedure the doctor provides us with the colored pictures, along with his handwritten report. During our meeting with Dr. Bahn he made three (3) specific points: 1) Significan Cancer Volumn reduction; 2) Signifigant Neovasculaity reduction and 3) Cancer became less Hypoech... (can't read doctors handwriting).

Gland Volumn: 23 (was 34 july, 08)
Lesion # 1: 1-2 blood flow = - (none)
Dimension: 28 x 7 mm (was 40 x 13 mm July, 08)
Lesion #2: 3-4 blood flow = - (none)
Dimension: 30 x 6 mm (was 40 x 12 mm July, 08)
Lesion #3: 5 blood flow = - (none)
Dimension: 12 x 5 mm (was 14 x 5 mm July, 08)

Lesion #3 5 was first diagnosed last July, 08 and was the newest growth.

Even though Jerry's cancer is beyond the prostate and evidently metastasized to his bones the chemo therapy was suppose to slow the cancer down and it appears that it has done that. This is the best news that Jerry and I have heard about his cancer in a very, very long time!

Thank you all for your continued support and prayers.

Danya at 6 months old

Isn't see too !!! CUTE !!!

Morning, Noon, In-between, Night and at Bedtime... and then some !

Ketoconazole. Jerry takes two (2) of these 3 times a day... first thing in the morning and without food... and then two other times during the day ... it's quite the scheduling task to get these pills taken without food.

To help Jerry with his digestive system he also takes Herbulk, Ultra Flora Plus DF and Proboulardi. All these have been recommended by the Gastroenterologist. $25.00 for each bottle... not to mention the Vancomycin and Flagyl for the C-diff when needed.

Jerry takes another hand full of pills at noontime. Of course, the purple pill is Nexium ... which anyone would need after taking all the other pills.

After dinner Jerry takes all these... this takes about 3-4 handfuls to get all these down !

Before bedtime, Jerry takes two (2) inject ables routinely.

Then depending on Jerry's blood work sometimes he also takes additional inject ables like Intron, Neumega, Procrit and/or Aranesp.

Additionally, he'll take medication for diarrhea, such as immodium, Kaopectate, and/or Pepto Bismol.

Diarrhea . . . again!

Lately, Jerry had been having an increased amount of air (aka gas). I call it air because fortunately it is not smelling like the typical gas passed by Jerry. Yesterday, Jerry only worked until 11:30am and once he arrived home he was all geared up to work in the yard and around the house. Unfortunately, he started having diarrhea and it continued almost non-stop throughout the day and night and again throughout today. Jerry hasn't been able to eat and/or drink anything without it literally going in one end and out the other. I told Jerry tonight that we should probably go to the ER so that they can start him on an IV, get some blood tests and check for Clostridium difficile (C. diff). Since Jerry was taking Cipro (antibiotic) for Escherichia coli (E. coli) a few weeks ago he could have C. diff again. But, at this point, Jerry is not ready to take another trip to the ER.

Oncology Appointment - 03.05.09

Jerry had his monthly appointment today with Dr. Bob (Javadi is the physician we typically see). Jerry's CBC (complete blood count) showed that his platelet count was a low of 115. He received his premed's IV, Iron IV and a Procrit and Lupron shot. Our appointment in Century City (Los Angeles) was at 12pm and we left at around 4pm. His PSA today is 0.043 today which is lower than the past 2 appointments. Our next scheduled appointment is 04.01.09.