Merry Christmas from Us!

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We took pictures back in the fall.  I didn't post them because I knew they would be on our Christmas cards.  Courtney Smith took them again and I could not have asked for better pictures.  She is amazing!

Santa 2013 and Chemo (those words shouldn't go together!)

This blog has always been about our little guys and I don't want to forget to document anything about them.  This is the most wonderful time of the year and I think Mason is definitely old enough to know that now.  

Here they are in their Christmas PJs that I LOVE.  I ordered them a while ago and had my Mom monogram them.  

They have been going on like nothing has happened....playing and fighting as usual.  Here is a moment of lots of giggles and laughs.  (All coming from Mason spitting water in Brody's face...whatever it takes!)

Leroy and his friend have been mischievous.

I hadn't taken the boys to see Santa and I wasn't sure when we would be able to go.  Sunday, the boys and I met Mom at the Collierville mall.  That may have been a bad idea since it is outdoors and ended up being much cooler than I thought.  

Excited to see Santa.....

Until he saw this line.  It took FOREVER.  I ran around for about an hour and a half chasing Brody who was squawking like a bird trying to get free.  

But it was worth it.  

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John had his first round of chemo yesterday.  It was an all morning process and the day wore him out.  We were able to speak to Dr. Weeks before the chemo.  The pathology came back exactly what he thought it would.  No surprises there, thank goodness.  I was a nervous wreck.  

He did say we would need to do 4 cycles of chemo.  We were really hoping 3, so that was a let down, but whatever it takes to get him healthy!!!!  

The chemo took about two and a half hours.  I went with him this visit, but he will go alone most others.  

The doctor thought it was great John went on and shaved his head.  His thought is "I want to lose my hair on my own terms".  =)

He did very well with the treatment.  It felt cold going in, but having to do it through the IV this cycle sounds like it won't be an issue.  He felt same as always getting the medicine.  We left and had to go by both of our jobs and grabbed lunch.  He was VERY pale and tired but did well.  

I took him home to sleep, and I went to pick up the boys and try to do a little Christmas shopping.  (Im beginning to think, if you don't already have a gift from me....you are not getting one!  Sorry!)

Mason is totally okay with the shaved head now.  Him and his Daddy got to lay on the couch together (well John slept) and watch tv.  I feel like there will be a lot of this.

He did start to feel nauseas last night.  It hit him around 7pm.  We have Zofran that did help some.  His body NEVER gets medications, and he is taking Lortab every 4 hours (even setting an alarm at night) and now the chemo.  I am sure it feels nauseas!!!!!  I hate that he looks so pale but hopefully the color will come back soon.

All in all it was a great day!!!!  We have already had the testicle removed and now started chemo.  We are on a fast track to get this done and never look back.  It will hopefully all just be a bad memory.  

He is just the best guy in the whole world and I hate this is happening to him.  But he has soooooo many people who love him and are here for him.  I know he is just in shock of the generosity of everyone we know.  THANK YOU!!!

The Hair is Gone

We got home from the hospital, and our elves were glad to have Mason and Brody back.  

And we were glad Jessica brought us over all this Mexican food.  We were able to eat on it all weekend.  

This little boy has been a tad clingy since we are all back in the same house.  

This morning we let John sleep in.  We had to run to the store and decided to pick up donuts for breakfast.  Brody didn't quite understand the process...he was furious when we left and hadn't eaten.  Screamed the entire way home.  

We had a big afternoon planned.  Will and Robert came over to shave their heads with John.  John isn't too big on all this stuff (who is really?), but he knew he wanted his head shaved and he wanted it shaved now.  He did not want any off it falling out in clumps where he could see.


Before the clippers came out, Will and Mason played superheros.

One last picture with hair (until it grows back of course).

Before...

John went first.

 You can tell what Mason and Reese thought about the whole thing...

Mason wanted us to make sure we knew he wasn't sick and did not need to shave his head.



There he is.

Robert's turn.  He may have been a tad nervous about losing the hair...or about it not coming back.

Reese checking him out.   Her and Mason kept running in asking which one was their Daddy. They thought their Dads looked alike.

 Next up was Will.

After.

Taking it back to high school.

I can't say enough how awesome our family and friends are.  John is having a hard time wrapping his head around the love and support everyone has showed us.  His brother and best friend shave their heads with him, and we have had so many people bring us food (that has been eaten I must say!).  Thanks Kevin and Jessica, Tara and Rusty, Ashley and David, and Mr. and Mrs. Booten.  We have been able to get through this long weekend with great food without a worry.  Not to mention, all the calls, messages, and shedding tears with some pretty amazing people.


We are headed to our first round of chemo in the morning.  Praying it helps relieve his pain!

Surgery

A lot has happened since the last post and all is good.  

We have received so many flowers, goodies, and prayers from all of our family and friends.  This picture isn't even the half of it.  We are so loved and so blessed.  

John had surgery Wednesday night.  We were hoping it would be between 4-5pm but they came to get him at 9:00pm.  The waiting was no fun, but it was probably for the best.  When it was over and they brought him up from recovery, he was able to sleep all night.  He did awesome.  

Before surgery. 

 While waiting for John to get out of surgery, we got a competitive game of Spoons going.  It got a little loud on the fifth floor of Baptist and we had to shut the door.  Mrs. Judy and Mr. Larry may or may not have fought over several spoons.  It was actually a nice change and we were all able to forget about everything for a few minutes.  

My mom and our babysitter have been texting me some pictures throughout the week.  Brody apparently had an explosion during nap time .   They had to give him a full bath.  He still looks cute though.  

And he is just destroying my parents' house.  

Yesterday was my 30th birthday.  I know everyone thought it wasn't a great way to spend a birthday, but all I could have asked for was John to have already had his surgery and get this process started.  Not to mention, my parents brought the boys up to the hospital.  We really have not seen them in days.  They have done great and love spending time with their grandparents, but we were all happy to be reunited.  

Mason and Mickey Mouse made me a cake, and he was very excited to bring it to me.  He started singing Happy Birthday all on his own.  Theres nothing like cake for dinner.  

The kids did great in the hospital.  John was worried what Mason would think, and it really didn't phase him.  Brody just stared at him for a good five minutes when they first got here.  We told Mason his Daddy was sick and needed medicine for a while to make him better (althought he brought him a homemade Christmas ornament to make him all better again)  

We told him at the hospital that we can't jump on him because it would hurt him.  Next thing I know, I was putting Mason on the hospital bed to take a picture and he starts freaking out saying he's gonna hurt his Daddy sitting up there.  We were able to assure him it wouldn't hurt him.  I think he was pretty comfortable about it from then on.  

It was so nice to see them.  It gets a little depressing in this hospital, so they brightened everyone up and made some extra noise.   I loved being able to tell Mason I would pick him up from school the next day.  

That means we are getting out of the hospital today!  Woo hoo!  We are actually sitting here waiting for the paperwork as I type (and John is writing work emails).  

We spoke to all three of his doctors yesterday:  

*Dr. Greenberger (urologist) said his insicion site looks good and he could go home whenever.  No heavy lifting for 4-6 weeks and no work for a week.  We will see him back in 2 weeks just to check surgery site. 

*Dr Smith (general surgeon) told us we can't place the port a cath right now.  It isn't a good idea to go under for surgery twice in one week.  Not to mention, if for some reason it caused a slight fever, they would have to remove the port a cath thinking he had some type of infection.  It's just a safer bet to wait a bit.  With Christmas coming up, it makes things a little tricky.  We probably won't be able to put the port a cath in until Tuesday, December 31st.  

*Dr. Weeks (oncologist) came in last night.  He does not have the pathology reports yet (maybe 2 more days) but discussed a chemo time line.  Again, Christmas being on a Wednesday kind of makes things a little more difficult.  He came back in this morning after thinking about it last night.  John is just in so much back pain from the mass in the abdomen that he feels (and we ALL agree) we need to get this pain under control sooner than later.  The only way to get rid of the pain is to shrink the mass with chemo.  We will now go in this Monday, December 23rd for his first dose of chemo.  We will not have the port a cath in, but can just use an IV.  He will get four doses like this and then get the port a cath.  It isn't the ideal way to do chemo, but it is safe (if not done for a long time) and will help.  We will do the traditional way with the remaining cycles.  

We are very thankful for these doctors.  We could've never imagined Monday morning when we went into the ER that we would have gotten this much accomplished by Friday (or would've ever guessed what the problem was).  They understand the amount of pain he is in and have moved so quickly to make sure he can get healthier as soon as possible.  The nurses were amazing.  Every one of them. 

We are ready to kick this thing to the curb.  We are going to spend these next couple of weeks with family and friends, but most importantly, with our two little boys.  We are going to make their Christmas just as fun as it was to be before the cancer, and we cannot wait! 

The C Word

I was not really sure how to go about this.  But this blog is our family journal and I am going to document everything.  

I'm going to go back a few months where John noticed a lump under his right nipple in his breast.  We knew he needed to make an appointment but he didn't fit the criteria for male breast cancer.  The internet actually assured us he didn't have it.  He didn't see the doctor until a couple of months later and she ordered a CT scan of his chest, then a mammogram.  They decided it was Gynecomastia which is harmless, but we needed to find the cause of it.  He was sent to an endocrinologist where he found his estrogen to be very high.  He ordered a CT scan of his abdomen that was to be done this coming Friday.  

Fast forward to Saturday.   John began having back pain.  Yes it was my birthday dinner, and yes I may have told him to suck it up.  That may have not been the best response looking back...

But the pain continued as we went to the family Christmas gathering Sunday.  Sunday night, the pain was in the lower right side of his back, right side of his abdomen, and right testicle.  We had decided he would go to the doctor the next day.  Around 2am Monday morning, he jumped out of bed in severe pain.  It was very obvious we needed to go to the emergency room.  

My mom rushed over to sit with the boys while they were sleeping, and we headed to Collierville Baptist.  John was in so much pain by now that his head was in the toilet.  I'm very glad we went to Collierville because it is so slow and has very few patients.  They were able to get us right back, give him morphine, and order a CT scan of his abdomen.  We were told this was most likely kidney stones, which I hadn't thought of, but it did make sense.  

The doctor came right in after the scan and told us it was not kidney stones.  He felt around a few areas and called the on-call surgeon at Baptist East.  They read the scans together and decided it was best to transport him by ambulance there.  Baptist East can do a lot more than where we were.  He told us there was a large area of inflammation showing up and we needed to see a vascular doctor.  

Baptist East is so much busier.  He needed more morphine by then and was in so much pain.  It took a couple of hours before they finally got him the meds, but he was uncomfortable most of the day (it had me scared that Morphine of all things wasn't helping).  The vascular doctor came in and explained there was a very large mass showing up on the CT scan and it was compressing on the main artery and vein running through the body.  Fortunately, it was only a mild compression and doing no damage.  As far as the vascular doctors were concerned, he was okay, but needed to figure out what this mass was.  

Next the general surgeon came in to talk to us.  He was the one who wanted us to come to Baptist earlier that morning.  He explained there was, what they thought, a very large lymph node behind his abdomen and in front of his spine (actually in the peritoneum which is the lining of the abdominal cavity).  This is what is causing pain in the back.  He said normally they would do a biopsy of it, but it is in a very dangerous spot... and he wasn't touching it.  He said he was a straight forward kind of guy and wanted us to know they were thinking Lymphoma....

Lymphoma?!?!  What in the world?!  I could hardly listen to much more because I was in shock.  He told us he had a call into a Dr. Weeks (a hematology/oncology doctor) and he would be by to see us later.  It was all a blur.  But he did say it still could just be some type of infection so we were hanging onto that hope.  

We were pretty upset and called our family (who had all JUST left) and they all came back.  

We sat around for what felt like forever.  Then another vascular doctor came in.  He drew a diagram to explain where this mass was and seemed very hopeful it was not cancer.  We all felt much better and everyone left for the night.  

Right after they left,  Dr. Weeks (oncologist) came in to talk to us.  He was able to pull up his CT scan on the computer and read it with us.  I only know dental.   I am no doctor, but this "mass" as he kept calling it was giant.  Just entirely too big.  He did an exam on John, asked questions, and then started talking.  He said it could very well be testicular cancer, lymphoma, or something else.  He never even mentioned the word infection, so we were pretty confident this wasn't going to be good.  He wanted to run a ton of blood work to check a million different things.  His first thinking was testicular cancer because of the extreme pain in the right testicle.  And turns out, there was a 1mm mass that the ultrasound revealed.  He wanted a biopsy done the next day on the mass in the abdomen. 

We waited around all day and finally, the surgeon came in.  He told us we were not going to do the biopsy after all...it was entirely too dangerous due to the location of the mass.  He told us the blood work had come back and his Alpha-fetoprotein was high.  This is an indication of a germ cell tumor which is the type of tumor that would be in the testicle.  At this point, they are pretty confident he has testicular cancer that has spread to that large mass.  You can imagine the immediate fear that came over us all.  

The surgeon came back in to let us know that he had spoken with the oncologist.  Dr. Weeks wanted him to tell us John will be cured in 3 months.  This was much better information.    

Now that we have spoken to all of the doctors, we know a few more things:

1.  Testicular cancer is very treatable. 

2.  If you were to choose a cancer to have, this would be it. 

3.  Dr. Weeks has NEVER lost a patient to testicular cancer. 

4.  John is 30 and healthy.  He will be able to take whatever they throw at him like a champ.  

Because of the extreme pain that brought us into the hospital, we are in a better situation than if we had found out at a doctors office.  We already have an awesome team of doctors with an immediate game plan.  For this, we are so very thankful.  

So the plan is tonight, Dr. Greenberger, the urologist, will remove the right testicle during surgery.  It is a simple procedure and generally outpatient, but since we are already at the hospital, he can do it now and begin treatment sooner.  

We will also need to have a port-a-cath placed where they will deliver the chemo.  We are hoping to have this done before we leave the hospital.  He will need shots of Heparin (blood thinner) in his stomach three times a day.  Because the mass is compressing the major vein and artery, they want to make sure there is no clotting.  

The sooner we can start on the chemo, the better.  Maybe even right after Christmas.  We will be able to mark how well he is responding to treatment by the protein that was elevated.  Once we get that to a normal level, he will need two more cycles of chemo.  He could even get it to normal range after the first cycle.  That would mean only three cycles of chemo (hopefully).  A cycle is 5 days in a row of chemo (takes about 2-3 hours a day to deliver it) and then two weeks off.  

Unfortunaely for John, the back pain will not subside until the chemo begins to shrink the mass.  He has been able to manage the pain with medication though.  

He should be able to work.  He will obviously not be able to pull these extremely long hours he is used to and will need a couple of hours every day during the weeks of chemo.  

The doctor is not worried about our runny nosed kids getting John sick.  He said if they are snotty and want hugs...let them hug all over you.  This was very important to John.  He has been so worried about what the kids will think and that they won't understand.  If anything upsets him, its the kids.  So he was happy to hear that.  

The worst side effect is the hair loss.  But he is a guy and it will grow back.  No worries there. 

Through this emotional roller coaster we have been on, we have learned several things:

1.  We have an amazing, close family.  They have all been up here and been on this ride with us.  It has been just as hard on them as us.  My parents have had the boys at night.  John's family hasn't left our side.  Everyone has been awesome. 

2.  We have oh so many friends.  It took me forever to make sure everyone knew.  I don't know what we would do without them all.  I know they will be here throughout this entire process. 

3.  We are getting immediate attention because of being in the hospital.  It scares me just thinking how long it could've taken if we had found this out in the doctor's office.  They think this has been going on for about four months and that mass is huge....I can't even think what we would be looking at months later.  I spoke with John's endocrinologist and he agreed, we are in a much better scenario.  

4.  God knows what he is doing.  I don't know how long I questioned why we got pregnant so much earlier than planned.  We knew we wanted kids, but not until closer to 30.  Every doctor has told us if we want more children, we need to bank his sperm.  It is very likely he will be sterile after this chemo.  If we had no kids, or just one, I can't imagine what that would feel like.  I am just so thankful for those two sweet, healthy little boys. 

(Please excuse the horrendous picture)

The bottom line is, we've got this.  John is going to beat this and be back to normal in a few months.  We have a ton of support around us to keep us lifted.  

Becca said it best, "Where are we going in 3 months to celebrate a remission?!"

Christmas Program

Mason had his Christmas program at school last week.  He had really been looking forward to us coming to see him sing.  He didn't do too much singing.  He would see us, smile real big, then act like he was shy.  What a goober.  

Waving to me. 

After the program with the preschool, we went back to his room where his class sang Jingle Bells and rang bells.  There is just nothing sweeter than little people singing.  

He talked all night how Grandma, Grandma Reba, Mickey Mouse, and Pops came to see him.  I made sure to video some of it so John could see it when he got home from working in Mexico.  

Our elves have been finding some higher places to hang out in.  They are getting tired of the abuse from Brody.  

And here is my reality.  It was 30 something degrees outside.  Mason fell asleep on the way home from school.  Brody took off his shoes and socks.  And who knows what is growing in my car....

Loving all his stuffed animals.  

John decided to move the elves one night last weekend.  They went ziplining in the kitchen.  This was almost too much for Brody.  They were right at his eye level.  

We had Brody's Christmas party for daycare Saturday.  This was the best picture I could get with him.  

This was the cutest thing.  His sweet little friend wanted him to play right when we got there.  They walked around hand in hand for a while.  

Santa stopped by and brought toys.  He was a big hit this year for most of the kids.  

We are planning on taking them to see Santa again this coming weekend for a traditional picture.  Brody did well.  I just knew he would scream.  

Mason was happy happy. 

Saturday night we went to dinner with friends to celebrate my 30th birthday.  It is always so hard to get people together during the holiday season, but there were 23 of us there.  I was so happy to have a fun night with awesome friends.  We went to Chiwawa in midtown. 

Love this guy.  

My awesome sister-in-law who helped get everyone together. 

We kind of took over the restaurant. 

Emily is such a trooper.  She is 37 weeks and hasn't missed a beat!  

Sunday, we headed to Grenada, MS for the Stewart family Christmas.  Brody still really enjoys coconut cake.  

Lakyn is awesome with kids and helped keep all of ours out of trouble!!!  =)

Anderson and Mason had fun together.  Mason thought it was hilarious.  Anderson was tackling him.  We have now been telling Mason to finish his food so he can take on Anderson and Griffin when they get a little older.  =)

Well Brody too.  At the rate they are going, all three of them will weigh more than Mason by the age of two!!!  Ha

It was a busy busy weekend and we were all worn out!