Some New Pics of Reagan

We are still here!

I can't believe that I haven't posted anything in over a month! This pas month has been pretty crazy. Three days after my last post (October 27th) was Dad's 65th birthday. The week after that, we had a little bit of a scare that resulted in a trip to the ER and a night in the hospital for Dad. The doctor had slowly been tapering him off of the steroids for the swelling and being off of them and having enough time for the chemo and radiation to really start soaking him into his system resulted in the brain swelling again. I had tried calling him several times on Monday afternoon and couldn't get a hold of him. Finally, Darrell asked if it would make me feel better if we went and did a drive by at the house to check out the situation. When we went over about 7:30 and all the lights were out, but we could see that the TV was on, we stopped and I went in. Dad was really confused and couldn't really tell us much of anything. We kept asking him questions and nothing was really making any sense. Darrell thought that maybe he had taken a sleeping pill because it seemed like Dad just couldn't wake up. I kept asking Dad if he wanted us to stay there, if he wanted to come stay with us, or if he needed us to take him to the hospital. He said he just wanted to take his chemo pill and once he got some sleep that he would feel better in the morning. I made him promise to call me if he kept feeling bad or if he needed anything. About 5:30 in the morning November 2, he called and said that he had to do something about it. I went over and picked him up and called the oncologist on the way. She called me right back and after I told her what was going on, she told me to take him to the emergency room. We got to the ER and the only things that Dad was able to tell the people in triage was his name, social, and birthday. He was not able to tell him the day, month, year, or who the president was. I knew that I had to step back and let him speak for himself so that the hospital staff could see what sort of mental state he was in, but after they couldn't get any information out of him, I told them what was going on and let him know that his oncologist had given me instructions to take him to the ER. After alot of frustration on Dad's part, they decided to keep him over night to give him some high powered steroids through an IV and to make sure they got the swelling down.

They did do an MRI when he was in the hospital and they said that although they were not able to tell if the tumor was getting smaller because of the swelling, it did appear to be dying a little on the inside. That week was supposed to be the last week of Dad's treatment, but the doctors made the decision to not treat him for the remainder of the week, so everything got pushed back about 3 days. In the end, everything was fine, the doctors have just told him that he will have to stay on steroids until further notice. His last day of treatment was 11/17. Now, we are back to waiting. His next MRI will be on 12/15 and he will see the oncologist to discuss the results on 12/17.

In the midst of all of this, I ran my 6th half marathon. I don't know how I've managed to keep my running up with everything going on, but at the same time, I don't know what I would do if I wasn't keeping my running up. I ran the San Antonio Rock N' Roll Half Marathon on 11/14. It was a great flat course with lots of folks cheering the whole way and it was great to run in a new place. I ran with my friend and co-worker, Cindy, who is about to turn 50. This was her 2nd half marathon. I talked her into doing the 3M Half Marathon with me last year as well. We had a good race given that neither of us had felt great the week before. I had gotten another sinus infection earlier in the week and had to start taking antibiotics again. We finished in 2:48:05. This was my 3rd fastest half marathon that I have done.

I felt fine the next week and then this Monday, I started feeling bad again. I was not able to get in to see my Ear Nose and Throat Specialist because of the short week, so I went to the minor emergency clinic and got more antibiotics. (I had only been off of them a week from the last time.) I also got a steroid shot, which made me feel much better.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving and I was very thankful to be feeling better, run the 5 mile Turkey Trot, and have my Dad and friend Sydney over for Thanksgiving. Darrell and Reagan and I have spent the last day and a half doing absolutely nothing, which has just been fantastic.