A bit of a scare

Hi everyone:

Kathleen's recent blood tests revealed a fairly dramatic increase in one of the cancer markers. Her oncologists opted to have Kathleen undergo an MRI to check for visible progression of her cancer. Fortunately, the scan found no progression. So, while the increased counts in her blood are a bit discouraging, she is so far showing no signs of further deterioration.

Kathleen and Don went away for a mini-holiday this past week. I guess they did a fair amount of walking, which couldn't have been easy either for Kathleen (with pain in her back) or for Don (recovering from a foot/ankle injury). Still, they both said they had a good time.

Patty and I visited with Kathleen at her home last night. She continues to be in good spirits, and looks well.

Love,
Brian

MRI today

Hi everyone:

Neil, Patty and I tagged along with Kathleen while she had an MRI this morning. After her test, we went for a quick lunch and then stopped back to our home for a visit. Clearly, Kathleen was tired from her experience this morning, and from a lack of sufficient sleep the night before. She fell asleep almost as quickly as she arrived and stayed asleep for four hours.

I'll provide results as soon as we receive them.

Love,
Brian

Coming up...

Hi everyone:

On December 3, Kathleen and Patty will be in great seats at the concert of The Swell Season (the two Academy Award-winning singers from the film Once) at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago. They're both looking forward to a nice night out.

Love,
Brian

Four musketeers are back

Hi everyone:

Kathleen is visiting our home tonight, and was happy to find that Neil was still here. Whenever the four of us get together, it's always a fun time.

Sorry for not providing updates. As was the case with the blog for Patty, no news is good news. If anything happens of consequence, please know I'll share whatever we learn here.

Kathleen continues to manage her pain, but otherwise seems to be doing well. She is still receiving monthly infusions, and so far, there's no evidence the cancer is progressing. And that's the best news of all.

Cheers,
Brian

Visit to doctor

Hi everyone:

Kathleen received her routine infusion and injection today. The hope with these, if I understand correctly, is to keep her cancer from spreading. Her oncologist is scheduling an MRI soon to determine whether or not the cancer has spread or increased in severity. Kathleen and I share a degree of claustrophobia, so I'm sure she's thrilled about this.

Kathleen said that her doctor believes her ongoing (and, at times, increasing) pain may suggest that the cancer is getting worse. Let's hope not. I think he worried about this once before and was wrong, so let's hope he's starting a trend.

This photo was taken just this past weekend. As much as I hate to compliment Kathleen (the feeling's mutual), I do think she looks nice and, more importantly, healthy.

Love,
Brian

Kiddo, Patty & Kelly (during Patty's recent hospitalization)

Nothing new...again

Hi everyone:

Kathleen visited with Patty last night to help celebrate Patty's inclusion in the Paracor Heartnet study. She's still doing reasonably well, although she continues to be plagued by sinus infections that seem resistant to any treatment to keep them at bay. She's also finding the heat and humidity a bit tough to handle. Given that the high temps next week all look like they'll be in the mid-to-high 80s, she may find the next few days wholly unpleasant. All in all, though, and like always, she's not doing much complaining.

Kathleen looks healthy and strong, but a bit on the thin side (in my opinion). I'm just happy to have little new to report. Let's keep up this streak of mediocrity.

Love,
Brian

Nothing...nothing at all

Hi everyone:

I hadn't written in a while, so I thought I'd just pop in to say that, to the best of our knowledge, nothing has changed in Kathleen's condition. I asked her this morning if there was anything to report, and she answered, "Nope." She's still plugging away. I'll provide an update if anything changes, but am content for now that there's nothing new to share.

Love,
Brian

Still plugging away

Hi everyone:

Patty reminded me this morning that I hadn't updated this blog for ages so, fearing her wrath, I am taking a moment now to catch things up. On the cancer front, Kathleen seems to be pretty much stable--no better, but not much worse. Her doctors need to stay in front of her pain, which continues to be a challenge, but so far have been largely successful.

Unfortunately, Kathleen has been plagued of late by other medical travails. She has been battling an ear/sinus infection for several months now (at last count, she had been through four rounds of antibiotics and, even after just finishing the latest round, she's feeling discomfort again.) Also, she's been diagnosed with some issues with potassium deficiency and thyroid issues. There's always something, it would seem. Still, Kathleen is a tough cookie, and doesn't really complain much; under the same circumstances, I would be a total baby, I'm sure.

Kathleen popped in for a visit this morning. She's thin (and bordering on too thin, in our opinion), but otherwise seems pretty energetic and positive. She's told us that her appetite comes and goes, and not everything tastes the way she expects it will, but she's still working at keeping enough in her system to help her battle. We're wishing we could see her more often, but everyone wants their share of time with Kiddo these days, so we'll have to stop being so greedy.

I'll try to be better about updates; trust that if anything major happens, I'll be prompt in updating the blog.

Love,
Brian

Recent pics

Hi everyone:

Here are a couple of our more recent photos of Kathleen (from about four weeks ago).

Denise (our neighbor and Kathleen's friend) and Kathleen

Kathleen at The Foundry (for a kids' birthday dinner)

Nothing new, really

Hi everyone:

Sorry I've been so long between posts; just the other day, my father asked, "How's your sister-in-law doing? You haven't been writing about her." Guilty as charged. I sometimes forget that some who are following her situation are great distances away. As always, I promise that if there are any developments, I'll share them here as soon as possible.

As of a couple of days ago, when last I spoke to Kathleen, she seemed to be doing great, all things considered. I know she still has times where it's a challenge to stay on top of the pain, and I also know that the sleep-inducing effect of her medication is sometimes a frustration for her, but, healthwise, she seems to be maintaining the status quo.

When I get a spare moment, I'll post some more pics.

Love,

Brian

Nothing new

Hi everyone:

Just a quick note to let everyone know that Kathleen's MRI results came back, and they found nothing new in terms of progression of her cancer--which sounds to me like very good news. Of course, the best possible news would be to hear, "Oops, our mistake; turns out you don't have cancer," but this takes a close second. We're hoping to see Kathleen this weekend sometime; if we do, we'll snap some photos and share them here.

Love,
Brian

Medical clarifications

Hi everyone:

As I mentioned yesterday, Patty joined Kathleen and Don during a visit to the oncologist. The three asked a number of questions, and the doctor was very thorough in his answers. The oncologist confirmed that the cancer is all through the vertebrae of Kathleen's spine. Kathleen explained to the doctor that she has been experiencing increased numbness in both hands, which is consistent with metastatic cancer of the spine. She is also experiencing pain that spreads up her back (again, an expected symptom of this type of cancer.)

On Monday, Kathleen will undergo another MRI of her spine, and this time they will also scan her brain to see the extent to which the compression of her spine may be contributing to her symptoms, and to check for any spread of the cancer. If they find anything new, the doctor will pull Kathleen from her current drug protocol (except for the pain meds) and will likely order radiation and perhaps chemo to more aggressively attempt to control its spread. Keep your fingers crossed that things are moving along very slowly.

Kathleen visited with us for a few hours yesterday, and snoozed on the sofa for much of the time. She continues to be in good spirits.

Love,
Brian

Back from California

Hi everyone:

My apologies for not updating the site earlier than this; Kathleen's been away in California, and I've been swamped since her return. Trust that if any developments arise on the medical front, I will make sure I get the information here promptly; if there's no news, it's likely good news (or, at the very least, no bad news).

Kathleen and Don had a great visit with Jim and Att and their family in the L.A. area, and returned this past Saturday safe and sound and with hundreds of photos. It would appear, from the photos, that they did just about everything. Some of the pics follow; I will encourage Kathleen to load the rest on her Facebook account.

Kathleen popped by our home for a quick visit earlier this week; she seemed a bit tired and uncomfortable, but otherwise was in good spirits and looked well. It turns out she was coming down with a cold--likely the one that had plagued Don of late.

Kathleen plans to write a blog post of her own this week, so she's asked that I hold off on describing the details of her trip until she can tell you herself.

Patty will be joining Kathleen and Don at Kathleen's appointment with her oncologist this morning. We've had a bunch of questions about the specifics of Kathleen's condition, so Patty's tagging along to ask them. If we learn anything new, we'll share it here soon.

Love,

Brian

More pics of Kathleen

Hi everyone:

We had the opportunity to spend a fair amount of time with Kathleen this weekend. We saw her at the O'Mara family reunion, and then she stayed with us for a couple of days. She still has good days and not-so-good days (and some rough spots within her good days), but she's still laughing most of the time. Below are a bunch of pictures of Kathleen from the weekend.

Kathleen is looking forward to escaping the cold when she and Don visit California next week. Jim and Att, please take lots of pics and share them, so we can post them here.

Love,
Brian

Saturday/Sunday visit

Hi everyone:

After going out for dinner with her friends Cindy, Sheri and Geraldine on Friday evening, Kathleen came over to our home for a visit on Saturday afternoon and night. With our neighbors Kevin and Denise (who know Kathleen well), we sang, danced and looked at some of the dozens of photos we've taken of Kathleen and her family (nuclear and extended) over the years.

Kathleen's still here, relaxing and deciding whether or not to satisfy a craving for Wendy's. The photo above was taken just moments ago. Kathleen says she's been feeling "pretty good", although she needed to break away from the chaos for a while last night to nurse a headache.

Kathleen has her next treatment of drugs (IV and injected) this coming Thursday.

Below are some more photos from last night. The slightly edited picture is Kathleen's way, I think, of telling me I'm #1.

Love,
Brian

Facebook

Hi everyone:

Anyone who has a Facebook account should know that Kathleen also has an account. I just posted a bunch of older photos of her there.

Love,
Brian

Under the weather

Hi everyone:

I just chatted with Kathleen. She's having a less-than-stellar day. Her back is bothering her (a daily hindrance, even with pain meds), and she's feeling flu-like symptoms which are affecting her appetite. Of course, the fact that I awakened her from a nap to ask her how she was doing probably didn't help (sorry, kiddo.) She did say that she's been "so-so" over the past few days.

I found interesting, high-level overviews of metastatic breast cancer at http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/03/22/cancer.qa/index.html, http://www.webmd.com/breast-cancer/features/metastatic-breast-cancer-chronic-condition and http://www.mbcnetwork.org/uploads/FinalBrochure_p7.pdf. A more comprehensive, medical description of cancer that has spread to the spine can be found at http://espinedoctor.com/diagnosis_cancer.htm. As one of the overviews suggests, you can only read so much into what is offered in these documents, as each individual is unique.

I'll share more photos of Kathleen next time we see her.

Love,
Brian

A few struggles

Hi everyone:

We haven't seen Kathleen much over the past week, so there hasn't been much we can report. However, Kathleen told me today that she had a couple of rough days this week in which her pain was breaking through the pain meds. This weekend, she visited with a childhood friend who was in town from Ohio. That's all I can share for now.

Love,
Brian

Leaving comments

Hi everyone:

We've received several questions about the "comments" feature on the blog. I made an adjustment. To leave a comment, you can select either name/URL (you don't need to add a URL, just your name), or select anonymous, both under the "select profile" tab. That's about it. If you have any problems, write us at omara_croft@yahoo.com.

Love,
Patty & Brian

A weekend of visits

Hi everyone:

Kathleen went out for two lunches this past weekend -- first with her sisters and cousins, and then with her aunts (Sue and Joan). The girls forgot to bring the camera for the former, but remembered to bring it along for their lunch with Sue and Joan. Here are a couple of pics. Kathleen is still doing pretty well, although it's easy to tell when she's not feeling well. She doesn't complain much, but the discomfort is written all over her face. We were happy to see her for a couple of days this past weekend.

Callahans...please take/share pics when Kathleen is with you, so we're not just showing one side of her life and activities.

Love,

Brian