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I’m taking 5 minutes time to write this so I can ask for some specific prayers.

Teresa was just taken to the hospital by ambulance because I couldn’t get her down the stairs and she can’t walk.  We have been increasing her morphine to cover the pain but have been unsuccessful.  She is agonizing over pain in her right hip and leg so please pray for relief.  I’m taken the children with me now to the hospital so we can be with her.

I don’t know if the pain is from a tumor on a  nerve or she broke her hip,  she had no traumatic event or fall she just hasn’t been able to walk by herself much and it has been getting worse.

Please pray for her and my children. Thankyou, Daniel.

Well, we bit another bullet yesterday. The Filter is in my Inferior Vena Cava — the large vein that carries de-oxygenated blood from the lower half of the body into the heart — and protecting the entry to my heart and lungs. The procedure went smoothly. It seems that I getting well known there at the hospital. People either know me from olther procedure I had done or know of me anyway by story. Yesterday’s procedure was no exception. The awesome staff in the Interventional Radiation Unit made sure that I was very comfortable. And the Angio Lab did likewise.

Funny thing is that I recognized the place too, from that night they were looking for the bleeder in my chest. But it was not the same place. Lol. When I was in the ICU and my right lung was collapsed, the place looked much scarier and tighter. My extreme claustrophobia combined with the fact that I couldn’t breathe . . . Well, this visit cleared up the vision for me.

“Someone’s already been in here.” The doctor said when he saw the scar.

“Yes, looking for a bleeder. . .”

“They must have been in a hurry.”

“Oh Yes, I was in the ICU…they didn’t really worry about the way the scar would show up. Lol”  And neither was I that night. Funny, the chest tube scar looks a bit ragged too…

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I’m going to keep this short today. I have chemo this afternoon - we are going ahead with the rest of this round to fill my body. Chemo works the whole system and we still need that. I start radiation on Tuesday of next week and that will run for 6 days and then back to chemo after that. I believe that is the “so-far” plan. As long as I can keep my tush out of the hospital in the next week I should have some time to rest. And the rest of the family too. Except for Dan… He gets no rest. It helps that we now have someone to help around the house. We have qualified for a Home Health Care provider. My new friend comes around twenty hours a week to do what ever needs to be done. She is awesome.

And my house is clean!

By Daniel McNabb

I thought that I would write this quick post to let you all know what’s going on. We just got back from the hospital after seeing the Radiation Oncologist Dr. F “Here we are again!” but the mood turned to a more serious nature. The resident Oncologist and Dr. F explained to Teresa and I that that the new tumor at the spine in her lower back was a danger to rupturing her major artery and could cause what we and the Docs call a “catastrophic” event. The same tumor has caused a blood clot in the vein from the kidney. They also examined the tumor that bled into her leg and decided to radiate that one too. I said that while we are here why don’t you radiate the one in her neck messing with her arm not working. They said ok, we’ll radiate that one too.

So, an hour later Teresa was in radiation doing a simulation for the three different areas that get radiation. On top of all this Dr. R the chemo doc, doesn’t want the chemo treatment to be held up (neither do we). Chemo on Wednesday will continue as normal, with next week being the chemo week off, Teresa will get the radiation treatment for 6 rounds.

Tomorrow we will check into the hospital at 10am as an outpatient to have the procedure of putting a screen in her vein to stop the clot from breaking away and going to the heart or lungs. I am told that we will be there all day for observation, the employees, all 12,000 of them at OHSU are getting to know us pretty good.

Today is the first day that we have our home health care aide here at the house. It’s a blessing to have the help for 4 hours a day, to bad she can’t make the dinner.

So it all boils down to this. The CT scan showed some growth in the left lung but not the right, some new tumors but not any substantial growth in the existing ones. Maybe the little bit of chemo that keeps getting interrupted did make a difference.

Please, keep us in your prayers, and please comment right here. We would like to hear from you even if you don’t have much to say.

God Bless.

Well, now that Dan has tattled on me with that last post (He did a great job, don’t you think?), I suppose I need to let you know how I feel and deal with it all.

You take it to GOD first. I hate to hear “Well, all we can do is pray now…” ALL WE CAN DO? No, no. The first thing you do it take it to God. You let God be in control. Set your faith in God and then put your hope in the Doctor that God has chosen for you. Yes, God has chosen my doctors even though they don’t know it. There are a ton of them too. I have been blessed with not just a teaching hospital, but a medical university filled with experts looking for answers to the puzzles they are presented with. They work in packs — multidisciplinary is a big word there at OHSU. God brought us back here from Florida to this team. And that’s a good thing. Because I am a puzzle for them.

And the next piece of the puzzle presented itself to us yesterday.

Thursday, as you may or not know, I had a CT scan. The scan itself, was the smoothest, easiest photo session I have had to date! First thing in the morning, of course, I had a long talk with my Lord. “God, please send me the best tech today …”

Then, I have learned now to ask - NICELY - for better care. It went something like this: “I have some special issues that if we address them first, this scan will go better for all of us. I am not trying to be difficult, just cooperative.” I proceed to let the person doing the IV that I have difficult veins. Then I let the CT Tech know that I have painful bone lesions throughout my back. “If you could have everything set up and ready for the scan BEFORE I lay down on the slab and then do it as quickly as possible - getting me back off the slab the moment the test is completed…” By the time the IV was placed, I had already drank the contrast fluid down and it was time to scan. Dan was out in the lobby with the laptop waiting for me to come out to drink and wait… but I was already headed to the photo lab. Not only was the Tech all ready for me, she had extra padding in the form of pillows for my head and a wedge for under my knees which made laying on the slab so much easier. She was quick and kind. Everything the other tech (the one that got me flowers delivered from the hospital management) didn’t do. When she delivered my back out to my waiting hubby, he wasn’t even ready for me.

• “Ok, let’s go.”
• “Go Where?”
• “Home”
• “What?”
• “I’m done, pack up the computer.”
• “Where’s your drink?”
• “I’M DONE! LET’S GO HOME!”
• “Praise God!”

hahha.

So Lesson learned:

1.  Pray
2. Ask Nicely for what you deserve
3. Thank God for giving it to you.

Friday afternoon the call came from Dr. R.

The puzzle:

“I have the results of the CT here.” First off, as we expected, he said there is some growth in the lungs. Not a lot, but the mets in there are slightly bigger from leaving the chemo off for radiation. (“Mets” being a slang term for metastatic lesions - or the tumors that spread to another place in my body) “There is now a lymph node involved in a lower back vertebrae.”

Great.

“As happens with you there is something weird going on too.” Seems there is a blood clot in my kidney - evidently where the kidney drains. There is concern that the clot could break off and travel through my heart or lung. We have always known that phrase “Catastrophic Event” could rear it’s ugly head. (Don’t you love when I use old clichés?) The usual first treatment for a blood clot of this type would be blood thinners. They cannot give me a blood thinner because my Sarcomas are known bleeders already.  Dr. R said that he would talk with the other doctors and see what they think, but maybe just continuing with the chemo and doing nothing else that might cause other issues would be enough for now… He would, however, be talking to Dr F in radiation to see if he could do something and there are other preventive radiology guys that might have an idea… Call the office first thing Monday morning…

“What can I do in the meantime?”

“Nothing. If you feel sick or… go to the hospital…”

And with that we said goodbye.

I was sitting half way up the stairs for this whole conversation. We had been planning to go to Target when the phone rang. I had been climbing up the stairs on my bum - needing to get dressed to go out. Should I keep going up or go back down to the living room and my trusty old arm chair that I spend most of my day in?

Do we keep going or fall back?

I chose to keep going up the stairs. When I got to the bedroom, I needed to catch my breath. Dan and I sat there for a long moment. For that moment, I felt weak and small. When Dan stood up to move on, I asked him to pray for me. “Ok, a short prayer and then we go ahead and get dressed…” And he began to both praise God and beg for God’s hand. It spread into the most powerful prayer I have ever heard from my husband. He is really getting good at this! Hahah   I love him, so.   “Lord, protect us from the lies of the devil as he tries to scare us with this.”

And they are lies. I will not let the lies of the devil into this battle.

When we said our AMENs, I was renewed.

• “Let’s not only go to Target. Let’s go to the Mall too…”
• “Kids, we’re going to the MALL…”
• “The Mall? Why? What are we going to get there?”
• “Nothing really, let’s just get out of the house for a while, huh? What do you think?”

See, we don’t go to the mall. We have no money for the mall. We barely get to Target. The kids had no concept of strolling the mall. But hey, we left all our burdens in God’s hands and had time to waste, right?

Before we could get out the door, the phone rang again. It was the Radiation Office staff with an appointment for Monday morning to meet with Dr. F. “What is the appointment for?” “To discuss what is happening now and see what can be done…” These people are so quick to respond!

Now, “To the Mall!”

The five of us wandered (ok, I wandered via my wheel chair and a trusty friend to push) the mall looking at the kitchen gadgetry. (We are really into cooking shows lately! “Oh my! That‘s the pot that Emeril uses! It‘s $365.00!)

Long walk, short… we made our way around the mall and back out the door again. The Target trip for staples went quick since we were already spent. When we arrived back at the house there was a message on the machine from Dr. R. “Hey guys, by now you should have heard from Dr. F.   I want you to talk to him about getting some radiation for that spot”   WHICH SPOT? I don’t know.   And he had already talked with the Interventional Radiologist about putting a filter in the vein to keep that clot from breaking off and going to the lung. He said it was a pretty straight forward thing to do. Ya. It’s always routine with them, right? But, once again — quick to respond to the need that I have. I feel that I am in good hands. He wants to do this Monday or Tuesday. I have no clue what is involved in “doing this.” I guess, I’ll let you know.

I don’t know if I will get the second half of this new chemo round that I started this week. Every time I start chemo something comes up, you know. It’s a lot to take in. How could one do this without faith in God to pull you through it? How could you face an empty wall with a sack of scary and no shelf to lay it on?

Last night before I laid down to sleep, God sent me a message. In my Life Application Study Bible, the introduction to the Old Testament book of Daniel told me that Daniel and his friends were told to wait patiently in faith and not worship the gods of Babylon or accept that society’s way of life. “God still rules over human activities. Evil will be overcome…” Of course I am not calling my medical team evil Babylonians here, but I was reminded that I live in this society, but I am a child of the Great Physician. I don’t know how this is going to play out. But I do know that God is in control of it. Because I gave it to him first. Not last.

There are four “Megathemes” presented for the book of Daniel here in my Bible:

God is in Control: “Our Faith is sure because our future is secure in Christ. We must have courage and put our faith in God, who controls everything.”

Purpose in Life: “It is wise to make trusting and obeying God alone our true purpose in life. This will give us direction and peace in spite of the circumstances or consequences.”

Perseverance: “Be relentless in your prayers, maintain your integrity, and be content to serve God wherever he puts you.”

God’s Faithfulness: “We can trust God to be with us through any trial. Because he has been faithful to us, we should remain faithful to Him.”

Life Application Study Bible copyright 1996 by Tindale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189

I need you to pray for me. I need you to pray specifically that the clot in my kidney is resolved, dissolved, and/or removed without that Catastrophic Event that no one wants here… Then there is the new tumor with the lymph node involved.   And the lungs… Oh, just PRAY FOR ME!    Hahah    And I will pray for you. Next week will be another busy venue for us. Never a dull moment in the McNabb household.

Pray for me a dull moment while your at it… lol

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PS: On the side bar there is a short video of our little girls… They don’t know anything about it. Brandi would be … crazy of she knew we shared her singing with the world. Shh! Don’t tell her!

By Daniel McNabb

We have all heard that expression sometime in our lives “Count Your Blessings”. Did you ever take the time out to really do that? Oh, I know “what have I got to be thankful for?” Bills are behind, kids are disrespectful, job is not going well or the spouse is not listening to me. I don’t want to take anything away from you, these are things that I also complained and groaned about.

My, how events in your life can change your perspective. I know some of you have experienced what our family is going through and some of you are also going through it right now. My heart goes out to you.

I want to share some of the typical things that we and other families with a loved one who has advanced cancer experience day to day. Let’s leave out the daily phone calls to maybe a doctor, pharmacy, social security, palliative care, or many other support or medical care and talk about the important stuff.

Sleep, food, conversation, children and other things. Other things might include the medicine, which seems to consume so much of the time. Teresa is very organized, and with so many prescriptions she had to have a chart for her and me to know what has been given. The day is basically 3 rounds of drugs: morning, afternoon and evening. I wish it was that simple. Two major things play into the equation, Pain and Sugar. No, not the sweet tooth, Diabetes (because of the steroids for swelling) and sugar levels keep us evaluating glucose readings and food intake. I seems like sometimes it’s just a guessing game on how much to take.

Pain, something that we have a special doctor to manage but is the biggest challenge. We see the pain doc every two weeks, but every week is different and new things develop. Then it’s up to us to figure out how much to take and what. That brings me back to the charts, we write everything taken and what time just in case we forget. Can you imagine if you forgot if you took 200mg of Morphine and went ahead and took it again. Some people might not wake up from that, we have to monitor all of it.

What makes all of it more difficult is the changes that have happened lately and the physical effects they have. The newer pain in her lower back and the tumor that bled into her left leg have affected her mobility and the amount of pain has increased. It’s not cut and dry how much of the instant release Morphine to take. You have to look and see how long ago you took Methadone, how much and when you last took the extended release Morphine. Based on that and the amount of pain, and if you want to stay awake, you decide how much to take. This is not a decision she makes on her own, it’s hard to think straight when you are on so many painkillers. No matter what we do right now they still don’t do the job, so we have resorted to applying prescription Laticane Patches on the most painful spots.

With the mobility issue and the lost of the use of her left arm simple things take on a whole new meaning. I now have to walk her up and down the stairs, a fall would be devastating. She needs assistance in just about everything you and I take for granted. Dressing and bathing is very difficult with one arm. If she needs anything (like a drink or meal) I have to carry it for her and anything she needs I have to go get it for her.

If you can imagine, taking so many different prescriptions can really mess with your body and system. There has been more than one occasion when Teresa has called for me because something isn’t right.  One time it was feeling flushed and her heart racing that scared her.   She just needed someone there to be with her to deal with each of these things.   She, or anybody in this condition needs someone to be with them all the time.  

I wanted to tell you these things to give you an insight in to what are life is really like right now.  Taking care of the kids and the house on top of this does not leave you much time for work either.  It is tough, I don’t know how anybody could get through this without having faith in God.  We always trust in Him and He always provides for us one way or another.  I didn’t share this with you to make you feel sorry for us, I just want you to understand.  I just want you to count the blessings you have and be thankful for what the Lord has provided for you.

Otherwise, today we spent half the day at the hospital and Teresa started her Chemotherapy again.  Tommorow we will be there again for the first half of the day getting CT scans to get a baseline scan on the tumors.

We have been blessed to find  Rolling Hills Church and all the great people there.  There support lately confirms are faith and allows us to share the works that God can do in our lives.  I look forward to sharing again with you on here in future posts, but don’t worry Teresa will be writing too.  God Bless.