Jon's had a good week. His appetite has returned with full force, he's working out and even felt well enough to spend the day working in the yard with our nephew, Kyle. Before his last surgery they cut down trees on our property for firewood so Friday was chipping all the brush and scrap wood. He is tired and sore today but happy to be feeling productive. I was able to get him in to see my massage therapist, Christina, today for an 1 1/2 massage which helped all those sore tired muscles.

Jon has been talking to the schedulers at UW for the next PET scan and has them looking into the photodynamic therapy. We are still awaiting the day and time of the PET scan which will hopefully take place next week. Nothing moves quickly with an entity as large as the University of Washington. From my research, it appears that some photodynamic therapy research has been done at UW and WSU but so far no one can tell us if it's currently being utilized for patient care. I did find two hospitals in Tulsa and St.Louis that offer the procedure for metastatic cancer to the lungs but we are really hoping to stay close to home. Jon's favorite assistant, Carrie, told him, "if the procedure is done at all, it's done here". She is looking into to possibilities for us.

I'm still working on getting Dr. Chue's article published. My friend, Mari, has a sister in the Netherlands that is an editor for Elsivar, a publishing company. She emailed her the article this week and we are hoping this might be the contact that we need to get it into a medical journal.

Tonight was Kelsey's high school Homecoming dance. It is the first formal dance he has attended. He went with a large group of friends and escorted a young lady he's known since grade school. I can't help myself but to post at least one picture of him on the blog!

Jon and I went to the movies to see "W" tonight (great flick) and we returned home to Levi, Ericka and the kids (isn't that cool...multiples!)watching UFC at our house with their friends. It was great to have a little time to visit with everyone. Wyatt and Maelie are both absolutely adorable and we are all looking forward to the holidays.

Today we had the pleasure of meeting with both Dr. Chue and Dr. Reilly. Honestly, the two of them never cease to amaze and impress me! Our visit started with a warm reception from the entire staff; keep in mind that none of them have seen us since the end of May. There were yelps, hugs, and lots of joking around. Jon has many "girlfriends" at the clinic and they all came out to give him a bad-time and ask me how I can possibly put up with him?!

Dr. Chue was first and he started the visit by handing me a paper on pancreatic cancer that he has assigned me to have published for him while he is off to have his glaucoma surgery. It is essentially the story of 4 year survivor Aaron Barret and needs to be told both to the cancer community and to the world. He was turned down by his first submission and is completely pissed off about the entire thing. I've started my preliminary research tonight and am determined to make this happen. As I was hoping, Dr. Chue requested a PET scan and we will have that ASAP so he can review it before he takes his leave. At this point we are most concerned with controlling the systemic disease and focally treating the lung lesions. The type of treatment will depend on the results of the PET scan. Our first choice is a treatment called Photodynamic Therapy that uses laser to "zap" the lung tumors. We do not know yet if Jon is a candidate or where it is available but I'm working on both of those issues tonight.

Next we saw Dr. Reilly who fine-tuned all of Jon's supplements. He is currently focusing on Jon's digestive system and weight gain (the man is 165 pounds-not good). Next he prescribed the supplements that inhibit cancer growth and stimulate the Natural Killer Cells that will ultimately "eat up" the cancer and cell debris.

We are all anxiously awaiting the PET scan results and the liver MRI in November. Dr. Chue did not want Jon to take any of the oral chemo right now. He says it is too experimental at this point. He has also outlined a systemic chemo program should that become necessary in his absence. He also gave Jon his blessing to have "time-off" until January to regain his weight, strength and motivation before moving forward with any treatment.

Please keep Dr. Chue in all of your prayers. The man is truly a genius and the world needs his continued contribution to health and wellness. He will be on sabbatical from November 2008 through May 2009 for surgical treatment of glaucoma.

It's been a busy and interesting weekend. Jon's felt mostly good although he does have episodes of fatigue and nausea. Each day is a little better and he has walked Lakeland Hills both Saturday and Sunday. No weight lifting yet but hopefully next week.

We received a telephone call from Dr. Chue on Friday nighy, inviting us to a party at a fellow pancreatic cancer patient's home on Saturday afternoon. Her name is Sharon and she was diagnosed just a week before Jon. She hosted a party for patients and staff of SCTWC to celebrate her successful treatment. When we arrived at her home it was remarkable to see how fit and healthy she is...actually radiant. She is 60 years old and was diagnosed in October of 2006. At the time of her diagnosis she was "too busy" taking care of her sick husband to receive any treatment. Her husband passed away in November and she began treatment with Dr. Chue in December (and I think I have it tough?!). There were several other pancreatic cancer patients present as well as one metastatic breast cancer survivor. Three of the nurses, including our favorite, Dee, were there as well as the Chuemaster himself.

It was remarkable to listen to each of their stories. Sadly, they were all told by their original oncologists that they had only months to live. Fortunately for all of them they somehow arrived on the doorstep of Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center in search of Dr. Chue. In the rest of the medical community it is unheard of to for a pancreatic cancer patient to survive beyond a year and 6 months is considered remarkable. The most famous patient, Aaron Barret has survived four years and Dr. Chue loves to tell the story of how he originally presented Aaron's case to the Tumor Board at Swedish Hospital and they informed him that it was impossible for Aaron to have pancreatic cancer since he was still alive after 18 months. Dr. Chue had to prove to them again and again through scans, biopsies and slides that he was indeed this successful at pancreatic cancer treatment.

It was good for Jon to be around all of these survivors although he says that when he's away from treatment and other patients it makes him forget that he has cancer. There was a 70 year old Chinese women in our group who had survived pancreatic cancer over two years with a clean scan. She really kicked Jon's butt. She hikes Tiger Mountain every day with her husband and told Jon to quit worrying about killing cancer and start enjoying life. She reminded him that there was a reason that he got cancer in the first place and it was a message that he had to change something in his life. She has a PhD in Pharmacology and I totally enjoyed talking all the science and philosophy of cancer treatment with her.

On a more disconcerting note, Dr. Chue is having surgery on his eyes for glaucoma in November and will be on a 6 month leave of absence. We see him on Tuesday to work up the next game plan but he will be absent for this next phase of treatment. We will be seeing Dr. Cunningham at SCTWC and continue with Dr. Gosswami at UW. Most of Dr. Chue's pancreatic patients are taking a new oral chemo that is a derivative of the old Thalidimide from the 60's. It is used to suppress cancer growth once the disease is controlled. My hope is that Jon's next step will be that oral medication and possibly radiofrequency ablation to the lung tumor. He still needs to gain about 20 pounds before we move forward with another surgery or treatment. He's resistant to taking any oral medication but I'm hoping Dr. Chue will be persuasive on Tuesday.

JUST A FEW MORE

This first picture just cracks me up, it's so representative of each of their personalities!

More Baby Pix

Wyatt Douglas Nichols

Wyatt Douglas Nichols was born to Ericka and Levi Nichols at 12:31pm on October 12, 2008. He is 8lbs 5 ounces and 20 inches long. Mom, Dad, Big Sister and Baby are all doing well.

We have a new baby boy this afternoon! Wyatt is 8 pounds 5 ounces. Mom, Dad and baby are all doing well...more info and pictures to follow.

It's been a good week and Jon has felt well every day. He's still more tired then he'd like but all in all has recovered much better from this procedure then the last. He left Friday morning for a hunting trip with the Bartran boys and is expected back before my birthday next week.

I had an excellent day with Kelsey today at a campus tour of Seattle University. It's on the top of his list for colleges (at the moment) and I was very impressed with the school. We then went to pick out his tuxedo for Homecoming and met Elizabeth for dinner. She is back to school, work and finally feeling her old self again. It was good to see the Lizard (Elizabeth) back in her natural habitat (Nordstroms) :)

We are all still anxiously awaiting the newest addition to the family. Ericka has had lots of contractions but still no baby. Her ultrasound on Thursday weighed in at 9 pounds, 1 ounce. (yikes!) I promised her that I removed my evil spell that had been keeping her from having that child before my associate doctor returned from vacation...any day now!!!

Since my last post Jon's been out to dinner, walked Lakeland Hills twice and lifted weights once. He's been to church and joined Kelsey and LoriB for dinner at our house Saturday night. All in all a good weekend and he's saying he hasn't recovered this quickly from any of the prior procedures. He plans on leaving for a hunting trip Friday for deer in Eastern Washington. He's really skinny so we're all trying to fatten him up. I'm cooking up a storm tonight so there's plenty to eat when I go back to work on Monday.

Every days a better day for Jon. He was up most of the day and now naps on the couch instead of in bed. Kind of pathetic, but we measure improvement by being able to get from the bed to the couch! When I called him on my lunch hour he said he felt good and was going to try to walk Lakeland Hills today. Of course he crashed an hour later and never made it, but at least he feels well enough to think about it :)

We see Dr. Chue and Dr. Reilly on October 21st. I anticipate Jon will have a PET scan after that visit to determine how much active cancer is left and formulate our game plan. He has an MRI of his liver in November to measure the effectiveness of the embolization. He's planning on taking a nice long break from treatment this month and doing some local deer hunting. He's definitely ready for both.