Kay is Doing Great

As Kay approaches the end of her 5th cycle of this second course of chemo she continues to be a chemo superstar. She will get the last PARP infusion portion of this course and take next week off. She did develop some anemia a while ago, and got a 2 unit blood transfusion, which went uneventfully and left her full of energy for our Cabos Christmas vacation. We've been back almost 2 weeks now, and all continues well. She will get at least one more course, then we are working with our oncologist to decide what if anything to do after that besides wait, have fun, and pray.

Kay's last CA-125 was down to 9.3, from 11.5 the time prior, so the downward trend continues. We pray that this PARP working with her chemo will lead to a much longer remission, maybe even a cure.

Jean has moved to an apartment in Bellevue for a short time as a sublease prior to her long engagement for her job in southern Oregon, so Kay and I are home alone again. We're jamming as much fun into life as we can. Last night we, really Kay, hosted our Rotary book club, after reading The Immortal Live of Henrietta Lacks. It was an interesting story of the HeLa cell line that has been used for most of the cell research in the last 60 years.

Brett is back to start his Senior year at Seattle University, and is doing well. He is working out a lot, having some fun, learning lots and trying to learn more about online marketing as an entrepreneurial pursuit.

DrPullen.com, my medical blog, continues to grow in viewer volume and on the search engines, and I am still having fun with writing.

Winter birding in WA is great, and I'm off to E. WA with a group this weekend, while Kay stays warm in Puyallup. The next week we are joining Ron and Linda Bahr, good friends, on a trip to Vancouver, and a weekend of birding the Skagit and Sammish flats for raptors and winter passerines. Then the next weekend off to a cancer retreat where we hope to renew and invigorate our spiritual and emotional reserves to continue the fight.

Hope this finds you all well. Keep Kay in your prayers, asking for a long remission and continued good health.

Merry Chiristmas from Cabos San Lucas

2010 has been another eventful year for the Pullen family, with lots of highs and some significant lows. One of the highs is that I’m writing this letter with sunglasses on in Cabos San Lucas while on a 2 week vacation with the whole nuclear family. Brett has completed his fall quarter at Seattle University and Jean is taking a two week vacation from her job at Ernest and Young to join Kay and me for the holidays. Sunshine makes everything seem a little better.

Jean started her job at E&Y this year, after delaying her start until January and staying home much of the year to help while Kay was sick. She is in the audit division and spends her time mostly at clients locations. As should be no surprise to anyone who knows Jean she is on the recruiting team for her office, and she is getting great job reviews. It’s fun to see her having such success in her career. She has transferred to the Seattle office and is currently living at home the few days a month when she’s not on location for work.

Brett is a Senior at Seattle U. as an English literature major. He is living in an apartment just off campus, and enjoying Seattle. Brett has a new interest in internet marketing and has started several web sites. He hopes to establish himself as an entrepreneur after school.

Kay and I have focused on living as normally as possible in the midst of her ongoing treatment for ovarian cancer. We are learning that living with cancer is all about doing the things you love and enjoy, and is really not much different from living great days everyday. Do the things you cherish, be with the ones you love, and make time for yourself. Highlights of the year have been Fay Colmar’s 80^th birthday party in Fullerton in February. In May, Kay traveled to NYC with her brother, Keith to visit his daughter Heather and she showed them around town. In August we traveled to Maine with Jean, followed by 10 days in Italy, and now our holiday vacation in Cabos. The struggle has been the recurrence of Kay’s cancer, restarting chemotherapy and the PARP inhibitor trial and therapy. Kay remains a chemo superstar, tolerating the drugs well, and responding again with dropping CA-125 tumor marker numbers.

I am now practicing full time as a family doctor after passing on the medical director to Dr. Marc Aversa. I love my patients and working at Sound Family Medicine. Without the medical director job I’ve had time to explore other interests. I’ve continued my birding hobby, and am getting out more than before. My new endeavor is DrPullen.com, a medical blog I post to several times a week. I’m learning a lot about internet writing, web site promotion, and am really having fun.

I’ll keep this brief as I’ve posted intermittently to this site and will continue keeping everyone up to date here. May you all have a great holiday, rejoice in the celebration of the birth of our Lord, and may the incredible grace of Jesus be with you this holiday season.

All our love,

The Pullens

When in Doubt: Wait

I have been putting up posts after each 3 week CA-125 result comes back to keep everyone in the loop about Kay's progress in this second course of chemo. This time I'm a week late on the post, mostly because I have been struggling to know what I think of the results. The number came back at 11.5 this time and both Kay and I have not quite known how to think about this. The cup-half-full way to look at it is, "Hey. This is good, it's lower than the 14 number 3 weeks ago, and lower is better." The cup-half-empty thought is, "Gosh, I sure wish it had dropped more. We really want to get to numbers like 5-6 range, and this has been 3 cycles of the treatment now." After reflection we remain hopeful.

Looking at the overall picture Kay is doing well through her chemo again. She really is a chemo superstar. She has very little nausea, and has not lost much hair this time, though she thinks the curly hair she got when the hair grew back after the prior chemo now seems to be losing the curl and is a bit finer. Still she has become anemic this time. At chemo this week her blood pressure was so low they insisted she get a blood transfusion. This is arranged for Saturday. That means this week she will get chemo on Tuesday, go in for neupogen shots on Wed. & Thurs. and the the PARP infusion Friday. Then spend 6 hours Saturday getting a blood transfusion. She is feeling seriously inconvenienced by all this therapy and grieves her normal life a bit.

The good part of getting the blood now is that we hope it will give her more energy to enjoy our big vacation coming up. We're going to Cabos for 2 weeks, leaving Thursday Dec 16th. Lots of good food, sun, water, rest, & fun.

We are going to get out Christmas cards soon but will post a Christmas letter here rather than printing and mailing it this year. Hope to have lots more photos, and save paper.

Pray for patience for Kay, efficacy for the chemo, and for a blessed Christmas for all.

Ed

Giving Thanks

Kay is in So. Cal. now visiting her family with Jean. They picked a great time to leave. It's 18 degrees this morning in Puyallup, with 2-3 inches of snow last night and yesterday, and things so slow at the office that I'm posting this from my workstation at Sunrise. Brett and I join them today (Brett) and tomorrow (me). The whole Colmar family will be in one place at one time for the first time in memory. All Fay and Vince, all 5 sibs, all the spouses and offspring of the fab 5 will be together at Thanksgiving. That's something to really be thankful about.



Kay continues to do very well. She will start her fourth course of this cycle of chemo next Tuesday, and so far except for needing Neupogen to suppport her white blood cell count, and getting anemic she is doing well. One more cycle and then we take a brief hiatus to go to Cabos for the holidays. Rob, Kay's oncologist, is not really ecstatic that Kay is going to Mexico, but we are determined to live as normally as we can.



This whole "Living with cancer" thing is challenging, but we are trying to keep the focus on the living and not on the cancer. Kay is really good at keeping us focused on the positive, and we feel blessed that her response to treatment so far is very positive.



May you all have a great Thanksgiving, and find much to be thankful about.



Ed

Kay's Not One to Let a Little Anemia Get Her Down

Yesterday Kay went to step aerobics class at the YMCA, and felt like the instructor kept looking at her to get her to "keep up" and when she got home she felt she needed a little nap. Today at her chemo session when she got her blood count results she understood why. Her red blood cell counts, measured typically by the hematocrit, or percentage of the blood made up of red blood cells, was 25%. Normal is 38-44% in women, and Kay's has been dropping recently. Last week it was down to 30%, and she was a bit more tired. 25% is getting pretty low, and Rob McCroskey offered her a transfusion today. The nurse quickly interrupted, reminding Rob that Kay had been at step class the day before, and she obviously was doing well enough to avoid a transfusion. Still, being so fit that she can do step aerobics with only 2/3 of the oxygen carrying capacity of normal is one more extraordianry thing about this wife of mine. Kay is one strong woman.

This said, I am trying to convince her that maybe walking is a better option right now for her exercise. I think she is taking this under consideration.

Overall except for the blood counts (her neutrophil count is low also, but not dangerously low, and we start Nupogen again tomorrow) all is going well. No problems again today with chemo. Next week is Kay's off week, meaning no chemo infusions, and she is leaving Saturday for southern CA and a nice weeklong visit with her family. Jean is going with her for the whole week, and Brett and I join later in the week.

Pray for red blood cells and bone marrow function, for sunshine in So. Cal., and join us next week in giving thanks for all that is good. Happy Thanksgiving.

Ed

Brief update - Good.

Kay started cycle 3 of her Chemo + PARP today, and the big news is twofold. Biggest news is her CA-125 was down to 14.5 today, a nice drop from last cycle, and great news. The other news is Kay napped for 2 hours in the chemo today. She usually dozes for a few minutes, but a 2 hour snooze is out of her routine, and a nice way to pass her hours there. Anyway all is going nicely and we appreciate all the prayers and support.

Ed

Cycle 2 and All's Well

Kay finishes her second cycle of the chemo for her recurrence of the ovarian cancer this week. So far no real problems. Her white blood cell count is somewhat low, so we're back into the no kissing mode, but hugs are still OK. She is getting a 3 day course of a granulocyte colony stimulating factor drug called Nupogen to push her bone marrow to produce more white blood cells in hopes of avoiding illness. She complemented me on my shot giving technique last night. I think she just likes it when I pinch her personally, but whatever makes Kay happy is my pleasure.

Kay has not lost hair yet, making it likely she will not with this regimen of therapy. She is happy about that and looks great. As we go into the influenza season, we are working hard to stay well, and so I posted today on tricks to Avoid Getting Sick in my medical blog today. You may want to check it out.

This week has been a challenging one, in that a long-time patient and family friend Abe Riggs passed away today. He is a long time member of Celebration Lutheran Church where we attend, and I ask you all to keep his family in your prayers.


Love and thanks to all for your continued prayers and support.



Ed