More on Louise

I'm sad to say that Mom took a turn for the worse today. After a couple of days in the hospital after her seizure and diagnosis of a brain tumor where she was doing pretty well today she started to have seizures again. These began at about 9:40 this morning and she continued to seize almost continuously for over 2 hours. Despite being on phenytoin, and being given IV ativan the doctor was unable to stop the seizures.

Finally after starting a continuous infusion of IV ativan Mom stopped seizing but as a consequence is essentially unconscious. We placed her on hospice just yesterday, and now she is on IV morphine infusion as well as the IV ativan. The blessing is that she is comfortably sleeping, but the issue is that if the meds are stopped there is every reason to believe she will start the seizures again. The brain metastatic tumor is still there and not something we can help, so Mom will pass in the next few days.

Dad is coping pretty well, lots of family is here and Mom is well attended and loved, so she will pass comfortably and peacefully. Keep Dad and Mom in your prayers, and many thanks to all the SFM staff who are holding my practice together while I'm gone on short notice.

Ed

Ed's Mom Update

I got a call this morning that my Mom, Louise, had a generalized seizure. She had been doing generally but non-specifically poorly for a few days, and this morning after a visit to her doctor had a seizure at home. It happened in the midst of a major storm, and the paramedics brought her to Central Maine Medical Center in Waterville. There she was found to have a major brain tumor, most likely metastatic from her prior throat cancer, and to have the equivalent of a major stroke.

I'm going to try to get to Maine tonight and tomorrow. I have a red-eye from Seatac to Newark and on to Portland, ME. Weather allowing I'll get in tomorrow mid-morning to Portland, and to Waterville by noon or so. More likely it will be delayed by the storm, but I'll get there as soon as I can.

Please keep Louise and Horace, along with Bill in your prayers. Pray for comfort for Louise, peace for the rest.

I'll post again when I can.

Kay finishes her last course of this cycle of chemo this week, and plans to visit SoCal next week unless a funeral in ME happens instead.

Kay remains well, is upbeat and her usual incredible self.

Ed

Another Cycle Gone By

Kay finished her first cycle of chemo after our Christmas chemo holiday and all continues well. She feels fine, and has had no concerns with the blood counts. The CA-125 was a still good, at 10.3, but we're not sure how we feel about this. Last cycle her nadir was abou 6.0, and after the 5th cycle now the CA-125 has inched up from 9.3 last time to 10.3 this time. Kay's oncologist assures her that this is all good, that there are normally minor hour-to-hour variations in the values, and not to worry. We're not going to worry.

Kay's 57th birthday was last week, and we took a 4 day weekend last week. We spent Thursday night in Vancouver, BC. Weather was really miserable, cold mist and stiff breeze, but we managed to have fun. We went to Granville Island Thursday afternoon and evening, where I managed to smile was we walked through a few shops full of cha-cha before we settled into a warm seat at a brewery and tasted their beer. A good dinner topped off the evening. Home early for a warm winter night.

Friday we hit both the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Modern Art Gallery at times when they wer down for putting up new shows, so only saw one floor at the Vancouver Art Gallery. It was an interesting show of Emily Carr and 4 younger artists who emulate her works. She was an early Vancouver artist who found inspiration from the Native American art and life of the late 1800's and early 1900's. You can see her work at the link on her name above.

Friday night we visited Ron and Linda Bahr in Bellingham, and enjoyed their hospitality. Sat and Sunday we birded the Skagit and Sammish flats, and had nice visiting time together.

This weekend Kay and I go to a cancer retreat at Harmony Hills. We look forward to and dread this at the same time, but we think it will do us good to have time together focused on this battle ahead. We need to look ahead while being present at the same time. A challenge.

Jean turned 24 this week, and is doing great, as is Brett. Kay has two new business opportunities and is excited about doing good work, I continue my medical blog and am working on a new site with Brett as a great online resource for sex education. It's not ready for prime time yet, but I think it will be an authority site with more work.

Keep Kay in your prayers.

Love to all.

Ed

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