Here's a picture of Earl & I at Donny & Cathy's wedding. Earl's all dressed up cause he was in the wedding party.
I'm doing really well considering all the chemo I've had. My biggest physical struggle is my fatigue. I usually feel like I wake up tired and go to bed tired. I'm heading in for my 4th round of chemo on Monday.
Thank you so much for your prayers, comments, emails, etc. We need you and appreciate you.
Ramona

What an encouraging bunch of comments you guys. Thanks so much. I'm not sure how to sum up three weeks of time here, but let me start with the news we heard this morning.

Ramona had her mugga and ct scans on Tuesday and we got the CT results today. This Morning Dr. Wong and Bonnie came into the room, flipped the lights on and smiling from ear to ear they asked if we were ready for the results...well to sum it all up the lung tumors have shrunk by 50% and there is no sign of tumor returning in the hip and auxilla. Dr. Wong gave Mony a big hug and one nurse told me she got goose bumps when she heard the news. I did the only thing I knew how to do and got a cheese cake from Double D's for breakfast to celebrate. This is the first really good news we've had in a while.

Also, the Mugga scan showed that Ramona's heart has remained stable which means we can keep on with the treatments. That is in fact all we really know right now. Ramona on Day 3 of the third round of chemo and we know another round of chemo is scheduled to begin on Nov. 5. After that we once again don't have much of a plan.

Speaking of plans, the doctors are once again making sure that our faith is on God and not in medicine. We had the Telehealth (webcam) appointment with Dr. Waddell in Toronto (although we were in Ashern of all places). This was merely a followup appointment to make sure there were no problems with the last lung surgery. We also asked about the RFA of the lungs. I really put put a bit of pressure on him to make sure he was doing everything he could do to have a long term plan for Ramona. I don't know how to describe his attitude except that it was obvious that in the long term this disease usually wins.

I talked with Dr. Wong about long term stuff as well. And I want to thank everyone who is praying. From his responses it seems that from the way he sees it, every day that Ramona has is already a gift, and because she keeps responding to everything, we'll just keep going and plan day by day almost.

Ramona has the good room again. Which we are incredibly thankful for

........For now,

Earl

You know, once again this is an exciting feeling. I'm sitting in our bedroom writing this blog and Mony is out in the kitchen making supper...that is awesome if you ask me. All things considered we have much to be thankful for from this week. As previously mentioned the room was a huge blessing. Also, the St. B. nurses fight for us. They were doing anything from bringing us junk food from the staff room, to talking the charge nurse out of having a student nurse with Ramona. It was also pretty sobering talking with Bonnie...and I need to interrupt this sentence to explain who Bonnie is in case I haven't in the previous posts.
Bonnie Johnson: Bonnie is the chemo nurse. Again, I forget her technical title, but she is in charge of the chemo on the wards. She is the one who occasionally gives the chemo and has taught pretty much every nurse on the ward how to give chemo. Also, she is the person I would phone if I had medical questions or concerns from home. Last time, when Ramona was in emergency Bonnie is the one who called us from her house at 11:30 p.m. to make sure everything was okay.
Anyway, about the talk with Bonnie. Ramona asked Bonnie about Dr. Wong's other patients. How many patients survived? The answer, I think, shocked both of us. (in this case, a survivor is someone who is "cancer-free" five years after their treatment) Bonnie told us that he has only one patient who is considered a survivor and he just recently noticed lung metasteses. That's pretty sobering. We're, of course, determined that Ramona will be survivor #2...we knew that odds weren't very good...but this is worse than we expected here.
I'm simply going to leave that thought there because there is really no good segway out of it. Ramona and I were talking about the purpose of our lives this afternoon.There is the traditional Christian answer of "to glorify God", but we're quite tired of cliches. For me, a large part of my purpose at this point is to take care of my wife...but for Ramona you would think it would be something like "getting better". Here's the problem, when your purpose is something that you have very little control of. That doesn't make for that great of a life. There is something defeating about having your purpose focused on yourself....
We think about these kinds of things, again, apart from the immediate health concerns, we think about purpose.
I guess I haven't mentioned yet that Ramona was released from the hospital on Saturday morning. Which was perfect, we got to attend Evan and Renita's wedding.
Ramona has a Telehealth(webcam) appointment with Dr. Waddell in Toronto on October 12 at 9 a.m. Central. Among other things, I hope we can talk about what surgical procedures need to happen after chemo. Also, at the beginning of next round (Oct. 15) they will do a CT Scan and a Mugga Scan. This determines whether the tumors are actually shrinking and whether Ramona's heart is handling this.
Thanks again,
Earl

I'm at my brother's house showering and then quickly getting breakfast to bring back to the hospital because Ramona is getting hungry. And then I found Jay's computer.......so I'm writing....quite quickly, I might add. Admitting into the hospital Sunday night had no major issues. Monday morning around 8 a.m. they told us that Ramona's hemoglobin was low (84). This would make perfect sense why she had no energy all week. Due to this...from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. it was a process of getting blood. All the procedures from taking blood to do a group and match to actually receiving the two units of blood. This always feels like a long process. Ramona's family was here with her all day, while I went back to Arborg in the morning for a day of work. Ramona slept fairly well this night, although last evening some of the medication made her pretty anxious. We're also incredibly privileged. Last Saturday I called the hospital to see if Ramona could have a quieter room at the far end of the hall. So, they surprised her and gave her the newly renovated 'comfy room'. Private bathroom, free tv and phone, new flooring etc.
For now,
Earl

Goodmorning to everyone who everyone who is awake before 11 a.m. on Saturday morning. Lately, again, for some reason, I've had many people tell me that the blog encourages them to pray. We appreciate that a lot. Medically speaking, the last few days haven't been very noteworthy. We were almost 'normal' for the last few days. I would come from work at supper time and Ramona would be making supper. That is a huge treat for me. During the day Ramona canned things with her mom a few days this week. This would also be a good time to thank the people who chipped in and tended our garden when we couldn't this year. All things considered, the garden did really well (I might also be writing now to procrastinate digging potatoes today). Ramona is incredibly tired though. She fell asleep yesterday evening at about 7 p.m. She woke up for about 45 minutes around 10 o'clock. Now, as I'm writing, she is still sleeping. There is no question that her body needs all the energy it can get.

We have been praying for peace. It's pretty easy for us to get scared that the cancer might win the battle. Worrying does not help the healing process.

-Earl

Earl & I participated in the Terry Fox Run today. I was asked to say something and so shared my story and shared with everyone why this event means so much to me. It was really neat to have this opportunity but also kind of terrifying!
It was a super gorgeous day and so Earl pushed me on the wheelchair while he rollerbladed. We had some family and friends also participate so they took turns pushing me.




This picture is taken moments before we go bald. (Due to my experience a year ago, I expected my hair to start to fall out today. This morning it wasn't really, but by the afternoon I was starting to lose it. It was so much easier to have my hair shaved seeing that it was starting to come out. I'm so grateful for that perfect timing!




There were 7 of us that shaved our heads to bring in more money. Four young girls also had their ponytails cut off. What a neat event with the community chearing you on. My brother Randy also decided to get his head shaved.






And this is us after.


I really enjoyed the event today. I felt such community support by hundreds that I don't even know. Arborg has an amazing reputation with bringing in lots of money. Today I know that over $10,000 was donated!!Wow.

Because Terry Fox and I both fought/are fighting sarcoma I know that I want to a part of this event as many years as possible.

Thursday night when I wrote Ramona was pretty tired. I guess she fell asleep around 8:15. That night she didn't have a fever but she was slightly warmer than what would be normal. Although I knew this was the time when she could get a fever I went to work friday morning anyway. Ramona called me at 8:30 telling me she temperature was in the upper 37's. This is still okay, but the magic number they gave us was 38. Then we need to head to emergency to make sure everything is okay. At 11:30 she called me to say her temperature was 38.2. To make a long story short I came home and pretty much had to force Ramona to go to St. B. At that point she wasn't feeling too sick, but her temperature showed a fever. By 3:30 when we got to Winnipeg, we were pretty glad to be there. Ramona was feeling much more sick.......I need to speed my story up since we're heading to my parents right away.......the fact that we're home is pretty amazing...last night the doctors told Ramona she would probably be stuck in the hospital for a few days. Her white blood count is currently 0.4. In the hospital they require you to be in isolation if you're under 1.0. Anyway, Ramona's doctor this morning decided she could go home. She is on antibiotics and she can drink water. This is all they would be doing for her in the hospital now anyway. Keep her hydrated and on antibiotics. This doctor encouraged us to still do the Terry Fox Run tomorrow, so we're excited about that.
The effects of chemo are bothersome for Ramona now. The lining of her digestive tract (throat, large intestine, etc...) are affected. Not fun.
Thanks for caring,
Earl

We're relaxing at home again tonight. Ramona fell asleep right beside me here. She's been resting/sleeping for a while already. This is the weekend where her white blood cell count will drop almost to zero. Dr. Wong didn't warn us as profusely as last summer, mainly because we've done this all before, but if Ramona gets a fever we need to head to emergency immediately. A body without blood cells doesn't fight very well.
This is just a note so that you know how to pray,
Earl

Ramona and I are sitting around enjoying an evening at home. Like Joanna mentioned in one of her comments. No news is probably good news. Our version of a normal day does not include much internet time. Anyway, I've confessed that many times before.
We had a bit of a scary incident last night. Ramona and I were laying in bed and I was reading a book. It was windy and raining out side and things were blowing around. We heard the sound of what seemed like people coming to our house and making noise on our deck. We had our lights all off. And so it all felt a little weird to me. I went to the door to see what was going on. About 12 feet in front of me, a bear ran in front of my deck and into the bush. I shone my flashlight at the bush. I had no gun. End of story.
I'm incredibly thankful that I can be writing about bears. Ramona has handled chemo incredibly well. In fact, if we hadn't spent last week in Winnipeg, we might not even know that Ramona had had chemo. Not quite, she is weaker and more tired....and yes, her hair will probably begin to fall out this next week.
Speaking of which, we are hoping to be part of the Terry Fox Run in Arborg this weekend. It sounds like a good event with the 10km run and head shaving. I guess I could push Ramona on the wheelchair with my rollerblades or something. Depending how everything works, I guess Ramona might shave her head there too, since that will happen shortly anyway.
Completely changing the topic, one of my friends had a good reminder for me about something to be thankful for. We were talking about how Ramona is in a life and death battle with cancer. There was something incredibly basic, yet noteworthy that he mentioned. Ramona is a Christian, and therefore the life and death battle is only on earth. After earth we will be in heaven. Imagine how frightening it would be if the battle was between life and eternal 'death' in hell. People all around us are battling with cancer and for many of them the battle ends in an eternity in hell. Ramona and I both often feel pretty hopeless and this was a much needed reminder that we do have hope.
Thanks for caring,
Earl

Hey...just a note that the last few days have gone amazingly well. Ramona has hardly even felt nauseous. She is on her last bag of ifosfamide right now. Everything is on pace to be out of here by tomorrow morning... I hate the pressure of these kiosk machines...i'm almost out of time....have an awesome day.
Earl

I guess it's high time to update this blog...and as usual no one likes to hear about good intentions. Anyway, Ramona is now beginning day 2 of chemo. When I left the room 10 minutes ago we were joking around with the nurses and Ramona was feeling fine. The drug dexoroxane (the heart protectant that was supposed to be super nauseating) has had no negative side effects so far. This is really awesome. Dr. Wong told Ramona this morning that if it causes nausea the effects are supposed to appear almost immediately after they inject the drug.
I sometimes get asked what people can do to help us/Ramona. This is a really tough question to answer.....we're just like everyone else in the world who absolutely love it when people show that they truly care. And most people have different ways of showing they care, so it's not a question that can be answered simply like. "we need food" or "if Ramona was given......something...then she would be happy"
One thing we wonder about is how much to dabble with alternative medicine. The complexities of the question are not something I want to discuss on the blog right now. I often almost go crazy trying to figure out what is wise and what is not wise. I think and stress out about this as if I actually have something to do with how Ramona will get better. If you could pray for peace as we battle through those decisions would be much appreciated too. God can as easily heal Ramona with a glass of water as with a bag of doxorubicin or anything else. I often forget that.
Anyway, I'll go bring the computer to Ramona so she can read previous comments (no Internet access in the room unfortunately)
Earl

We spoke with Dr. Wong the other day. It sounds like chemo will begin on September 3. The chemo drugs will be like last summer with the addition of the drug dexoroxane. This is a heart protectant that will increase nausea and vomiting. The adriamyacin has already permanently weakened Ramona's heart (although it is still in the 'normal' range) and Dr. Wong is not going to take the chance that it could be damaged more.....so all the preparation begins...we are heading back to Winnipeg for a Friday 8:15 a.m. appointment to put Ramona's PICC line in....
When I'm not so lazy, I'll post some pictures of us painting our house...
-Earl

Just a note to say that we haven't fallen off the face of the earth. On monday at lunch they released Ramona from the hospital. We stayed at the Days Inn Monday night and flew home Tuesday afternoon. I apologize that we couldn't get our internet working at the Days Inn. Anyway, we're living life at home. We're trying to do some work on our house (hopefully the "red" paint on our walls quits looking pink soon). We're waiting to talk to Dr. Wong in three days. Dr. Wong has talked to Dr. Waddell about chemo stuff. We will strategize with him to see if and when chemo will happen. This is a pretty tough thought.
-Earl

Fortunately for myself I don't believe in luck or superstition or any of that kind of stuff. If I did I wouldn't be writing a blog today. I'm tempted to look back and check how many times I've written like I was care-free and expecting good results from a certain test and then the results were worse than I expected. Anyway, yesterday the second x-ray that we were waiting for showed that the lung drooped a little bit again. Nothing to worry about, unless it gets worse instead of better. So, again this morning, they did an x-ray. As long as the lung stayed slightly drooped like yesterday or got any better, we're out of here. So, I'm writing here again, because I'm looking for something to do while I'm waiting for the doctors to tell us to get out of the hospital.
Ramona slept really well this night. I guess the worst part of her night is that some of her medication makes her dreams pretty intense. I tried really hard to be sympathetic and listen to what her dreams were about at 2 a.m.
Ramona is sleeping again. It's sometimes hard to make comparisons to last lung surgery, but I think her breathing is still more shallow and laboured than last time. We're both very fine to stay in this hospital until we're sure everything is functioning well.
Last night ended up being encouraging for both of us. A nurse and doctor together decided it was okay for Ramona and I to leave the hospital for supper. I'm not sure if they forgot that the epidural catheter was still in her back. (Don't worry, the line was disconnected, but the little plastic needle was still in her back) Anyway, when we got back, the charge nurse told Ramona she shouldn't have left. We really enjoyed supper. We went to the Hardrock Cafe on Yonge Street and Dundas. There was also an African Dance Festival going on right outside the restaurant. We did very little dancing, but had a splendid time regardless.
Our flight is booked for tomorrow, hopefully we're on it.
-Earl

Ramona just finished her second x-ray of the day. She is too busy reading her own chart to chat with me now...so I figured I would just come and write. At this point news seems to be good. Earlier this afternoon, Ramona's x-ray showed that her lungs were good enough to remove the chest tube. They removed the chest tube a few hours ago and now they are doing another x-ray to make sure the lungs are still fine. We don't suspect any problems. Ramona's epidural was disconnected, but it takes 24-48 hours for the drugs to leave her body. The nurses want to make sure she is fine as she transitions from the epidural to only percocet for pain management. We expect Ramona will be out of the hospital early tomorrow but we still haven't heard when the doctors will let her fly. We don't really expect to spend much extra time here in Toronto. So that's our Sunday afternoon. We had quite an amazing date last night. I ran to the corner of Spadina and Queen to go rent a DVD...we made some popcorn...we watched half the movie...and then due to our old age we decided to go to bed...Ramona slept really well...anyway...our neighbors marriage issues on the other side of the room are too loud for us to finish our movie now...
Finally more relaxed,
Earl

Carol is flying out of Toronto at 8:55 tonight.
Ramona will be out of hospital Sunday night at the earliest.
Ramona has walked 2.5 laps around the floor today
Ramona has eaten 1 cherry 1 grape and 1 chicken burger today.
I was dumb and paid over 8 dollars for her chicken burger.
Ramona's lung is inflated again.
Pray for energy for everyone
-Earl

Hey Jay, thanks for posting that prayer request for us. I don't know why that seems to happen so often. I just finished a blog where I was joking around about bird poop and then I go to Ramona's room and find out she has a fever of 38.9. And then while I was phoning my family to chat with them and tell them about Ramona's fever the nurse came back and checked Ramona's temperature. She was back down to 37.1. I chose not to immediately post anything, I thought it would be okay to have people praying anyway. Ramona's body sure has taken a beating. We're still not exactly sure what is up with this vomiting and fever stuff, but Ramona is pretty weak and exhausted and I guess this might just be the result.
The picture on the right is there so you guys who sent Ramona flowers can see what they look like. (I hope you appreciate all the effort I put into cleaning up before I took this picture) (Also note that I printed out the blog for Ramona to read sometime when she has the energy) . Thank you very much for the flowers. Also, thanks to Erin for bringing the food. I finished the banana bread today.
At this point Ramona's mom is planning to leave Toronto tomorrow afternoon. Since this is her last night here she'll stay with Ramona tonight again. Pray for both of them that they get lots of sleep tonight.
Goodnight,
Earl

Today has been a day of set backs so far. Yesterday, just before I went to the hotel for night (Ramona's mom stayed with her) I went for a lap around the floor with Ramona. After walking, she seemed to have more trouble breathing than we thought she should. It probably took half an hour until things started feeling okay again. When I left the hospital I thought things were going fairly well and it turns out that Ramona actually did have a pretty good night. At 10:45 this morning, when I arrived at the hospital Ramona was again in her bed trying to catch her breath. (It's pretty frightening to feel like you can't breath). The nurses didn't quite know what was going on but all her vital signs were still good, so we got things settled down enough that Ramona could be taken down for her x-ray. By this time Ramona was feeling extremely cold. We made it down to X-ray and about half a minute later Ramona threw up...we got her some water and more warm blankets, but after she threw up she still went for the x-ray. She came back upstairs and it was probably 12:30 before she was warmed up and relaxed enough to sleep. She slept fairly well, off and on between 12:30 and 3:00. During this time they told us that the x-ray showed that Ramona's left lung hadn't fully inflated yet. This was causing some of the problems. Because of this, they once again have the suction on in her chest tube. Also, one thing we noticed last night is that there are air pockets in her shoulder and neck. There is a big technical name for this. Apparently, it won't cause any problems except discomfort for Ramona (Please pray about Ramona's pain). At about three o'clock now, Ramona got up to walk again (the doctor recommended more walking to help her lungs inflate). After this walk she seemed to being doing a little better than previously. Ramona's mom was back in the hospital so after her walk now I decided to get out of the hospital for a bit. This ironically isn't usually much fun for me. I don't really like hanging out with myself and for some reason i don't feel like putting in the effort it takes to meet and connect with new people right now...so today I called my good buddy Curt (sorry man, I didn't hang up on you, my phone battery died)...i was in the middle of sitting under a tree and telling him what you just read when, to add emphasis to how I was feeling I felt a dollop of warm, green and white, gooey goodness land on my right shoulder. I looked up and realized there were about 25 pigeons sitting above my head. Lesson learned.
Anyway, I' m not sure if any of the above information affects when we are coming home. As usual, we just wait and see.
Thanks again to the prayer warriors,
Earl

Breakfast in the Step down Unit: The first thing you will notice about this picture is my beautiful wife. She is smiling and eating breakfast with us. What you don't see is that she was up much of the night. The reason is because she was so itchy. Her morphine dosage was a little to high. She had relatively little pain, but as previously mentioned, she was so itchy she would wake up every few minutes and scratch herself. Also the stepdown unit was quite noisy as most of her roommates were coughing and gagging throughout the night. In the morning hours she got more sleep (they lowered morphine dosage, and now later they changed her medication, also, it got quieter), and I really hope she is sleeping now. One thing that also makes the night hard for sleeping is that her blood pressure was alarmingly low, we're not sure why it happened, but it's a repeat of the night following her previous lung surgery. Possibly just with time or because the morphine dosage was lowered Ramona's blood pressure is back to normal.
The second thing you will notice about this picture is that I am drinking the superior coffee.
The third thing you keeners will try to figure out is how many lines and hoses Ramona is attached to (today and tomorrow are almost a constant process of removing medical devices from her) (go ahead, zoom in on the correct apparatus and try to figure out if Ramona still has airleaks in her lungs)
We talked to the resident doctor this morning. He said that optimistically Ramona is out of the hospital tomorrow, but more realistically she is out on Saturday. Also, the tumor that they could not find in her lung was only 2mm in diameter. Since Ramona is likely doing chemo now, this isn't something to worry about at the moment.











This is Nhung. She is one of the amazing nurses in the Stepdown Unit. For those of you trying to picture this room, it has four patients in the room with two nurses assigned to these four patients. On the above picture you see Ramona on the left side of her bed, she is sitting two feet and one curtain width away from her neighbor. The desk that Nhung is sitting at is 4.5 feet away from the right side of her bed.
Thankyou for reminding us that you are praying. Ramona will be exhausted trying to recover from this surgery. The challenge will be to build emotional stamina for chemo in the middle of the recovery now.
-Earl

Surgery is done. Ramona is in the recovery room now. They estimate that she should be up in the room in about an hour. Dr. Waddell said the surgery went fine. The CT Scan showed 9 spots and the doctors removed 11 spots. It's good they got 11 spots, but it's a bad sign that there are more tiny spots coming. Also, Dr. Waddell said that there was one spot on the lungs that they could see on the CT Scan, but they could not feel on the lungs, so they didn't remove it. I don't know the size of that spot. Dr. Waddell again talked about chemotherapy. If he had his way Ramona would be doing chemo in 3 or 4 weeks. This is, of course, to be determined yet. Chemo seems to be more important all the time as small spots in the lungs are becoming more numerous. The procedure to 'burn' the small spots in the right is up in the air right now. Dr. Waddell figured there was probably only one or two people in the country with experience to do this, we'll have to see when these people are available and what happens with chemo etc....etc...
The next day or two will not be much fun for Ramona so please don't stop praying yet.
-Earl