Short Update

Carrie met with an Oncologist today at MD Anderson in Houston and he agrees with our Oncologist at UAB with the method of treatment that has been recommended to us. We meet with a specialist on Monday just for another confirmation of the treatment.

Good News

Carrie met with the Oncologist this afternoon and today's CT Scan came back clean. Woo Hoo!!! We go to M D Anderson in Houston on the 29th of October just to make sure that we are following the right course of action. Carrie will get CT Scans every 3 months for the next 2 years and then every 4-6 months for 3 more years. Carrie's status for taking chemo is still undecided and we are waiting to hear what M D Anderson says before proceeding with any treatment. Carrie has been released for work and plans on starting back on the 21st of October.

And the journey continues

Carrie met with her Oncologist, Dr. Mollie DeShazo, yesterday at UAB. Dr. DeShazo is considered the "expert" for Carrie's form of cancer and Carrie's case is the third case Dr. DeShazo has seen, EVER. Carrie has been prescribed a drug called Mitatane. It is a different type of chemotherapy in that it doesn't kill the white blood cells like the typical chemo treatments and it is in a pill form. The side effects of the medicine, include nausea, diarrhea and vertigo. They are going to start Carrie on a very low dose(500mg) and it increase it to 2g over the next few weeks. She will have to take the drug daily and continue to take it for 6 months to a year. Due to the rarity of the cancer Dr. DeShazo is trying to contact other doctors at other clinics to get some info on how to handle this.

Carrie Post-Op Report

We talked to Dr. Arnoletti today and he gave us a good report. He said that there is some fluid in her chest but if it wasn't causing her any problems then there is no reason to worry. The incision is healing as expected. We scheduled a consult with a Medical Oncologist on September 30th to discuss Chemotherapy.

All in all Carrie is doing good. She getting stronger everyday.

Jason

Update Correction

Okay my apologizes. There was some confusion on UAB's part as to when we go back to the doctor and I just now noticed that my blog says we went yesterday. Truth be told we did not go the doctor yesterday. We go next Tuesday Sept. 8.

As for a general update, Carrie is doing good at home. She is getting stronger everyday. Pray for patience for her. The healing process is not going as quickly as she would like and she is getting a little stir crazy. I would be too if I had to stay inside all day, can't lift anything over 5lbs and ran out of shows on Tivo the second day after getting home.

As for a second prayer request, Auburn has been hit with Swine flu. We have about 30 people here at the Vet School out sick with it. Pray that I don't catch it and take it home with me.

Home Sweet Home

After 12 days and Carrie's 7 1/2 hour surgery we are finally home. It hit us kind of quick to. I spent the night at the hospital with Carrie last night and at about 5am one of the residents came in to check on her. He removed one of her bandages and said that they were going to talk to Dr. Arnoletti about her going home today or tomorrow. She and I had already talked about if we were really ready to come home and decided that it would completely up to the doctor. So while Carrie's mom and I were gone to the hotel to close things out and get all of our stuff packed up, Dr. Arnoletti makes the rounds and talks to Carrie. He said that he was certain that she was physically able to go home. This was about 11:30 am. After I got back to her room we were sitting there talking about everything and was thinking that it would later this afternoon when we would be discharged. At noon, the chief resident came in to remove the PICC line out of Carrie's arm and she asked him if he knew about how long it would take before she could leave and he said 30 minutes. So needless to say we didn't have much time to get everything packed up in the room and get it loaded in the car which was three blocks away. Carrie was discharged shortly after 1pm and it took a little while for the escorts to come get Carrie. We left the hospital at about 2:15pm and got to Auburn about 4:30pm (I took it easy on the interstate). We unloaded, I got prescriptions filled and dinner and now I am calling it a night. Since Carrie's mom is here and I only work 2 minutes from home, I am going back to work tomorrow. As for my blog, the updates are going to slow down. I probably will not be posting every day but will be posting on days that we have appointments with the doctors and all. We have to go back UAB for a check up next Tuesday, so there will be a post when we get back from that.

Carrie and I would like to say THANK YOU to everyone for your thoughts and prayers during the last week and a half. We could not have made it though it without them. Thanks to eveyone (all 380 of you) that joined the "We're praying for Carrie Chavers" group on Facebook and for everyone that took time to check my blog for updates. God has truly blessed us with friends and family like you.

Jason & Carrie

They are moving Carrie....

TO AUBURN!!! Leaving within the next hour or so. Will add another post once we are home.

Sunday's Update

Carrie's day was not as good as yesterday's but it wasn't a bad day. The doctors came by this morning and mentioned that we might be able to go home tomorrow. We are still waiting to actually talk to Dr. Arnoletti about going home. Carrie and I think that we might want to stay at least one more day but depending what we think after talking to the doctor tomorrow will determine if we do come home tomorrow. She is no longer on an IV and they are gradually cutting back on the TPN drip. So after tonight she should not have any tubes connected to her. The next post will right after we talk to doctor to let everyone know whether we are coming home or not.

Chest Tube Gone

The doctor came by this morning and removed her chest tube. She can start eating more solid foods and can start getting Showers instead of Sponge baths. I went to Milo's and got her a milkshake and that was a nice start to her day.

As promised...

A morning post rather than midnight post. The doctors just came by for the morning rounds and said that they were going to talk to Dr. Arnoletti about removing the chest tube today. Also they are going to start Carrie on some milkshakes today as well. She is already feeling stronger from the TPN and slept pretty good last night. Since this is an early post I will probably have another sometime later today.

Friday's afternoon update

Carrie had a decent day today. She had to go down to Radiology this morning to get the PIC put in correctly. They had the nutrient drip in by the time I got back to Birmingham. One of the doctors came by between 2:30 and 3 and took out the tube that was draining the area where her liver used to be. She has a little discomfort from the chest tube now but overall doing pretty good. She is just really tired but maybe by tomorrow she will have some more strength.

Back to better days.

Today was a much better day. They pulled the tube from Carrie's stomach this morning. She was feeling better after spending the night with it sucking everything out of her stomach. However it was very uncomfortable and she hardly slept. But with it out she able to catch up on sleep throughout the day. They had to put a central line back in this afternoon for the nutrient drip. This time they put it in her arm rather than her neck. And of course it didn't go where they wanted it to go so she will be going to radiology tomorrow to get the line put in correctly. It is not causing Carrie any discomfort, it just isn't where it is suppose to be. Carrie is looking forward to getting the nutrient supplement so she start feeling better and stronger. Dr. Arnoletti stopped by today and said that physically Carrie is recovering as expected except for the eating solid foods. That is his main concern right now and if focusing on getting her to eat solid food in the next couple of days. He said that once she is eating more solid food he will look at removing the tube that is draining the area where part of her liver used to be. And again Dr. Davies came by and said that the tube draining her chest cavity is looking like they can remove it tomorrow. We'll see about that one. Carrie was completely on Lortab today with no morphine and a pain level of 4 out of 10. That is good news. If the nutrient drip works and Carrie begins to get stronger and starts eating, we suspect we will start discussing when we might get to leave for Auburn(Woo Hoo). We don't expect to hear anything about till over the weekend or first part of next week. And to elaborate on Carrie not eating, it's not that doesn't want to eat, she just hasn't been able to take in anything other than ice chips and water. She said that right now she would eat sour cream if she could. I know these posts are coming late at night so I am going to start trying to get them out in the mornings. Tomorrow's will not be morning one because I will be in Auburn for about an hour to take care of some things. So Saturday's will be a morning post.

Jason

Wednesday's Update

After 1 day of surgery and 5 days of good recovery, we have had our first bad day. After only two hours of sleep last night, Carrie tried to eat some chicken broth and she wasn't able to keep it down. Dr. Arnoletti came by and when we told him what had happened he said that he had noticed on her x-rays that her stomach had a ballooning characteristic about it caused by fluid and air buildup. Carrie told the doctor that if she could pop her stomach she thought she would feel better. The doctor said he could do that from the inside. What he meant was that they would run a hose up through Carrie's nasal cavity down into her stomach and suck the fluid out. They will leave the tube in for at least 24 hours. When the doctors make the rounds in the morning if Carrie is feeling better and there isn't much fluid being removed then they will remove the tube. It is 11:45pm and Carrie said that her pain level is down to a 5 out 10 from 8 out of 10 this morning.

Finally...Tuesday's Update

Carrie had a better night last. Had a little bit of pain first thing this morning but not as bad as yesterday. The doctors started coming in to check on her around 5am and they were to spread the visits out so that they would come in every 10 or so minutes(just enough time for Carrie to go back to sleep just to have them wake her up again). Anyway, Dr. Davies, the heart surgeon, came by this morning and said everything was looking good and still wanted to keep an eye on her chest tube. He wants to try to walk around a little more each day and to continue her breathing treatments. They moved her IV from the central line in her neck to her arm and removed the central line completely this evening. They also took her off of the morphine this evening so now she is strictly on Lortab. The nurse did say that if the Lortab didn't help enough then she could get a shot of morphine. She took her second dose of Lortab and had not needed any morphine when I left the hospital. Both Dr. Davies and Dr. Arnoletti, the oncology surgeon, said that she would probably get the stomach tube removed tomorrow since there wasn't much draining into anymore. Both agreed that the chest tube needs to still be there for a couple of more days. Carrie said that she was having some numbness in her stomach this afternoon but the doctor said that was normal for this type of surgery. He said that there are not many surgeries larger than hers. If the saying "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger" holds true, then I am going to spend a lot more time at the gym when this is all over. Carrie has had real good spirits about this. The only complaint that I have heard is about the food. She is ready for something more solid than popcicles.

Better Monday

Carrie had a rough night last night. Having to get up several times through the night and not hitting the morphine button as much caught up to her around 4:30am this morning. By the time that I got to the hospital she was feeling better and she was having a better time getting up to go the bathroom. She did some physical therapy first thing and walked to the end of the hallway and back with a special walker, which is about 4 times as far as she walked yesterday. Then this afternoon a different therapist came in and had Carrie get out of bed on her own and she was able to walk around the four different hallways that make up the floor that she is on. She made the entire trip without the walker and for the last part of the walk, she was able to walk it without any assistance from the therapist. So we made a pretty big improvement today. The doctors are talking about starting to give her oral pain killers(lortab) tonight and tomorrow with another pain killer that they can only give her here at the hospital. They said that they would help her more with the pain now than the morphine. Which is good because they are talking about also taking her off of the morphine tomorrow. They have also talked about taking her chest tube and the stomach tube out tomorrow however they have talked about taking the chest tube out the last two days, so I will believe it when they do it. But other than last night everything seems to be better today. Her spirits seem to be higher and at one point she had a pretty big smile on her face which is the first one since the surgery.

Jason

Carrie is on the move

Sorry for the late update but with the size of the surgery and the toll it taking on Carrie, there isn't a lot to update other than Carrie is still sleeping. So unless there is a major update, there will probably only one update per day. So now on to Saturday night and Sunday.

They moved Carrie into a private room around midnight last night. I stayed with her through the night and it was pretty uneventful, she would wake up and we would chat for a few minutes and then she would sleep again. They got her to sit up in a chair first thing this morning for about an hour and a half and then moved back to the bed. They removed her catheter this afternoon so now she has to walk to the bathroom when she needs to use it. This is going to help getting the blood flowing a little better and start getting her stomach to start back working enough that they will be able to give her more solid foods. Right now she is still on a clear liquid diet. She did some physical therapy this afternoon and actually walked down the hall a little bit and back to her room. She still has her chest tube and the doctors are watching it closely and think that they might be able to remove it tomorrow. She is doing more and more breathing treatments each day to help get her lungs back to working at full capacity. We haven't been told how long they are expecting her to stay in the hospital since we got here but we haven't talked to her doctor since Friday either. Please continue to pray for Carrie. At 3am this morning she said that her pain level was an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. And this is while she is on the morphine drip. But as the day went on she said she wasn't hurting as much. (She still has a death grip on the little red button that controls when she gets morphine).

Jason

Saturday's Update

Another good day today. Carrie is still in a semi-private room and planning to get a private room soon. She was able to get out of bed and sit in a chair for a couple of hours and the plan is to get her walking tomorrow.

Jason

Carrie's out of CICU

Carrie was moved out of CICU this evening and into a semi-private room. This room is only temperary until they have a private room available. She is still improving. She sat up on the side of the bed and they had her stand up for a little while this evening. The doctor came by and said that she is recovering great and that they may try to sit her up in a chair tomorrow and feed her something other that water and ice. He also said that the mass that was outside of the vena cava was about the size of your fist and the part that was in the vein was about 6 inches long. (HUGE when talking about the human body). We have had questions about visiting and her mom and I are discussing what we are going to do about that. For now we limiting the number of people that Carrie sees at a time. Once she is in a private room, I will let everyone know her room number and everything. If you plan coming to visit her or want to come visit. Send me an email at least 24 hours in advance to jason.chavers@gmail.com. They have a waiting room on our floor so if 20 people show up we might can fit you in the waiting room but only a few will see her at one time. This not to say that we don't want you to come visit, we will have to schedule it. We have not been told exactly how long she will be in the hospital or how long they will keep her on the morphine which causing her to go in and out of sleep.

Carrie's Moving

They are going to be moving Carrie to a private room today. We got to see her this morning and they removed the ventilator tube last night and she was talking to us some this morning. When we left ICU they were about to remove her chest tubes and start putting in the orders to get her in a private room. Our next scheduled time to visit with her is at 1pm if they haven't moved her to a private room before then.

Jason

Post operation update

We got to see Carrie twice tonight before leaving the hospital. The first time was at 5pm and of course she was still under anesthesia, but that she was doing fine and that all of vital signs were where they wanted them to be. We got to see her again at 8:30pm and she was starting to come to but was still out of it pretty good. She was responding to us talking to her. (We doubt that she will remember any of it.) They said that she was almost to the point where they could remove the ventilator and figured it would be around 9:30 or 10 when they did that. They made mention that it was possible that they may move her to a private room tomorrow, but I don't expect for it to be that soon. She had good color and looked pretty good considering what she had gone through today.

Some people have been asking about treatment after this operation. The doctor said that he would be consulting with an oncologist about the possibility of using chemotherapy. He said that we would not be doing treatments, if any, until after Carrie has been home and fully recovered. First checkup with the doctor will be 6 months from now.

For all of the Facebook friends and Carrie's group members, UAB will not allow me to access Facebook on their wireless. I know, I'm an IT guy and should have had it hacked by 6am but I was sort of busy today. If it had been Auburn (War Eagle) it would not have been a problem. Anyway, for now all updates will be on here.

And finally, I cannot express how thankful I am for all of the love and support everyone has shown to us since Carrie was diagnosed back in June. Between friends and family we filled up an entire hallway at UAB today. We love all of you guys and can't wait to get back to Auburn. This has been the hardest thing I have had to face in my entire life. I watched my dad go through two bypasses in one day a few years ago but it didn't compare today. And if finally sunk in today as to just how huge of a surgery Carrie went through. She had more done in this one operation than most people have done in their entire lives.

The first visitation time for tomorrow will be at 9am and I will post an update between 9:30 and 10.

Sorry for the long post but I am finally relaxing.

Jason

Mass is gone!

We had a miracle today. We just talked to the surgeon and everything better than planned. The mass has been completely removed. They did not have to remove the right kidney like first expected. They removed the right adrenal gland the mass, her gall bladder was removed and they removed a large portion of Carrie's liver. Her liver will grow back and she is expected to make a full recovery. She is in ICU and I will get to see her within the hour. Thank you to everyone for all of the prayers and thoughts.

Update #2

They just took Carrie off of bypass and the next update will be from the surgeons which means that the surgery is almost over. No details right now. I will have those in the next update.

Carrie Update

They have started the bypass procedure.

It has begun

The latest update is that they just started the operation at 8:45.

Quick Update

We have made it to Birmingham and getting ready for tomorrow. We have to be at the hospital at 5am.

Jason

Surgery Date and Surgeons' reports

We went to UAB today and met with Dr. Arnoletti and Dr. Davies. Last week's biopsy showed that the mass is a very rare form of cancer and is called an adreno cortical carcinoma. There is little research to support the use of chemotherapy on this type of tumor and the only real option is surgery. The date for the surgery has been scheduled for Thursday, August 13th. The plan is to make an incision under the right rib cage and see if the tumor has spread to other areas. If it hasn't spread, they will remove the right adrenal gland and probably the right kidney. It doesn't appear to be affecting the liver or other organs. Also they will do a bypass surgery on Carrie to remove the mass from the inferior vena cava. If they have to repair the vena cava they will have to put Carrie in a form of cardiac arrest where there drop the body temperature low enough to stop the heart so that they can repair the vein. She also had EKG done today that showed part of the mass in one of the chambers of the heart. The surgeons feel that the surgery will be a success as long as the cancer hasn't spread. If it has spread, they don't know yet what type of treatment will do. The surgery will last 5-7 hours. (8-10 worst case scenario). 2-3 days in ICU after the surgery and 7-10 days in the hospital after the surgery. We are handling this alright, but please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. From our standpoint we knew the surgery would be big but now it is huge.

This will probably be the last post before the surgery but on the day of I will be updating the blog as the day progresses.

Jason

Possible Dates

Carrie talked to her doctor this afternoon and as of right now, we will go back to UAB on Tuesday July 28th for a consult about the surgery. He also said that the surgery could possibly be done the dates of the 6th and 10th of August. These dates are not set in stone yet but we are hoping that the surgery will be between now and then. We are still waiting on the results of yesterday's biopsy and I will make a post when we have them.

Carrie's Biopsy

Short one today.



Carrie had a second biopsy done today. It was pretty much a heart cath. They went in through her groin and up a vein to her heart. We should know hear the results in couple of days (More waiting..imagine that). The procedure today went well took about an hour to do. Her leg is pretty sore and they told her to stay off of it for at least 24 hours.

Jason

Bringing everyone up to date on Carrie

Several people have asked to be kept up to date on Carrie's status and there are enough people that we have left some out. So being an IT guy, what better way to keep everyone in the loop, than use a blog.

For those that don't know, my wife Carrie started having pains in her abdomen on June 28th. We didn't think anything about it, so we let it go till Monday when it got worse. Carrie went to Auburn Urgent Care Monday night and she was told that it was acid reflux. They prescribed some medicine for that and that didn't help matters. On Tuesday, a co-worker of hers told her to go see Dr. Tonya Bradley here in Auburn. Carrie got an appointment on Wednesday the 1st of July and Dr. Bradley sent Carrie to East Alabama Medical Center (EAMC) for an ultrasound where they found the mass and did a CT Scan to confirm.

A biopsy was scheduled for the next day at EAMC. With the 4th of July holiday we had to wait till Monday to get the results of the biopsy. The results came back negative for cancer and a consult for surgery to remove the mass was scheduled for Tuesday.

We met with Dr. Clay Harper here in Auburn on Tuesday, July 7th and he showed us the CT Scan images and told us that the mass was growing next to her Vena Cava vein. Due to this he did not want to perform the surgery, because if there were any complications during surgery, he wouldn't be able to do anything for her. So he gave us three options, UAB in Birmingham, Emory in Atlanta, or Vanderbilt in Nashville. We decided to go with UAB and I hope that this is the closest I come to having any connection to the University of Alabama.

Dr. Harper referred us to Dr. Pablo Arnoletti, an Oncology surgeon at UAB. We met with him this past week on Tuesday and he wanted to do all of the test again so we had another CT Scan done on Tuesday. He called Carrie on Wednesday and said that he didn't see any other masses and that this mass is growing into the Vena Cava and is causing a clot that goes to Carrie's heart. We are scheduled to do another biopsy this Tuesday at UAB.

We know that surgery is going to happen but we haven't discussed it or scheduled anything with any doctors yet. The only thing as far as surgery goes that we know, is that Dr. Arnoletti and a cardiac surgeon will be doing the surgery. With the mass in the vein, we are looking at a major surgery that is nothing less than bypass surgery.

Carrie and I are handling this okay. The worst thing that we are having to deal with is the waiting for results. We were hoping to have this thing removed two weeks ago and as of right now we don't know when it will be removed. Other than taking trips to UAB, we were told to go on with life as normal as possible. Carrie is not in any real pain. She feels bloated all of the time and only eats about half of what she usually eats.

Thank you to everyone that has been thinking and praying for us. We greatly appreciate it and we can see the prayers working. The three doctors that we have seen so far have been excellent and have left no doubt that we are in good hands when we have dealt with them.

I will keep updating this blog as we have updates. I hope that there are only a couple of more updates and none as long as this one.

As a side note, the 21st of July is our anniversary which we will spend at UAB. Carrie and I are 2 for 2 on not so normal anniversaries. Last year for our 1st one, the AC went out and we had a HOT (temperature) anniversary and now this one this year. So our goal for next year is to stay home and cool.

Jason