King of the Hospital

Hi all! Hope all is well with you and summer has been full of fun and adventure! I did want to start by wishing all the fathers out there a happy belated fathers day! Dad and I had a great day celebrating (we missed my sister though-she is in Europe!)...we saw Rock of Ages and ate a wonderful dinner at Outback! I am so blessed to have such an incredible Dad to share not only fathers day with, but every day life! I thought I'd share a little blast from the past in honor of the best Dad in the world!

Well Dad handled the first maintenance chemo pretty well, his energy was definitely better than when he had the cisplatin! The only bad part was the night he got food poisoning...poor guy!

Dad, Cindy, and I went in for bloodwork, a visit with Dr. K, and chemo last Wednesday. After bloodwork we had about an hour to kill so we decided to grab coffee and breakfast at the cute little bistro in the hospital. When we sat down the Administrator of the hospital asked if he could join us and ask Dad about his experience! He was so nice and it was great being able to talk to him and share with him our complete honest feelings on our experience. Of course we LOVE MD Anderson but we were very vocal in our feelings on their Nurse Navigator program. If any of you Arizonians have seen the commercials for MD, they say something along the lines of "and a nurse navigator will be with you every step of the way". Well that is not the case, as we have seen ours once...in February...And when we did try to call her for a question on his meds she was NOT happy we were calling. Anyway, it was a great conversation and he appreciated our feedback as he is revamping a few things including the nurse navigator program.

Meeting with Dr. K went really well! He was in a really good mood haha I think we were a little caught of guard with the amount of his talkativeness. None the less, great appointment and he was very pleased with Dads energy AND the fact he gained four pounds! You can call him fatty now.

Chemo went great as well! Christine was our nurse again thank the lord since 1. we love her and 2. I heard a nurse come ask her for IV help...as if we will ever let Dad go through that again! Chemo flies by now, we were in and out in two hours! When we were leaving I actually felt like we were at home considering Dad gave Christine a big hug, I blew her a kiss, and Dad said I love you to the blood work receptionist, Juanita. Pretty soon, Dad will be King of MD Anderson! Who am I kidding...he already is!

Talking to Michael, notice the rainbow :)

We all decided to wear our salmon colors Wednesday..Great minds think alike! I also love this picture of Dad!

MMM Lunch :)

Well we are jet setting to Colorado this week to see our wonderful family and I could not be more excited! Have a great week, we love you all!

The Port Life

TGIF! What an eventful two days it has been for Team OJ! Yesterday Dad went in for a quick surgery to get his port placed (and don't worry, today's updated comes with many show and tell pictures). After we checked in they took Dad back right away to get blood and let him get changed into his sweet outfit:

The procedure itself was less than an hour, and he was awake the whole time! He did have a drug that made him a little less coherent, but we will just say that he was awake...it adds to his toughness :)

This is what Dad's chest looks like with the port! We were all wondering where the stitches were but the incision is held together with glue not stitches (medicine is so amazing!). He had to wait in the recovery room for an hour and kept trying to charm the nurses to lessen the amount of time he had to sit there...didn't work this time! But it gave us time to look at the reading material they gave us:

This is what the port looks like under the skin

This is the device they use to access the port, the needle goes through the skin and into the port

Here is a combined view. The catheter actually goes from the port, up by his neck and then ends right above the right atrium of the heart.

 

Yesterday was also a first! Go in for surgery, come out and get a parking ticket. When we had arrived in the morning Dad accidentally used the "ambulance only" entrance, and got a ticket for it! At least it was only a warning :)

It was just Dad and I today for chemo...I think some of the nurses didn't realize it was Dad because there wasn't a whole posse accompanying him. Just kidding, they could never forget him! Our favorite nurse Kristine was our nurse again, and let me tell you...she is bomb.com! It is so comforting to have a nurse that has been in oncology for so long, she knows so much and knows exactly how to utilize the port (you would think every nurse would be able to, but after Dad's experience with nurses not being good at finding his veins, we knew that probably isn't the case). Also, the needle that is inserted into the port...that thing doesn't mess around, it's huge!!

Kristine and Dad...She has to freeze the skin over the port so it doesn't hurt when the needle goes in

Sorry this one is so hard to see, but right above the teal circle is where the needle is hooked into the port just like the diagram above.

We were there for about two hours, which was a cake walk compared to the last four chemo's! Dad was such a trooper and was in great spirits and energy the rest of the day so we had a mini father daughter date where we stuffed our face with Chipotle, went shopping, and I graced him with my angelic singing voice in the car. Dad gets a three week break, but I think he is going to need to find a new hobby because he can't golf for a at least a week! Thank you all for your continued love, support, and prayers! Have a wonderful weekend!