Another update

Its been quite a week. We have seen lots of doctors this week. Here's what we know:

Earl had his mapping done on Friday. Since then he has had terrible hiccups. First they would come and go. Sunday night they started being constant. Finally Tuesday we called the gastro- enterologist (Earl's main liver doctor)who instructed us to go the ER. The hiccups that had been constant since Sunday night disappeared as we walked into the hospital. They ran a bunch of blood tests and took CT scans of his abdomen and brain and couldn't find anything that would cause hiccups. We finally left at midnight. The hiccups reappeared about 2:00 a.m.

We had a Wound Care appointment this morning at 8:00. We walked into the hospital and the hiccups disappeared again. The wounds on Earl's legs are worse. They have been draining a lot. This morning they decided to change the type of dressing they are doing. Instead of changing it once a week, we are changing it every other day. I guess I am going to become a nurse whether I want to or not. I'm okay with the care giving, its the blood that gets me. Earl being very tired from having hiccups, and not being able to sleep or eat, slept through the whole thing.

After Wound Care, we went to the liver doctor. Earl's blood work looks surprisingly healthy. He reviewed the CT scans. The ER doctor noted a compression fracture on the L4 vertebra. At this point we don't know if the fracture is due to an injury or the cancer. We will be chasing that down next week after the holiday. Again Earl slept the whole time. After we left the doctor, the hiccups returned. Thankfully they have been gone for most of the afternoon and Earl has been able to sleep today. Maybe we will be able to go to Grandma's for Thanksgiving after all.

This afternoon we found out that Earl is scheduled for his next Therasphere's treatment on Tuesday December 2. He will be going in at 6:30 a.m.

Getting Ready for the next Treatment

We saw the radiation doctor last week and after some confusion, we are scheduled to start Earl's next treatment on Friday. That is when they will do the mapping. Mapping is where they use a catheter in his femoral artery to go into the liver and make sure that the path is clear and they are able to inject the Theraspheres. They also have to make sure that all the veins going from the liver to other organs are blocked so that the radiation doesn't escape and damage other organs. Since I am not very medically minded, I am not very good at explaining what they do. I only know that it works.

Earl had a CT scan before we saw the doctor and the report on that is that the tumors are breaking down. According to the doctor, the edges of the tumors are not as defined as they were before we started so the treatment is working. The do not anticipate that the tumors will completely go away but it will keep them from growing any larger for right now.

I have been working on another period dress that I will be posting soon. I am also working on a temple dress for a client. Ever since I first made myself the "wrapper" dress from my website, I have thought that it would make a great temple dress. This client had the same idea so I will post it when it is completed.


Mary entered her school's Reflections contest. She actually entered twice. Her first entry is a large ship that her and Earl put together. They made it from a large cardboard box. This was the second time that they have done this. Mary is a planner and she thought for quite a while about how to make the next one better. After she got it all planned out, they put it together. She won a second place ribbon.

The second entry was a photograph of tulips. I love this picture.

Mary loves to take pictures of flowers and I think she did an excellent job. She received an honorable mention for this picture.

Update on Earl and a new dress

Earl has had kind of a rough week. He hasn't been able to sleep much at night but he does sleep during the day. He was quite sick yesterday. The skin on his legs from the knees down, does not have much elasticity so when they swell, the skin splits open. He has open sores on one leg from the swelling. We took him to Wound Care at the hospital yesterday. They said that we were able to get it in time and has not gotten infected. He has been hospitalized twice because we let them go too long before. He has his CT scan on Monday to check on his liver and then Tuesday we have an appointment with the radiologist to determine the next step.

Earl's sister has genorously paid for us to be able to visit his family this Christmas in Seattle. We are very excited to visit family that we have not seen in a couple of years.

I made this dress for Earl's daughter as a halloween costume. I am really pleased at the way that it turned out. We copied the trim from a different style dress that was much more complicated to make than this one.

Weekly Update

It has been over two weeks since Earl's treatment. He gets tired easily, but can only sleep for about 5 hours at night. He does take naps during the day. He is still in "super organization" mode though when he is up. I can't find anything! Since he is more absent minded, he can't remember where he has put things. I am afraid, we are a lost cause. He has not been in as much pain as we anticipated. He does have some but I was expecting childbirth pain and it hasn't been that bad.

We had a good Halloween. The Gillmore's are really into Halloween. We have enjoyed seeing the family pictures as they have come through. We went to the annual ward Trick or Treat party at the church. Earl decorated the room. I always thought that he goes way over the top for Halloween. Now I know IT'S GENETIC!