2 More Victories
Today, May 7, 2008, marks the second anniversary of a crazy day. Right about now I was on the phone with family and friends, as much as my emotions and my stupid cell phone would allow, trying to tell them that Sarah had just finished surgery and madness was upon us. Looking back, it’s amazing what all has happened since then – the medical progress, the kids, life in general, and of course the Tiger football team.
On the medical progress front, Sarah continues to have CT scans and other testing done quarterly, under the excellent care of Clay Anderson at Ellis Fischel and his excellent nurse Tammy. She continues to receive shots of Sandostatin LAR, frequency now every 3 weeks, with that being her only treatment. We would undoubtedly be more frazzled and less sure if not for both of them. As a couple, we spend a lot of time looking at images. The addition of Mark Monroe to the mix performing the CT scans (and reading them; and making sure the scans are done to his exact specifications;) has increased our confidence in the situation drastically. A sincere, loud, public, heartfelt thanks to those fine friends and medical community members who are helping us almost daily. And to the Wacones who set up the dinner club that introduced us to those friends to begin with.
All evidence combined points to the fact that the situation is dramatically improved from two years ago – it really has been two winning years. Quarter to quarter it’s difficult to tell if there are real changes, but over time things have certainly improved. On her liver, quoting from the May 2006 CT scan “there are diffuse too numerous to count enhancing liver foci.” We were told in person, “more than 12” tumor spots on her liver. Current scan finds 2-3 spots, continuing “to be less conspicuous than those previous studies”. There’s a lot more information, but can be summed in the fact that any short-term comparisons show stability, when looking back to 2006, improvement or dramatic improvement. We’ll be going to New Orleans in three weeks to hear what they say, but don’t expect any change in treatment based on that visit.
Sarah & I went to lunch today (Sycamore, yum, where phone messages confirmed we were on window display) and I asked if there was anything she wanted me to include, or to not include, in this update. She just said “make sure you say it’s a good thing, not a bad thing.” It has been an extremely good time – two years of improvement, two years of laughter and fun and friends and family, and two years of victories.
Which brings us to football. 2008, 14-0, mark it down. Gary Pinkel, Chase Daniel, Chase Coffman, William Moore, Sean Weatherspoon, Ziggy Hood, Brock Christopher (WHOOO, Brock!!!), and Jeremy Maclin for President. Football season will barely be over in time for their inauguration, but they’ll sort it out. I’d point out that the blue prairie chickens have more publicity today for their failing to put the “student” in student-athlete and how this is likely embarrassing in light of the fact they’re already on probation for athletic department staffers providing answers to tests for these x-athletes, but it’s unlikely any beaker is even able to read this sentence. How ‘bout some numbers, beakers? 36-28, it wasn’t that close. Your record was 12-1. We’re the one. Also, I seem to have heard a staggering amount of ‘Arkansas is good, they’ll win that game’ from family members over Christmas, family members that I wasn’t even aware knew we were playing Arkansas. 38-7 evidently made them forget that they remembered, as I heard absolutely nothing on the most recent visit home. 14-0, mark it down.
Thanks to all of you for your continued offers of help, prayers, and good thoughts over the past two years, and on a side note, screw ku. (and you too Oklahoma.)
Jason
p.s. Adelaide informed me the other day that “Jayhawks really don’t stink. The people, I mean. Just the bird. It’s just a fake bird that stinks.”