A Little History... (Ok The Whole Story) :)

I get the question a lot about how all this got started. Most recently yesterday by one of the sweetest ladies I've ever met, my post office lady, Dee. So I think it would be a good idea to give a brief (I hope brief, sometimes I ramble) background. So here goes...

Back in the beginning of January, Adair was feeling really tired all of the time, sleeping a lot, just not himself. He worked out everyday back then and after his workouts he would be winded and just worn out. Then about mid-January he started spitting up blood. This went from once in the morning to every 5-10 minutes after about a week. He finally made a doctors appointment for January 29. At that appointment, the NP didn't seem really concerned. She actually told him that it was probably just irritation in his throat from allergies. They did some bloodwork and told him if there was anything abnormal they would call him. Then next day we hadn't heard anything so I called the office to get the results. Believe it or not, the blood tests came back fine. I asked for another appointment.

We went back on February 8. This is a day that I will never forget!! I remember sitting there feeling like the NP was making Adair out to be a hyperchondriac. It was really frustrating! So at one point, Adair said to her "I can't explain it but something is just not right" and as he said this he was making a circular motion around his chest. He finally asked her if he could please have a chest X-ray. We went immediately to get the X-ray done and within 45 minutes got a call to come back to the doctors office. The X-ray showed several "nodules" in Adair's lungs. The report from the radiologist said it could be either testicular cancer or a fungal infection of some type. I felt like I was going to fall out of my chair! I think Adair was in shock or something because he didn't have any reaction, he just said "Ok, what now?". The NP set up an appointment for Adair to see a lung specialist on February 15th. (This part makes me crazy! I have apologized to Adair so many times for this... I am a nursing student for heavens sake, when the report mentioned cancer we should have immediately asked to be seen by an oncologist, not wait a week to see a lung specialist! UGH.) So we went to the lung specialist who wanted to refer Adair to someone else who could do a biopsy on one of the nodules... in another week! By this time, Adair's Aunt Bebe took things into her own hands and called Stanford. He had an appointment for February 25th.

The Stanford appointment was supposed to be just that, an appointment. Instead I got a call from Adair saying "They've admitted me, I'm not coming home tonight." (His aunt had taken him because I had class that day) They were blown away with his condition. After some simple blood tests (no biopsy) they concluded that he had cancer and wanted to start treatment immediately. They said they would worry about the biopsy later. QUICK LESSON: The type of cancer Adair has produces the hormone Beta HCG (yes pregnancy hormone). Men have little to none in their bodies normally. The test Stanford did showed his HCG level was at 144,000.

Adair was at Stanford for a total of 10 days. During that time he was in ICU for 4 days because he went into respiratory distress. He and I really believe that had his aunt not gotten him to Stanford he may have died because I don't think the local docs would have diagnosed him in time! While we were at the hospital we learned that the cancer had spread to Adair's brain, lungs, liver, kidneys, spleen, pancreas, and a large tumor behind his breastbone. It was such an emotional time for me. I remember one day no matter how hard I tried, everytime someone opened their mouth I started sobbing uncontrollably! Poor Adair, he's with a crazy lady! :)

Adair did his first round of chemo at Stanford and then we were sent home with a referral to an oncologist in Modesto. The plan was that Adair would receive four 21-day cycles of chemo. It would be 5 days of chemo the first week and then for the next two weeks just one day of chemo each week. (Start Feb 28, End May 7) The Stanford doctors really believed that his cancer would be clear after those 4 cycles. Because of this we decided that I would stay in school and take it day by day.

When Adair first came home it was really hard! I was a nervous wreck because he was so sick. At night I couldn't sleep because I felt like I had to check him every 2 minutes to make sure he was still breathing! After a few weeks, the chemo took affect and he started feeling better. The tumors in his lungs were shrinking so it was getting easier for him to breath. He did an awesome job handling the chemo and we just kept our minds on May! We were really confident that we would have the summer to get him rested and he would be back to work or school in August!

So...obviously that didn't happen! When he was in the hospital for his last cycle, they tested his HCG. IT WAS 6! From 144,000 to 6! So they gave him the last cycle and he came home. Then because of his insurance, he had to wait 6+ weeks for an approval to have a PET Scan done. I'm not sure why but the Dr. wasn't checking his HCG levels during this time, only regular blood tests for his white & red blood cells. Well, when we finally went to have more bloodwork, the PET and an MRI done, his HCG had jumped back up to 384 (which meant the cancer was growing again). So he was back in the hospital that day for his 5th cycle of chemo...then a 6th. Finally we went back to Stanford and were told he would have to have the bone marrow transplant. It was really hard to stomach that for a lot of reasons. One, it can be dangerous for Adair (not everyone survives the procedure) two, it was such a long process (we were immediately concerned about how we would figure out the kids and finances and whatnot) and three, this meant I would have to step out of the RN program (which was something our family had been banking on me finishing)!

Adair had to go through a bunch of tests to make sure his liver and kidneys would be able to handle the high dose chemo. He also had lesions on his brain that he had to receive radiation treatment (14 days) on before they could do the transplant. We were very busy driving back and forth to Modesto everyday for his appointments. Then it was time to try to harvest stem cells. Adair was given a really high dose of Cytoxan (chemo) and then I had to give him daily shots of Neupogen to boost his white blood cells. He was also having to get up every morning and go to Mercy Hospital for daily blood tests. When his bloodwork was where they wanted it, we went back to Stanford. Adair was hooked up to a machine that is kind of like a dialysis machine. It pulls the blood out of his body, into a machine that spins out the stem cells and then returns the blood back to his body! He sat on the machine a total of 10 hours over 2 days but they barely collected any cells. They decided to do a bone marrow biopsy to check his marrow and make sure it was not damaged or unusable. (That was really painful for Adair) The tests came back showing his marrow was fine so they scheduled surgery to try and just go into his bones and get the cells out the old-fashioned way. Even after all that, there wasn't nearly enough to go forward with the transplant. I can't explain how I felt that day. My heart literally hurt because the doctors have said that this transplant is really Adairs only chance and now we weren't going to be able to do it. So then more bad news: his HCG went from 17 to 1500 in less than a week. So he was admitted to Doctors hospital on October 6th for what was his 8th round of chemo. When he was discharged from Doctors, the whole daily Neupogen injections, daily blood counts, etc started all over again. Poor Adair, I was giving him 4 shots a day for almost 3 weeks. He still looks like a pin cushion because he bruises so easily. So that kind of brings us to the beginning of my blog. On Friday, October 31st, they finally collected enough stem cells to move forward!!

I hope I didn't ramble too much! And I hope this helps people understand how we got here!

God Bless