Hi Everyone, Mom's a real trooper. She is on a difficult regime of chemo, day 1, day 4, day 8, day 12 and then a 10 day break and then it starts all over again. She has to keep that up for the next six months. Unfortunately the chemo makes her very sick for about 2 days and then she feels pretty good and can keep a little food down for a couple of days before the chemo starts again. The good news is that her kidneys continue to get better and she is in a lot less pain now. She is SO appreciative of all the love and support she is being shown. Thank you for all your love you are showing her! :) Love, Cresta

Well the Kyphoplasty procedure was not the complete success we had hoped for, although the pain has been reduced, it is still substantial and makes it difficult for Angie to move around. Another reason for the persistence of the pain is Angie has correctly diagnosed much of her nausea has been from the pain medication that has been prescribed for her. She stopped taking anything for pain Friday evening and has had the nausea virtually go away, in fact, she has been able to eat fairly normal meals Friday night, all day Saturday and today (and even a few snacks in between) and held them all down successfully!


A wonderful, longtime friend and neighbor, who is a physical therapist by profession, came to the house today and hooked Angie up to a machine that is made to help relieve pain caused by compression fractures using electrical impulses sent into her back. She has found this to be effective for her and my friend was kind enough to leave it for her to use for awhile. We are hoping she can get some lasting relief for her back from this  device.
My sweet, very active and vivacious wife is finding if difficult to adjust to the fact that right now an hour's worth of even simple activity requires 2 to 3 hours of recovery time before she can do more. Last night, having seen enough of her bedroom walls for a while, wanted to go somewhere so we traveled to a furniture store where I pushed her in a wheel chair and we picked out a dresser for our bedroom. We returned home and she immediately fell asleep and to a two and half hour nap. It is frustrating for her to still have the same desires to do things and not have her body up to the task. 
We both feel greatly blessed to have her feeling better. We know for her to gain more energy and strength back she needs to be able to eat and retain more substantial meals and so far this week end has been a victory for her in this regard.
We again express are love and appreciation for all of your help and concern and especially for your prayers. The blessings from these prayers have benefited us both and offer us comfort and strength beyond our own.

I have been leaving the blog updates to my beautiful and very capable daughter, but I actually didn't mean to go this long without letting you know how things are going from my perspective. Angie has been so happy to be home and her countenance has already brightened this house substantially. This makes me realize what an empty place our abode becomes without her presence.

She continues to struggle with two main obstacles to beginning  to feel better. One is she still is very nauseous and finds it difficult to keep down what she eats which also complicates her receiving proper doses of medications that could help reduce her nausea. The second is the extreme pain she is in. This originates mainly from the compression fracture in her T8 vertebra which we have known about since her CT scans she had a couple of weeks ago. She should be receiving treatment today that will reduce this pain substantially and we are both very excited to have this done. The procedure is call kyphoplasty which is truly a modern miracle. They use two needles that from their appearance closely resemble the one used to obtain a bone marrow biopsy on her back on the 29th of June. These needles are inserted in both sides of the vertebra and a balloon is inflated to lift the compressed vertebra back into proper position and height.The a cavity is created where the balloon was and this cavity is then filled with a cement which cures before they let you off the table and dries harder than natural bone. They tell us the relief from pain is immediate and she should need almost zero recovery time. The vascular surgeon told us that if her pain is not substantially reduced their might be other vertebrae involved which would require another MRI to reveal, and additional Kyphoplaties to complete the repair. We will let you know the results and how Angie's back is healing as this process unfolds.

From a self serving point of view there is another reason it has been good to have Angie home. This has allowed me to provide care for her and the home she loves and it has been very therapeutic for me. It is difficult to see the love of your life suffer and not be able to do anything. It has been wonderful for me to be involved personally in her recovery process. With the severe back pain she has been suffering from it is very difficult for her to get out of bed without the assistance of someone to ease her into first a sitting position, and  then help her down to the floor. We have found, if she puts her arms around the persons neck and he supports her back with his hands, the job can be accomplished without much pain to her. I love doing this particular task for her because she always rewards me with a warm hug and a tender kiss, two of the real motivating factors for me in our almost 42 years of marriage ;)

Well they just took her in to radiology for the Kyphoplasty proceedure, I'll let you all know how it goes,


....more to come

Hi Everyone, It's been a busy few days since I last posted. Mom has been home, unfortunately not resting very comfortably. She has been in quite a bit of pain since she came home. She can't understand why she's in more pain now than when she was in the hospital. Dad took mom to see a pain specialist yesterday, who prescribed her some different medication and so she seemed to get some relief last night. This morning mom is going to have a procedure done where they inject cement into her spine where the vertebrae is broken. This should heal her spine and help with the pain in her back. I will keep you updated on how the procedure goes. Thank you for all your love and support. Mom loves hearing from everyone! Love, Cresta

Hi Everyone, Well thank you for all your prayers. Today IS the day! Mom is finally going to be released. She is so excited she can hardly contain herself. Her port install went very well, so she's officially joined the 'Iron Man' club ;). She also got some nifty accessories to go along with her membership, including a matching bracelet, id card and a keychain! Who knew? ;) Mom is resting comfortably for a couple of hours while they watch her vital signs, but should be 'over the wall' and back at home soon. I'll keep you updated on her progress. Thank you for all your love and support. Mom has really enjoyed reading all of your comments. She is so grateful for all of you. And we are too! Love, Cresta

Hi Everyone, Mom's made some good improvements the last 2 days. She's been having a bit of nausea, but has been gaining strength and isn't nearly as tired as she has been. She's been a bit discouraged that her doctors keep telling her day after day that maybe she can be released 'tomorrow' but as she says 'tomorrow never comes'. However, we REALLY think tomorrow is the day! They have removed her dialysis catheter and she is scheduled to have her picc line removed and a port put in first thing tomorrow morning. Her doctor doing the port told her she could 'go over the wall' within an hour after the procedure, implying that she'll finally be breaking out of prison tomorrow! ;) The port is needed because mom has very tiny veins and they keep collapsing :/ so this will allow her to receive her chemo and have blood drawn without being poked a million times trying to find a vein. So let's all pray that tomorrow REALLY is the day that she gets to finally come home. And a big THANKS to Yvette & Marty for coming up for the weekend and spelling Candice and I for the last 2 nights. We love you!!

Hi Everyone, Mom's had a difficult few days, although dialysis is really starting to help her. She seems more awake and alert than she has in the last few days. Mom has been complaining of heartburn for awhile and they've been giving her medication for it, but it hasn't seemed to help. Earlier this morning, she had an endoscopy and they were able to determine that she has a badly ulcerated esophagus. Poor Mom! At least we know what is causing her so much pain when she tries to eat or drink anything. Her doctor said that it is most likely the cause of her throwing up as well. They are going to give her some medication to help numb her esophagus and make it a little more comfortable to eat and drink. She has talked a lot today about when she gets to go home. She says she's tired of the hospital and is ready. Her doctors are optimistic that it will be soon, although she will have to be eating and drinking regularly and fight off a mild fever that she's experiencing today, before they let her go. I told her that was her job this weekend, to work on resting and eating and drinking so that maybe she can go home on Monday. Thank you all for all your wonderful comments and showing your love to my mom. She appreciates all the support she is receiving (when she's awake, we read to her from the comments section of the blog). Love you! Cresta

Today ended as an answer to my prayer of yesterday, It was definitely a better day for Angie. She is still very fatigued and she again has slept much of the day, but she has been much less nauseated. The kidney specialist said her kidney function was continuing to improve although she is only functioning at 9% and he thought if she was at 15 percent or above she would probably pull out of the renal failure on her own. Due to her low function, he did schedule her for the first of three dialysis treatments, which she started receiving at 6:00pm tonight and it will last for two hours. Tomorrow's treatment will be 2.5 hours and if needed Friday's will be 3 hours. 


My sweet wife was scheduled to have a catheter installed in a vein in her neck used for attaching the dialysis machine, first thing this morning. In light of this, they had her not eat or drink anything until this procedure was completed. At 4:30pm after voicing my displeasure for her having to wait all day, they took her down for the procedure, and she was finally able to eat and drink something. Turns out the order for the catheter was entered in the computer system, but since the radiology department personnel are on call instead of on site due to the holiday, they didn't see the order. Seems like a hospital doesn't run as smoothly as it could on holidays. 
The good news in all of this is Angie is receiving dialysis now and the magic of that machine should be helping her to feel much better in the next couple of days.

She will be watched over by my beautiful and capable daughter Candice tonight, while I go home and spend some time with my son.

I hope you all had a wonderful celebration of our country's birth, have a good night, and I will update you again tomorrow.

I have to apologize to everyone, I didn't enter a post last night. I meant to after I got home, but I did laundry until about 12:30 this morning and went to bed not realizing I hadn't made an entry here. I promise I will try to be better.

It has been a rough day for my beautiful bride. She has been plagued with extreme fatigue, nausea, and incessant hiccups, all symptoms we have learned, of increased renal failure. To complicate matters she is having difficulty swallowing and has been put on a very restrictive diet of soft foods (cottage cheese, pudding) and only water to drink to help prevent food or beverages from entering her lungs. Her renal specialist said they will probably schedule her for dialysis tomorrow to help give her kidneys some needed rest and support and told us he is still positive on her progress.  I'm in favor of her having a dialysis treatment as I think she will feel much better and it will take  a load off her body and give it opportunity to heal.

She just finished a little cottage cheese and has immediately fallen back to sleep. Just being by her side she continues to do what she has always done, giving me such comfort and strength when I should be providing this for her. She is an amazing women!

We both are so touched by the outpouring of love, support, and kindness we continue to receive. Things impossible to repay, but never forgotten. I will sign off tonight, praying for a better day tomorrow for Angie and wishing you all a happy 4th of July

more to come.......

Mom's Flowers

Angie had a relatively good day today with some additional indication that her kidneys are trying to ramp back up. They are worried about her breathing and her risk of pneumonia setting in so they are encouraging her to try to walk when she has the strength and energy to do so. She is extremely tired and has needed to sleep much of the day, but I think this is good for her and gives her opportunity to recover. 

She is on medication that is compromising her immune system substantially so they have recommended to not have any children visit her at this time and also adults with illness that may be spread to her during the visit. I know the no-children restriction will break her heart as anyone that knows her, knows her absolute joy and delight when she is surrounded by the "little ones". In light of this, I would like to suggest any of the children in Angie's life that would like to get in touch with her to use this blog and I promise to read every one to her each day. 

Angie was very touched by the card she received from the sisters of the Ward and expresses her deep love and appreciation for your kindness and words of support. 

Tomorrow she receives her second Chemo treatment, I'm hoping she tolerates it as well as she did the first one.

Stay tuned, more to follow......

I saw a wonderful spark of my mom's fun personality this morning! Her kidney doctor recommended she try to get up & walk around. So as we were walking around the oncology ward she challenged him to a race! I love you, Mom!