Jason's Texas Adventure

Jason's Memorial Fund

2009-03-28T18:03:00.000-07:00

Dear friends, family and co-workers,

I am overwhelmed by the support that you have shown myself and Jason's family by attending Jason's Celebration of Life Ceremony (even when it was during the Superbowl), the very thoughtful condolences cards you have given to us, and the very generous donations that you have made to Jason's Memorial Fund. I am deeply touched and I can't thank you enough. Your compassion leaves me without the words to adequately express my gratitude.

I have to apologize because my writing of thank you cards has been a very slow process. It is emotionally hard for me to write each of these cards even though it is something that I really want to do, and my health has not been cooperating over the past month making it that much more difficult. I will get them written, but this is the reason why you might not have received yours yet. I also need your help, because when the Memorial Fund was set up, we figured they would give us a list of names of those who contributed. We have come to find out that they can only tell us the names of those that made a descriptive deposit. We had no idea this was the case, or we would have told everyone to make sure to have their names written next to their deposits. Most of the contributions do not have names and the bank has told me there is no way for me to find out who has left them. I am deeply frustrated by this and feel the bank should have warned us before we set up the memorial account.

So I am asking everyone for their help with three things. Will you please let me know if you have donated to Jason's Memorial Account. I desperately want to thank each of you for your generosity and I feel terrible that right now I am unable to do so. If you could let me know your name and mailing address, I would be incredibly grateful. Secondly, I do not have the email addresses for everyone that attended Jason's Ceremony, so could you please forward this on to anyone I might have missed or anyone that couldn't attend but might have made a donation. Finally, I am more than happy to make DVDs for anyone that wants a copy of the photo montage that we played at Jason's Ceremony. So please let me know if you would like a DVD and send me your mailing address and I will get the DVD shipped out to you as soon as I can.

Again, I can't thank you enough for your overwhelming compassion and I am so thankful to have so many caring people in my life!

Sincerely,
Deborah Jensen

25 Mile Race to raise funds for cancer!

2009-01-28T21:43:00.000-08:00

Marissa will be participating in a 25 mile bike race in memory of Jason in order to raise money for a cancer support group. The efforts of Breakingaway provide valuable services and programs, free of charge, to help people living with cancer to live well with the disease. Please visit the website and donate whatever you can, even $5 makes a difference! Please honor Jason and help others who are facing the biggest battle of their lives.
Thank you!!!

http://www.active.com/donate/breakawaysf2009/drouillard

Potluck for Jason's Celebration of Life

2009-01-22T10:55:00.000-08:00

Several people have offered to bring food for Jason's Celebration of Life. Please don't feel you have to bring anything, but if you would like to bring something to share and it's convenient for you, we thought we would let people post to this blog what they're bringing. This will help avoid duplications. Someone has already volunteered to bring some meat/cheese/cracker trays.
Thank you.

Celebration of Jason's Life/RSVP

2009-01-20T19:05:00.000-08:00

Jason’s Celebration of Life will take place Sunday, February 1, 2009 at 4 pm. The remembrance will take place at the VFW Hall, located at 299 I St., Chula Vista, on the North East corner of Third Ave. and I St. It is a large white building with steps up into the hall.

Parking at the VFW Hall is limited. You may want to park across Third Avenue in the public lot behind the County Building. Directions are below.

As this is a celebration of his life, and not a funeral, we would prefer dressy casual attire. Also, knowing Jason, he would prefer if people did not wear black. There will be alcohol available, so you may want to plan on getting a taxi, arrange hotel accommodations, or designate a driver if you plan on drinking.

For planning purposes, we would like to know approximately how many friends and family will be attending. Please respond to this blog with your RSVP and include the number of guests you will be bringing.

Directions to the VFW Hall for Jason’s Celebration of His Life:

From the 805
To get to the VFW from the 805 take the H St. West exit. Turn Left on Third Ave. (fourth light). At the next light (I St,) turn right and then right into the public parking lot.

From the 5
To get to the VFW from the 5 take the H St. exit turning left(east) toward downtown.. Turn Right on Third Ave. At the next light (I St,) turn right and then right into the public parking lot.

Jason's Obituary

2009-01-20T15:45:00.000-08:00

Jason’s obituary will be in the Union Tribune on Wednesday, January 21, 2009. For those friends and family out of town, his obituary is included in this post.

Jason Matthew Jensen, age 33, of San Diego died Sunday, January 11, 2009, in Houston, Texas where he had been undergoing treatment at MD Anderson Cancer Center since August. He carried himself with a quiet dignity despite the discomfort of his cancer. He showed strength of character that most men can only dream of. Throughout his care he never once lost his high spirits and inspired all around him with his optimism and love of life.

Born June 26, 1975 in Millington, Tennessee, he was the son of Marjorie and Terry Jensen. He grew up in Chula Vista, California, graduating from Hilltop High School, class of 1993. In school he was very involved with both concert and marching bands. He later attended Humboldt State University.

From an early age he loved computers. This led to a career at Goodrich Aerostructures in Chula Vista as a Systems Administrator. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from the University of Phoenix in 2004.

With his wife Debby, he enjoyed traveling, hiking, video games and spending time with friends. They were also avid movie goers. He was also a long time vegetarian and passionate about animal rights.

Preceded in death by his grandparents, Thelma and Ray Jensen of Chula Vista and Ruth and Alvin (Biff) Schneider of Dover, Ohio, and his aunt, Paula Becerra, Jason is survived by Deborah Stradley Jensen, the love of his life, whom he wed on November 6, 2004, his cat Pita, and his loving mother and father.

A Celebration of his life will be held on Sunday, February 1, 2009 at 4:00 PM in the VFW Hall at 299 ‘I’ Street (Third and I) in Chula Vista.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made in memory of Jason to a favorite cancer charity; or to help offset medical expenses, donations may be made to the Jason Jensen Memorial Fund at North Island Credit Union, 3950 Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, San Diego, CA. 92117, account number 116939319.

Jason Jensen Memorial Fund

2009-01-16T18:26:00.000-08:00

Family and friends who wish to make a donation to the Jason Jensen Memorial Fund, please mail checks to the following North Island Credit Union branch address:

North Island Credit Union

3950 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.

San Diego, CA 92117

Please make checks payable to: Jason Jensen Memorial Fund

and include the account number in the memo: 116939319

For anyone wishing to donate in person, you may do so at any North Island Credit Union location.

If you have any questions, please email me at:

beckystradley@yahoo.com

Celebration of Life for Jason

2009-01-14T13:07:00.000-08:00

We would like to thank everyone for the kind words they have posted on the blog about Jason. We love to hear how much he meant to each of you and how much he will be missed. We feel the same way…we feel empty inside without him and this loss is going to have a profound effect on us all for the rest of our lives. He was the love of my life and my soul mate…and now he will take on a new role as my angel. He will look after me, his mom and dad, and everyone that he cared so deeply for during his short but amazing life.

It looks like we will be holding his Celebration of Life ceremony on February 1 at 4 pm. This is Super Bowl Sunday, but frankly we don’t have a lot of options because the facility we would like to use is very busy, so all I can tell you is to set up the DVR so you won’t miss the game. Jason was never a huge football fan so I know it wouldn’t bother him to throw his party on this day.

We would like to put together a video montage for the funeral and we would like to ask everyone that has pictures, either digital or hard copies, that we might not have, to send them our way ASAP. We really need to get these by this weekend because the company needs them quickly in order to get the montage done in time. So please either email or mail them to us (disc or hard copies are fine).

Please use the following address:

Terry Jensen
125 Mankato St.
Chula Vista, CA 91910
greatdane48@gmail.com

In lieu of flowers, my sister Becky is starting a Jason Jensen Memorial Fund to help offset medical expenses and funeral costs. Jason has put three years of blood, sweat and tears into the renovation of our condo and I treasure it so much because of all the fond memories and good times we had together there, so I am putting my best effort into not losing it because of outstanding medical debt. His Memorial Fund will be set up at North Island Credit Union and donations can be mailed or dropped off. Becky should have the account set up by Saturday. She will post the address and details on the blog. An alternative option is to donate to your favorite cancer charity in honor of our beloved Jason. We have also written an obituary and we will let you know when it is to be printed in the Union Tribune so you can get yourself a copy.

Sending my love to you all,
Debby

We Lost Our Dear Jason

2009-01-11T09:09:00.000-08:00

It is with heartbreaking sorrow we report that Jason passed away peacefully early Sunday morning. Family members were at his bedside. Words cannot describe the grief and sadness we feel at losing such a wonderful husband, son, and dear friend.

A celebration of his life will be scheduled at a later date. The family will return to San Diego when arrangements are completed here in Houston. Please help us notify friends, relatives, and colleagues of Jason's passing. The family asks that any flowers or donation requests wait until they return to San Diego. Funeral information will be posted here and through phone trees.

Thank you all for the thoughts, prayers and support we have received.

The Jensen Family

Hospice Care

2009-01-09T18:03:00.000-08:00

This is Debby's Dad, Joe, posting again. The latest PET scan Jason underwent Thursday morning indicated his melanoma has become very aggressive and widespread. His condition has worsened fairly rapidly during the past week, and unfortunately, the treatment efforts have been unsuccessful in slowing his disease. Debby, Marjorie, and I were in a long consultation with two of Jason's oncologists Thursday afternoon. He does not have the stamina for the T-cell intervention. Further treatment options were discussed and Jason was to start additional radiation and an MRI on Friday. Thursday was a very rough day emotionally for the whole family.

Thursday night Jason's coughing became much worse and he had ongoing breathing difficulty. Debby woke us and we took him to the ER at 5:00 a.m. He was given oxygen and chest x-rays. Jason has become too weak to tolerate any more chemotherapy. His tumor load has expanded to a fatal level. His condition is too fragile to travel back to San Diego at this time. Jason has returned to the town home to begin Hospice care with the family. A program called Odyssey Hospice care is providing nursing services and medical equipment. Jason's Dad and Debby's Mom flew in from San Diego Friday night to be with us. Debby's sister and brother-in-law, Becky and Stephen, are flying in today. Jason is surrounded by his loving family.
Please keep Jason and the family in your prayers. God bless you all for the support! - Joe

Jason says to tell everyone that he loves and misses them. We can't thank everyone enough for their encouraging posts, packages, emails and letters during Jason's difficult battle. - Debby

With A Quiet Dignity

2009-01-08T17:59:00.000-08:00

This is Debby's Dad posting some observations on the blog today. Jason tells me there are over 45,000 people working at the various MD Anderson Cancer Center complexes in Houston. I'm sure he has met several hundred of them already. As I watch Jason go to different clinics, labs, and exam rooms, he carries himself with a quiet dignity despite the discomfort of his cancer. He shows a strength of character that most men can only dream of. Most of the technicians, nurses, and doctors sense this immediately about Jason and he is treated with the greatest of respect by Anderson staff. Today we were at the center for most of 10 hours. Jason was as dignified at the end of the day as he was when going into the PET scan clinic at 6 a.m. this morning.

The two Nurse Jensen's are also inspiring to see in action. Debby and Marjorie have been constant caregivers by Jason's side since August. As his medical needs and care have increased, so have their efforts to keep him as comfortable and healthy as possible. They are so devoted to Jason. Debby is such a loving wife and advocate for her husband. Marjorie demonstrates a mother's love in the truest sense by her many sacrifices and assistance to her son. As I listen to them plan food options, schedules, and activities, it is always about what is best for Jason.

Although many of you who read this blog cannot be here, please know that Jason is receiving the best care possible by Team Jensen. And....around the townhouse here in Houston, between treatments, Jason also carries himself with a quiet dignity. I am so proud of them all.

Joe

One Nurse Jensen back in Commission

2009-01-05T17:31:00.000-08:00

Friday Joe and I took Jason in for his eye appointment. They will continue to monitor him for eye pain and comfort and work in conjunction with Dr. Kim. There are other options if the pain returns. For now, Jason’s eye is a lot less painful and swollen because of the battery of eye drops that I must administer into his eye every hour.

Debby’s feeling better so that’s great…she had a nasty case of the flu that finally seems to be subsiding. Jason was scheduled for blood tests, a PET scan, and appointment with Dr. Kim next week to stage his next treatment. But today, Debby was able to get those appointments moved to this Thursday. She is a shaker and a mover!

We got a nice surprise last week - New Year’s cookies from the Domers. Thank you so much! They are delicious.

Marjorie

Ringing the Ship's Bell

2008-12-31T11:46:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was Jason’s fifth and last radiation treatment. It was a success in that it did gradually reduce the pain in his eye each day and for the first time yesterday, he had no pain (just still uncomfortable)! The Radiation Clinic now has a tradition that when radiation treatment is complete, the patient gets to ring a ship’s bell to announce he’s finished. So Jason got to ring the bell and everyone in the waiting room applauded as we left, and wished him well. A Navy captain had gotten treatment there for 2 months every day and felt like it was his second home. When he left, he wanted to give them something. He said whenever he left the ship, they would ring a bell announcing his departure. So he gave them a ship’s bell and now all patients get to ring it when they’re finished. And he took his mask home with him. I’m sure he’ll figure out something to do with it!

In the last 24 hours we have seen the swelling in his eye decrease dramatically and the color looking so much better. He’ll follow up with the eye clinic on Friday.

On Monday when we saw Dr. Kim, he told us they couldn’t get Jason in for TIL study treatment until February because they were so booked up. Dr. Kim wants to give Jason another type of chemo until he can get him in, but Jason needs to get his strength back before they can do it. The radiation left him very weak and tired. It takes about 2 weeks for the side effects of the radiation to subside, so he’ll check him in another couple weeks.

Terry left on Monday and Joe came back Monday night. With Debby being sick and Jason so weak, we needed help and he graciously said he would come back and help us out as long as we needed him. We are so thankful!

Debby’s feeling a little better today, so hopefully she’s on the mend.

And we got our baby swiss cheese from Ohio! Joe’s munching on a cheese sandwich and loving it. Thanks a lot, Carol!

Marjorie

One Less Nurse Jensen

2008-12-28T16:55:00.000-08:00

Jason’s estimated 20 minute follow-up appointment with the ophthalmologist the day after Christmas turned out to be 4-1/2 hours. But what they were able to accomplish in that time was amazing, because all of the clinics were really still closed for the holiday. He did an ultrasound of Jason’s eye which showed that the tumor had grown since October. He brought in a senior ophthalmologist for consultation and they decided that radiation was the next step to hopefully shrink the tumor and stop the pain.

We called Debby and let her know what was happening and the entire family came in and shared the rest of the day with us. This gave Jason and Debby much needed support during this trying decision making. We even had a little time between mask making and first treatment to sample “Café Anderson” with the few that had not yet eaten there.

It took the senior ophthalmologist almost an hour and many many phone calls before she was able to reach the right on-call emergency radiologist to get treatment started immediately. She was very frustrated and embarrassed that it took so long and was very close to calling the hospital administrator to complain about the service. This threat resulted with the heard of nuclear medicine coming in to see Jason and get his treatment started. This is just one more example that shows the dedication of the hospital staff, both of the ophthalmologists were supposed to be off earlier to start their own holidays but stuck around to insure Jason got the treatment he needed.

They first made the mask used to position his head for the very exacting radiation treatment. It looks like a white mesh grid in the shape of his head. They then did a CT scan with the mask still on him to determine exactly where they were going to aim the radiation. As Debby said, the actual treatments take about 15-20 minutes. To start with, he’ll get radiation treatment every day for 5 days. During the first 2 treatments he fell asleep – could be all the pain medication had something to do with that. Terry and I took Jason to his third treatment this morning. Jason’s treatment today went smooth and quick. He said each day his eye is feeling a little better, with what he classed as 8 out of 10 on Christmas Day he now says is about a 2, so that’s very encouraging. Tomorrow will be a very busy day with blood tests, an appointment his oncologist Dr. Kim, an appointment with the ophthalmologist, and radiation treatment. Somewhere in there we have to get Terry to the airport.

Debby’s out of commission today – she’s really tired with a painful cough and feeling like there is fluid in her lungs. She slept most of the day. She woke up as Jason began a nap and we watched “Momma Mia”, not a Jason type of film. Later she told us she was feeling very ill. She has all the symptoms of a bad case of the flu. We are now giving her Emergen-C and Airbourne as advised by a pharmacist. She is staying away from Jason and wearing a mask to help keep him well.

Tonight we attempted to duplicate Lorren’s corn-potato soup, it turned out to be very good!

Mom and Dad

Christmas at the ER

2008-12-27T15:53:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas Everyone!

These are pictures from Christmas Eve since we spent the majority of Christmas at the ER. We had a great Christmas Eve. We woke up to hot cranberry-orange muffins that Marjorie had baked. We went to church, watched 2 movies, one about the Star of Bethlehem and the other was the funny classic A Christmas Story. We continued to make ornaments using paint, pens and glitter glue. We even made a few shrinky dink ornaments. Then we followed the Stradley Christmas Eve cheating rule and we all got to open one present each. Marjorie had crocheted really cute beanie hats for everyone, so we opened those. Since Jason and I already had our beanies we opened other gifts. I opened a beautiful pair of earrings that my mom got from "A Greater Gift." This company helps fight poverty by allowing people from around the world to sell their crafts through fair trade. Here is the website if anyone is interested.

www.agreatergift.org

They have some wonderful gifts and its for a good cause! Jason opened Lance Armstrong's "It's Not About the Bike" in audio. Since he is having trouble with his eyesight, I thought the book on CDs was a good idea for him. Marjorie and I both read the book and really liked it so hopefully Jason will like it too.

On Christmas morning, Marjorie, Terry, Becky and I made two different quiches. One vegetarian and one for the meat eaters that even had apple in it. They tasted great. We also had a cocktail made up of champagne, orange juice and grenadine, and sliced oranges with cinnamon. We had just started our first round of present opening which included Jason and I passing out the flying monkeys that Kristy sent us. Flying monkeys were going everywhere...it was a blast. Unfortunately Jason made a sudden ducking movement to avoid an out of control flying monkey and all of a sudden everything went black in his left eye (the one with the tumor). Then he started to get such an intense pain...so bad that is caused a severe headache and continuous vomiting. All 8 of us rushed him to the ER. We suspected that his retina had detached.

We got to the ER and it was pretty empty so they took us right back. Its funny how no one has emergencies on Christmas. You know that the people who were there really needed to be there. We saw the ER doctor and he was honest with us and told us he didn't know much about examining the eye. He could see Jason's tumor and that's about it. He was kind enough to put Jason on IV fluids, pain, and nausea medication. But the pain was so bad, the pain medicine didn't even make a dent. Jason's face was drenched in sweat as well, either from the morphine or the pain, I'm not sure which. They called up the on-call Opthamologist and on-call Melanoma Medical Oncologist. Both showed up about 2 hours later...an excruciating 2 hour wait for poor Jason.

Both doctors were great. The Opthamologist checked Jason's eye and said it looked like the retina had detached. He said that while the tumor was growing, it was getting slowly detached and it had probably more completely detached and that was why Jason could no longer see any light in that eye. He said that a detached retina is not painful so he checked the interocular pressure (IOP) in both of Jason's eyes. Jason's right eye was 11, his left eye was 54. Normal is from 8 to 20. The Opthamologist said that Jason's tumor was causing glaucoma which was causing the intense pain. He thought the IOP could be easily brought down through medication and eye drops. He was wrong...

We started with 2 kinds of eye drops, put in Jason's eye every 5 minutes for 30 minutes. Then he checked the pressure and it had dropped down to 47. This was a promising start, so he added another 2 types of drops and continued to put 4 drops into Jason's eyes every 5 minutes for another 30 minutes. When he checked the IOP again, it was still at 47...not good. So then he gave Jason an IV diuretic. It had to be ordered from the central pharmacy and took 45 minutes to get to the ER. The Opthamologist waited for 45 minutes after the diuretic had been given, then checked Jason's IOP again, no change. So he then discussed with all the other doctors if a really really strong diuretic should be used. The risk was his blood pressure could drop significantly and his IOP in the other eye could drop too low and cause problems. Jason was is so much pain, we just said hurry up, we'll try anything. So we had to wait another 45 minutes for the medication to show up from the central pharmacy. This diuretic had to be infused for 1 and a half hours. Then the Opthamologist had to wait an additional half hour before he measured the IOP again. After all this, NO CHANGE. The Opthamologist told us he had never seen a patient not respond to this medication.

Meanwhile, the whole entire family is waiting in the ER waiting rooms. Only one person was allowed back with Jason. So I continuously ran out to give them updates. Finally, at 11 pm Christmas night, the Opthamologist said he gave up and to come back to his clinic in the morning. He didn't know what else to do outside of surgery or taking Jason's eye out. They handed me some diuretics for Jason to continue to take at home, 3 types of eye drops, and told me to ramp up his pain meds a lot. We finally made it home at 11:59 PM Christmas Evening. Oh Boy! Jason and I were very depressed about missing Christmas. He was in pain and we had both been looking forward to Christmas for weeks, we were heartbroken. Thank god the rest of the family was there to support us. I don't know what we would have done without them. It was definitely one of the most stressful and difficult days we have been through so far. I was starting to feel sick, the stress from seeing my husband in so much pain and being in the ER for 10 and a half hours was starting to take a toll. I asked if Terry and Marjorie could take Jason into the clinic in the morning. When we woke up, Jason's eye was extremely red, and very, very swollen. It looked like a severe allergic reaction. I got Jason dressed and Marjorie and Terry took him to the clinic along with my Dad.

You will have to read Marjorie's next blog to hear all the details from the clinic visit. It sounds like after much hassle, multiple Opthamologists looked at and discussed Jason and they were able to get in some radiologists that were on-call to come in and they all decided it was time for Jason to start radiation in his left eye to shrink the tumor and get him out of pain. My Dad called me and told me the plan, and the rest of us hurried to the hospital to be there for Jason. They did a CT scan on his eye so they knew exactly where to target the radiation. They made a mask to protect the rest of his face. Then they gave him his first radiation treatment. The radiation treatment itself only took about 15 minutes. There was quite a bit of prep time, but in the future everything will be already set up and should go much quicker.

When we finally got home, it was about 4:30 in the afternoon. It was finally time to open presents!!! Unfortunately, Jason was pretty doped up from the high amount of morphine and dilaudid we had to give him to try to keep him as comfortable as possible. He could barely stay awake. We decided to let him open all his gifts first so he could go back to sleep. We both made out! He got Rock Band 2 complete with a bass guitar and cymbal expansion pack. We both got a really nice Garmin GPS. We have been spoiled using Marjories the whole time we have been in Houston so now we will have our own. We both got a multitude of great giftcards, books, Jason got a video game (Gears of War 2) and computer game (Spore), and I got a pair of comfy boots, a pretty necklace, scarf and hat. We also got Wall-e and Dark Knight on Blu-Ray. Jason got me a beautiful set of pearl earrings I will forever cherish. I think everyone was pretty happy with their gifts. Santa was good to us!

Thank Yous

I have so many people to thank. I planned on calling a lot of people on Christmas day, but unfortunately that didn't work out. We got quite a few gifts in the mail right before Christmas and that was great because Christmas itself didn't go so well. I would love to send out thank you notes to everyone, but the upcoming week is going to be very busy. Jason is scheduled for radiation appointments every single day including over the weekend and I have to work really hard at getting him admitted into the TIL study as soon as possible. So for now, consider this my deepest and sincerest "Thank You!" You are all much loved and appreciated.

Jason and I wanted to thank Zack and family for the amazing box of presents. The fudge was delicious that I assume Lauren made. I can't believe it managed to stay cold! Jason and I had a lot of fun eating the types of candies we haven't had in years. The teas were great too. My mom and I are hooked on the ginger tea, and I just tried the sugar plum last night and loved it. I will have to buy more of those if I can find them. I am a little worried about the puzzles, but Jason is excited. Jason and Marjorie had to talk me into doing a 1000 piece puzzle last time, and now we have 2 different Van Gogh 2000 piece puzzles. I'm a little apprehensive, but the rest of the Jensen's are puzzle people and are up to the challenge. We will post pictures when (if?, hehe) we get each puzzle completed. Thanks again for everything!

Thank you Andy for the great Vegetarian cookbook from Sonoma. I've only had a chance to glance at it because of everything that has happened, but it looks like there are some delicious recipes. I particularly like some of the soup recipes and I think they will be very nutritious for Jason. We also really liked the kind message you wrote inside.

My Grandpa doesn't have Internet, but he sent a very generous card and I wanted to thank him and send him all my love and tell him I miss him.

Thanks to the Beals for the gifts from Hawaii. The pancake mix sounds like it will make delicious pancakes and the body spray smells like I'm on a tropical island.

Deven, Jason wanted to thank you for the gift card. It was very generous of you! I hope you and your family had a great Christmas and that Santa was good to Katie!

I also wanted to re-thank the Woods. My sister mentioned your gifts in her blog, but I wanted to thank you too. I will take a picture of the personalized puzzle of our house when we get it completed so you can see what it looks like. That was a great gift idea!

I was also hoping to call the Croaks and wish them a Merry Christmas, but since I wasn't able to, I will do it now. I hope you had a great one!

Also, Merry Christmas to the Domers and Culls! We missed you guys but heard you had a good time at Carols house.

Last but not least, I want to thank Marjorie, Terry, Mom, Dad, Becky, Cora and Lorren. I don't know what Jason and I would have done without you here for us on Christmas. Things did not go how we had planned...we never even got the chance to make the Christmas dinner we planned, but we managed to have a great week with you visiting and your support got us through a very difficult couple of days. Jason and I are very lucky to have Team Jensen!!! We also loved all the wonderful presents you showered us with!

Jason got through his second radiation appointment today just fine. He has been sleeping most of the day. He is still on a lot of pain medicines which is probably why he is so sleepy. He did say the pain went down from an 8 to a 5 so that is a great start! Unfortunately, he will lose his vision permanently in his left eye and there is a risk of losing his eye itself as a side effect from the treatment, or they might have to surgically remove his eye and the tumor if the radiation doesn't work. Since the pain has decreased, I am thinking that the radiation must be working so I am very hopeful he will get to keep his beautiful left eye. I also had the Opthamologist do a thorough examination of his right eye and it is perfect. No sign of any metastasis so that is good news! Sorry for the very long blog and Merry Christmas!

Disco Penguin and "the bling" awards

2008-12-23T17:53:00.000-08:00

Hi! Becky here, reporting from Houston (taking over blog duty for a few days to give Team Jensen a break)...

The Stradleys flew in last night and Terry flies in tonight at 10pm. Our Christmas party is almost complete. The Houston residence is full of beautiful decorations and Christmas treats. Today we have been hard at work decorating ornaments, watching movies and eating fudge, walnut logs and other delicious Christmas goodies. Packages for Team Jensen have been arriving daily and are much appreciated (although we are still anxiously awaiting Aunt Carol's cheese!).

Today - Jason won the award for adding the most bling to a Christmas ornament (adding bling is Debby terminology for the liberal use of glitter). His bejeweled and glittered Xmas present ornament beat out my disco penguin and Debby's Christmas Liberty Bell (complete with crack). I am including a photos of Debby and Jason in their Santa hats, Jason making his winning Christmas ornament and all of the rest of us hard at work preparing the house for Christmas.

Team Jensen would like to thank Aunt Patti, Uncle Dave and Cousin Christina for the anniversary puzzle of their home, the gift card, the walnut logs and the Hillary Clinton bobble-head. The new Secretary of State is now keeping watch on the mantle.

We wish everyone a merry Christmas! Continue keeping Team Jensen in your thoughts and prayers.

"I do whatever Jason tells me to do"

2008-12-20T17:28:00.000-08:00

Jason's aunt and uncle, Cora and Lorren (Terry's brother and sister-in-law), got here yesterday - by train. They're making Christmas ornaments in the picture, as are the rest of us tonight. And we put Lorren to work in the kitchen, making a lentil soup. It was wonderful!

We received a great gift yesterday - from Toni, one of my co-workers - see the pictures. It was so much fun to open - refrigerator magnets, button pins, the t-shirt, a pillow and a bumper sticker! The mug says "I do whatever Jason tells me to do". Jason immediately gave that one to Debby! And oh how true was the refrigerator magnet with Jason's To Do List - how did you know that Toni? Thanks so much!

Generous Friends and Family!

2008-12-18T16:45:00.000-08:00

We have the most wonderful friends and family. Packages have been arriving all week and we have gotten the nicest gifts. We got a ton of these Livestrong mugs from Kristy which is perfect timing for when our families come to visit, because we weren't equipped with enough mugs. There are tall mugs with lids and fat shorter mugs that are great for morning coffee or tea. We absolutely love them!

We also got 2 care packages from family members. Jason's Aunt Carol send us our favorite potato chips from Ohio and we heard a rumor that some delicious cheese is on its way...we are so excited.

Jason's Aunt Kathy, Uncle Bob and cousin Raylene sent us a huge box filled with Christmas decorations, candy and ornaments. This is a picture of the beautiful wreath that Kathy made herself. MD Anderson had an auction of Christmas wreaths and we discussed purchasing one, but Kathy's wreath was much prettier than any of the ones we saw at the hospital. Our Christmas tree is now full of the cutest ornaments...and we now have some decorations to put up around the house. It now feels like Christmas at the Jensen Houston townhouse thanks to the Becerras!!! We even got two Santa hats that you can decorate. Jason and I will work on decorating them and will take a picture with them on once they are finished.

Marissa sent us an amazing manger scene to help us get in the Christmas spirit. The box was huge. We couldn't believe she had sent a whole manger scene! It came the day after the army men, so we were cracking up when we read the card and it said the army men were to protect Bethlehem since it can be a dangerous place.

This is the display I made for Jason's army men. The sign says "160 Million Spartans Unite!" This will be what Jason's T cells look like when they let them loose in his body to fight the cancer. The cancer doesn't have a chance!

And finally for Marissa's benefit, here is her vision of the army men protecting Bethlehem. We could only spare a few, the rest have to represent Jason's T cells.

Jason has his appetite back so we are hoping that he is gaining some weight back. He is still having a lot of trouble with his legs, mostly from pain and swelling. We have been taking multiple short walks each day and each time we try to go just a little bit further, but it has been pretty tiring for Jason to get around. Marjorie has been really busy shopping and getting everything ready for our visitors. I have been trying to help, but at the same time spend as much time as I can hanging out with Jason, since that is the most important part of my day. He thinks I run around too much, I guess I take after my dad a bit in not being able to sit still for too long. So I've been trying to sit back and just enjoy the day when I can....a good lesson for all of us during this busy and sometimes stressful time of year! The most important thing is just spending time with family!!!

Tuesday

2008-12-16T12:53:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post -

Since Jason's still having problems with walking, Debby picked up a used wheelchair so he can get out of the house once in awhile.

We got out yesterday to see Quantum of Solace - we all liked it. We hope to get out tomorrow to pick out a small Christmas tree for our condo.

We're looking forward to having our families here with us over the holidays!

Toy Soldiers, Flying Monkeys, and Bugs

2008-12-13T16:10:00.000-08:00

We've had some cold nights this week so we have been making good use of the fireplace. We thought after Jason's paracentesis, he would be lighter and have more energy and would be able to do a lot more walking. This didn't quite work out the way we hoped. Before and after the procedure, I had to hold off on giving him his Lovenox shot, which is a blood thinner to help his deep vein thrombosis (blood clots). Well, his left leg became huge and extremely painful the morning after the paracentesis. It turned purple from lack of circulation. I had to massage his feet to get the blood moving and put on a compression sock. He has been having to lie down most of the day with his leg raised up on 3 pillows. His leg was a little less swollen this morning so keeping it raised has been helping but he says it is still very painful. I talked to a nurse at the hospital and she said it will get better once the Lovenox kicks in again. We are still waiting...

This is a picture of a giant bug we saw on our window. The picture doesn't do him justice. He was at least 2 inches long and completely disgusting. See what you are missing by not living in Houston?

Marissa sent us 160 million Spartans, or rather, toy soldiers for Jason to play with and to be symbolic of our hope for the new treatment. Jason had fun organizing them and taking this picture.

Kristy sent us a box filled to the brim with christmas presents. We were naughty and opened it early. We got the full Stanley Kubrik collection of DVDs...awesome! We got 2 new puzzles and a puzzle roller so we can roll up the puzzle that we are working on and put it away. This will be really useful because we tend to take up the whole table with our puzzles and can't use it for anything else. Jason got 2 comfy pants to wear around the house. We got a variety pack of flavored teas (yummy, I'm becoming a tea addict). But the best and funniest thing we got was a whole slew of flying monkeys. These were to be placed around the house so Jason would find them one by one. Well, since he can't walk right now and I get him everything he needs, I decided to let him play with them all today...which he did. This picture is "post flight"...you should have seen the swarm of monkeys flying through the air. It was great! We can't wait for Kristy to come back and visit because she is going to have flying monkeys aimed at her at all hours of the day and night.

Marjorie and I went to Michaels to find some Christmas ornament making kits. I thought I'd put the family to work when they come out to visit to help us fill our tree with ornaments. I found the little pills that you put into warm water and they turn into spongy creatures. These are from the bug collection that I bought for Jason and I to play with. We are easilily entertained. We have been playing with shrinky dinks also. I don't know if anyone remembers those, but you can buy the paper at Michaels and they are a lot of fun!

Lighter and Whiter in Houston

2008-12-10T20:36:00.000-08:00

Jason went in for the paracentesis today. Everything went well this time. He said it wasn't too bad. They took 2-1/2 liters of fluid from his abdomen. So hopefully he'll start feeling better and be able to eat more.

We have snow in Houston! We were on our way home from the hospital and what we thought was rain was actually snowflakes. We had found out that it doesn't snow in Houston very often – usually only about every 4 years – and the last time it snowed was 4 years ago.

We let Jason pick out this 1,000 piece puzzle at Toys R Us – he was the only one who thought it was easy.

Marjorie

The Spartans Are Back!

2008-12-09T19:43:00.000-08:00

We had an appointment with Jason's oncologist, Dr. Kim on Monday and we were expecting to be admitted to the hospital for Jason's 4th course of biochemotherapy. Before his appointment, I called the TIL study research coordinator and found out some great news. Jason has 160 million T cells frozen and ready to be used to fight his cancer. Only 50% of melanoma patients successfully grow T cells, so we feel very fortunate that his grew and we are able to participate in this phase 2 clinical trial. We also know that although the biochemotherapy seemed to be helping with tumor stability, he has 3 new small subcutaneous lumps since his last checkup. So we discussed it with Dr. Kim and we all agreed that the biochemotherapy was not working as well as we had all hoped.

There is some preparation that needs to take place before Jason can start the TIL study. Mostly it has to be coordinated with insurance and he needs to be re-staged. This will include an MRI and more CT scans. The only exclusion criteria for this clinical trial is brain metastasis, so we have to pray that there are still no tumors in his brain. So far, we have been very lucky with that. After the re-staging, we should be all set to start this new treatment on December 29.

The treatment will consist of 7 days of chemotherapy to wipe out his immune system. Then they infuse the 160 million T cells. Then he has to undergo high dose IL2, as much as his body can tolerate. We are all a little apprehensive about the high dose IL2, including his doctor, since Jason had so many problems with it in the past. The T cells and IL2 should take an additional week if things go smoothly, so the total treatment should take 2 weeks in the hospital, 2 weeks of recovery, and the cycle will repeat once more if all goes well.

I am thinking that it won't be as bad as before. My hypothesis is that he was showing a lot of autoimmune-like symptoms before. This is because the IL2 ramped up his whole immune system and this probably lead to his immune system attacking his internal organs, ie. kidneys. (He is famous at the hospital for the kidney trouble he had and the fact that he was moments away from dialysis). The oncologists got together to discuss whether Jason should do this study or not. I think this treatment will go better because his immune system will be wiped out, so in theory, only the specific T cells should be ramped up and should attack the tumors and not his organs. Dr. Kim said this was all very experimental, but thought there could be some merit to what I think. He also said that right now, they don't even know if the IL2 is completely necessary for the T cells to work. Or it might only take one or two doses to get them going which I know Jason's body can handle.

So the Spartans are back!!! 160 million Spartans ready to attack! Tomorrow, we are going to attempt to get the paracentesis again (stomach draining). This will hopefully help Jason to eat more and gain some weight. Our main goal for the next couple weeks before the clinical trial starts is to get him as strong as possible and to get him back to a healthy weight. That way his body will be ready for everything that will be thrown his way. He is so strong willed and has endured so much already, so we know he will have no problem with this treatment and we are very optimistic. The TIL study is slated to be one of the most promising new cancer treatments being studied for melanoma and a variety of other cancers.

Mom and Dad's visit to Houston

2008-12-05T20:22:00.001-08:00

Marjorie flew home to San Diego on Wednesday morning and my parents flew in Wednesday afternoon. We took them on a driving tour of Houston and showed them some of the really nice neighborhoods, and some of the not so nice areas of Houston. Jason made a really good crock pot pinto bean soup for dinner. Soup was great because it was a cold and rainy day. Then we watched Ironman and went to bed early because Jason had to be at the hospital early in the morning.

On Thursday, we first went to the diagnostic lab and Jason got his blood drawn. Then we dropped my parents off at the Houston Museum of Fine Art, since only one person could be in the room during Jason's paracentesis procedure (stomach draining). We didn't want my parents to be bored and stuck in the waiting room. Back at the hospital, we went to the Interventional Radiology department and got there an hour early, but luckily they took us back right away. We figured we would be in and out of there in no time. Boy were we wrong! They informed us that one of the blood tests wasn't done that morning. So they gave Jason a catheter in his arm... after many tries and 2 different nurses (he now has a huge bruise there). Then they pulled blood from it and sent it off to the lab. They told us the PT test would take an hour to be completed and then the doctor would do the procedure. We sat there for 3 hours while many patients came and went and we were just ignored. I kept asking our nurse about the test and he kept saying it wasn't done yet. Finally, I started complaining and he made some phone calls and found out Jason's blood was sent to the main building and the instrument needed to run the test was broken. So nice of them to tell us after we had waited there for 3 hours! They expected us to continue waiting. The doctor refused to do the procedure without having the test results. I told them no way. I made the nurse take out Jason's catheter and we took off. I told them that Jason has very few precious recovery days and we weren't going to spend one of them at the hospital waiting for blood work that might or might not ever get done. Especially when it was their fault that is wasn't ordered in the first place.

Jason and I were both in pretty sour moods. My parents had walked from the art museum back to the hospital and were waiting for us in the lobby. They suggested we go out and grab something to eat. We thought that was a good idea and would hopefully cheer us up. We decided to go to Chuy's. It is a Tex Mex restaurant that our landlord highly recommended. Lance Armstrong also spends almost a whole chapter in his book talking about how great it is. We agreed with both of them. We all really liked the food and the atmosphere was festive and cheerful. The burritos were huge. Jason could only eat half, but it was good enough to take the rest home.

When we got home, I wrote 3 letters of complaint and sent them off to various people at the hospital. That made me feel a little better. Then I argued a bit with insurance to get that out of the way. We took naps while Jason played Call of Duty on the xbox 360, and then we all played some Texas Hold'em and watched episodes from the first season of Saturday Night Live.

Today we had a leisurely morning and then took a day trip to Galveston. We saw the bay where the cruise terminal is located. We also saw a tall ship from 1877 called Elissa which was impressive. We bought a new puzzle to put together at the gift shop. Today was very cold, so most of our tour was spent inside the car. There is still a ton of hurricane damage on the island so we saw that, then had a nice lunch at a delicious deli located on the strand. They had amazing vegetarian chili and sandwiches made with really good bread.

This evening, I tortured everyone with Fred Claus (not recommended, even on blu-ray). Then me, Jason, and my dad played more Texas Hold'em on our iPhones while my mom read her mystery. We are not sure what we are going to do yet tomorrow. Unfortunately, we have to drop my parents off at the airport in the evening. They will be missed! But Sunday we get Marjorie back so that will be good! Jason has been feeling pretty good lately. Its a shame we have to go back into the hospital for more chemo on Monday. We'll try to post again before then. We miss everyone!

Houston Zoo

2008-12-01T16:58:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we made a trip to the Houston Zoo. We thought it would be really small, because it is located in Hermann Park which we drive by all the time and it doesn't seem to be a very big park. We were surprised by the size of the zoo once inside. It was so large, that we didn't even see everything. We skipped the birds on purpose, but we also missed the african elephants, the wolves, the zebras, and the deer. Our favorite animals were the two grizzly bears and the tiger. One really sad statistic we read was that there are more tigers in the state of Texas than there are in the wild. That is pretty depressing. I also made us watch the monkeys for a long time because they are so amusing to me. The zoo was a lot of fun and it was nice to spend some time outside for a day.

Today was a sad day because we had to drop Terry off at the airport and we won't see him again until Christmas. We had a great weekend though and hopefully the time goes by fast until we see him again. On Wednesday, Marjorie is going home to San Diego and my parents are coming out to Houston for a few days. We are looking forward to them coming out and hopefully Jason will be feeling even better by then because he'll have more chance to recuperate. We're not sure what we will do when they come out yet, but we will keep everyone posted.

Gobble Gobble

2008-11-28T16:25:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving was delicious. Our menu consisted of:

turkey

tofurkey

green bean casserole

mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy

dinner rolls

stuffing

sweet potato casserole

cranberry sauce and relish

apple pie a la mode

pumpkin pie with cool whip

Amazingly, everything was vegetarian...except for Marjorie and Terry's turkey of course. For Andy's sake, I posted a picture of the turkey along with the tofurkey. The tofurkey is the one that is darker in color. It even comes with stuffing inside and a fake wishbone. We haven't gotten to the wishbone yet. It tasted really good and is much easier to cook than a real turkey. Jason wasn't able to eat a lot, but luckily he was able to taste a little bit of everything.

When we were planning our thanksgiving menu, we were trying to figure out how to do a vegetarian version of the sweet potato casserole. It requires marshmallows, but because marshmallows contain gelatin, Jason can't have them. So we looked for vegan marshmallows online, but the company that used to sell them went out of business. I found a recipe on how to make them. Instead of using gelatin, you use agar. Those of us in science are very familiar with agar, we use it on a daily basis to grow bacteria. I was able to purchase agar through amazon and Marjorie followed the vegan marshmallow recipe exactly. Well, our marshmallows never got firm enough. They tasted good, but never got to the proper consistency. We were debating if we should try the recipe again, but decided to check the internet for tips first. We were soon to find out that many people had tried this recipe and failed. One person tried 4 times and never could get it to work. So we gave up and ended up buying marshmallow creme. We used a few spoonfuls on top of the casserol and it came out great. It didn't get toasty like it does when you use real marshmallows, but it was still scrumptious. I think it was the best sweet potato casserole I have ever had! I'll have to have Marjorie post the recipe if anyone is interested.

Jason was just commenting on the names of stores in Houston and how ludicrous they are. There are 3 furniture stores with the worst names possible.

The Dump

Fingers

Conn's

Would anyone buy furniture at a store with one of these names? And the commercials come on all the time...they make us laugh.

Today we went to the hospital because Jason was scheduled to have another blood draw. We got there and the lab was closed. It looked like it had been closed all day long. Nice of them to tell us! Oh well, it got us out of the house for a while. The rest of the day has been spent watching Ninja Warrior on G4. Marjorie and I think its time to watch a chick flick after being exposed to man tv all day long.

The final picture I have posted is Jason in the new beanie that his mom made for him. She has been crocheting all week. The beanie looks so cute on him!

I'd like to thank everyone for their great ideas on what Jason should eat when nauseated. Keep sending those ideas, we will probably try them all. Also I wanted to thank the Beals for the Thanksgiving care package they sent. The popcorn and candy theme is perfect for us with all the movies we have been watching lately. Also, we have no Christmas decorations, so Ramona and Randy Reindeer are a great start. Thanks again!!

Sleepless in Houston

2008-11-26T16:28:00.000-08:00

Well, yesterday turned out to be a little more eventful than we hoped for. Jason was pretty nauseous during the day. So we spent much of the day just trying to get him to eat and drink and keep his medicine down. So much for fancy and expensive anti-emetics, Jason was just as nauseated as usual even after all the new medications he was prescribed. We went to the hospital for blood work and came home planning on a nice relaxing night. As soon as we sat down to watch Heroes, I got a phone call from a nurse at the melanoma clinic and she said that Jason needed an emergency infusion of Magnesium because his levels were dangerously low. We went back to the hospital at 8 pm and the infusion took 4 hours. Jason and I didn't get home until 1:30 am. Then, I tried to get him to eat again because he had hardly eaten all day. After a small meal, we finally were able to get to sleep...at around 2:30 in the morning.

Today we luckily were able to sleep in until noon. We didn't even make it downstairs until 2:30 this afternoon...it takes a while to get Jason showered, iron both our clothes, and then get showered and dressed myself. So we were eating breakfast at 3. Our schedule got pretty screwed up. Jason still isn't eating really well. If anyone has ideas for foods to eat when feeling nauseated, I would love to hear them. I guess chemo changes your taste buds too, so some things that Jason used to like don't appeal to him anymore. He lost 17 pounds since his last treatment, so I am trying really hard so he will not lose any more weight. So if anyone you know went through chemo, please ask them what tasted good to them.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! Terry is flying in tonight and we are all very excited to see him. We have all kinds of delicious foods we are going to make, so hopefully some of them will taste good to Jason. I can't wait to bite into our delicious tofurkey!

Happy Thanksgiving...we will miss not being with you!!!

Preparing for Tofurkey Day

2008-11-24T19:35:00.000-08:00

As Terry mentioned yesterday, we escaped the hospital...barely. Jason was nauseated first thing in the morning when the nurse was in the room. She told the doctor that she didn't think Jason was ready to leave. Luckily, we had everyone already convinced that we were going to be leaving Sunday. When the nurse practitioner came in, Jason was seated in a chair with a smile on his face watching television. He had his game face on and it worked...we got our freedom! We also managed to aquire an increased and more effective dose of pain killers and new nausea medicine to try out during his recovery period to make it as enjoyable as possible.

Today was Tofurkey preparation day. Marjorie came home with an SUV full of groceries. Boy I hope Jason will have his appetite ready for Thursday! Jason spent most of the day asleep, but this is a good thing. We have both been sleep deprived for a week, so it is definitely nice to catch up on some ZZZZs. We also gave him a dose of Lasik to try to get some more of the water weight off. I'm not sure how effective it was. It works a lot better when given through IV at the hospital. They must be using a much larger dose. So for now we are letting Jason rest and trying to feed him mini meals all day long so as not to upset his stomach. Later this week, we will really focus on trying to help him get his strength back. He says he is feeling very weak and it is a battle for him to make it up the stairs each night.

Jason has a lot of distension (looks like beer belly but isn't) from the cancer in his liver. The full belly doesn't allow him to eat much at any one time. The doctor kept talking about tapping it off. He kept bringing it up everyday...he wants to tap Jason like a keg of beer. I guess this involves using ultrasound and a large needle to pull water from the ascites. This doesn't sound fun. The problem is, he will just fill right back up with water when he gets IV fluids during the next round of chemo. We might consider doing this procedure after he has finished his final dose of biochemotherapy because the results might last longer.

One interesting thing that happened yesterday when we were leaving the hospital is we ran into the nephrologist that treated Jason when he had kidney failure due to the high dose Interleukin treatment. He told us that because of Jason, they started a program at MD Anderson to study Interleukin and its affects on the kidneys. Hopefully someday they will be able to better protect patient's kidneys when giving this kind of therapy. It was cool that this was started because of their experience with Jason.

Well, that's all I have to write for tonight. We go into the hospital tomorrow for blood work and the rest of the day we will play by ear depending on how Jason is feeling. Marjorie and I might make a quick trip to Target to pick up some last minute Thanksgiving items. We miss everyone. And we are glad to be back at the townhouse!

Its Good to be "Home"

2008-11-23T15:54:00.000-08:00

Jason came home today, a day earlier than they had expected. He is still very tired.

The internet is still down but they are supposed to come tomorrow and replace the modem. Debby will post when the link is back up.

Dad

Sleep's a Good Thing

2008-11-21T20:31:00.000-08:00

Jason was really tired today but he did manage to get out and walk. Most of the day he just slept and slept and slept! Debby and I got a lot of reading done.

Jason was sleeping when an all too chipper physical therapist came in at 8:30 this morning and asked him if he was ready to do his exercises. He told her NO, and she turned around and left. I think he scared her away because she never came back.

All of the staff are talking about him going home on Monday. Jason said if we tell enough people he’s going home Sunday, they’ll start believing it!

Did You Get The Number On That Truck?

2008-11-20T20:20:00.000-08:00

Since Jason's chemo is started in the evenings, he and Debby don't get much sleep and have found that usually the best time to sleep is from 8:00 - 11:00 AM. Except today they had visitors in and out all day long. Two different therapists came in. Pain management came in a couple times to discuss more effective medications.

He's feeling the chemo more now. He's more tired and finds it harder to walk. They told him the first two days he would feel like a Toyota truck hit him and the last two days he would feel like a Mac truck hit him. That's probably pretty accurate. So far he has weathered this round better than most of us thought he could. He is pushing himself to do what he can to help, such as going for walks at least two to three times each day.

They are trying out new anti nausea drugs because the ones he has been using at home were not working that well, and they told him that with the medications they have today he should not have any nausea. They also started him on Dopamine to help lose the water weight he has put on and he hopes to be out by Sunday.

Marjorie

Another Good Day

2008-11-19T19:38:00.000-08:00

Jason's hemoglobin was low this morning at 8.5, but this afternoon it had gone up to 9.5. So at least for now he doesn't need a blood transfusion.

He's walking two to three times a day this time trying to keep his legs and body in condition to move.

Kristy, I made your Banana Nut Bread before Jason went into the hospital - delicious! It made enough that I'm bringing it in them this week, so they are still enjoying it. You spoiled Jason with your potato soup too. He likes your's better than the hospital's and the hospital usually has pretty good food.

We watched the movie "Amazing Grace" today. It was a good movie.

Marjorie

Second Day

2008-11-18T20:34:00.000-08:00

Today went pretty well for Jason. He got in a couple walks and except for some nausea he felt pretty good. The drugs he gets for nausea while in the hospital are quite effective. He did have a bout with abdominal pain but the drugs they provided knocked it down fairly quickly.

He has a new doctor this week that he hasn't had before. This doctor is actually the head of the melanoma clinic.

A nutritionist came in who was very helpful in giving us ideas for foods to fight nausea and how to add protein to his diet. She was especially helpful because she is a vegetarian herself.

Debby brought in a candy jar she labeled "NURSE FUEL". Everybody loves it!

Terry for Marjorie again. Network problems at the condo.

The Bell Rings on Round Three

2008-11-17T21:01:00.000-08:00

Our internet is down so the Team Jensen is posting tonight. Debby and Marjorie wrote the post, Marjorie dictated it to Terry who finally is posting it.

We saw Dr. Kim today. Jason’s test results came back with mixed responses. Regarding his blood work, the LDH (lactate dehydrogenase) improved tremendously. LDH is a blood marker representative for tumor load and stress on the body. It went from 8,005 on October 1, to 972 last Thursday. The normal level is 313 to 618. He’s close.

All the other blood work has also improved except for ALP (alkaline Phosphatase), which is a measure of liver disease. It was 530 and it is now at 1,204.

His MRI shows no cancer in the brain, which is excellent! It did show a slight increase in the tumor in his eye which was expected because Jason lost more of his vision since the last MRI. But we’re still hoping the next one will show a decrease in tumor size.

The CT scan came out with mixed results also. In the lungs the largest tumor shrunk but three smaller tumors increased slightly.

In the liver the largest tumor shrunk but there is still quite a bit of tumor load – a lot of small ones. We are hoping the smaller ones will follow suit. The spleen has been problematic. It has been a difficult organ and we are not happy with it. That tumor grew.

The kidneys and pancreas were clear and suspicious nodules (random subcutaneous bumps) on the CT scan are stable, and no new tumors have been found.

Also noted in the CT scan – he still has a blood clot in his pelvis, and they also found one in his left thigh, which we suspected, because he has had a lot of pain in his left leg.

The CT scan also noted increased ascites – increased fluid in the stomach, which is from the liver.

The plan is for Jason to have two more rounds of treatment then re-evaluate his progress. He has been admitted tonight for round three to the bio-chemo therapy. This is NOT what he was looking forward to, but we have high hopes for improving results.

Shawn, send Kristy back, and Carol, send cheese, because Jason has lost seventeen pounds. Jason said he is almost back to his high school weight.

Lake Houston State Park

2008-11-15T11:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, we decided to take advantage of the last day of warm weather before a cold front is scheduled to hit Houston. We hit Blimpies to get sub sandwiches for picnicking, and headed 30 miles north to Lake Houston State Park. Lake Houston State Park is located near the city of New Caney and is comprised of almost 5000 acres of rivers, creeks, hiking/biking trails, equestrian trails, campgrounds, and a nature center. The land was bought by the state in 1980; they increased the size in 1990 when they bought even more land from the girl scouts. There used to be a huge girl scout camp there. So there are multiple lodges with many bunk beds for large groups to rent out.

Even though it is called Lake Houston, we didn't see a lake, nor do I think a Lake Houston even exists within the park. There is a lake called Lake Isabella but its a 4.5 mile hike to get there. A ranger told us there is even a resident alligator that lives in that lake. We picnicked in front of Peach Creek. The creek looked like a great place for kayaking. The current was strong so you wouldn't have to do a lot of paddling. Then we took a short walk to the nature center. The center was great. It had all kinds of poisonous snakes and turtles on display. It also had a stuffed mountain lion and coyote and some skeletons of other resident animals. The best display was the poop display. It taught you how to recognize animal droppings...I had to take a picture! The people that worked there were so nice. The nature center wasn't even open, but they saw Jason struggling to get there and they opened it up for us. They even gave us a ride back in a golf cart because we wore him out with all the walking.

It was a great day trip! The only downside was that when I went to get the car so we could load up our picnic gear, Jason fell trying to help Marjorie carry some stuff. She couldn't get him up by herself, so he had to stay on the ground until I came back. Between the two of us, we got him up and luckily he didn't hurt himself. Thank god there are two of us here for Jason! Another downside was mosquitoes. We did not bring any repellent and they were there in full force. At the nature center, they had a mosquito gauge and it was set at level 3 (moderate). I would hate to see that place at level 6 (war zone). You would get eaten alive. We are having a contest to see who has the most bites this morning. I think Marjorie is winning with 3. I only have one, but more might show up. Jason hasn't noticed any bites yet...he's keeping his fingers crossed.

Kristy's Visit

2008-11-13T17:31:00.000-08:00

Kristy came out to visit from Phoenix and we had a lot of fun. She is always a welcome guest but this time she outdid herself. She brought a bunch of recipes and cooked all kinds of delicious food for us. She also had a magazine article in her magazine about a new "eco-friendly" park in downtown Houston called Discovery Green. We decided to check it out and there was a lake, a stage that offers free concerts, free yoga and pilates classes, free wi-fi, mini boats you can rent and sail around in the summer, and starting Thanksgiving weekend they will have an outdoor ice skating rink. There is also some crazy modern artwork, a cool playground for the kids (big kids included-see picture), impressive fountains, and 2 restaurants.

We all laughed when we saw a nearby crane lifting 3 porta-potties. We had to capture the moment on film. I also had to take a picture of a crazy fountain that we came across (Matt and Patty should appreciate this photo). We also had to document the completion of puzzle number two. I was joking with Kristy that it had better be finished when I woke up in the morning, and it was! What a great house guest! The only parts left were the boring and hard parts and she managed to finish it all. Some of the amazing food she cooked for us included pumpkin/cream cheese muffins, cheese enchiladas, a delicious vegetarian version of her potato soup, and pita with brie and roasted garlic. The meals were scrumptious! Hopefully Jason gained some weight this week. Although he has been dealing with some morning nausea and a few vomiting episodes for those that want the gritty but honest details.

Unfortunately it has been raining on and off here since Monday. So yesterday, Kristy, Jason and I went to the movie theater to see Kevin Smith's new film. We all loved it...but you have to be a fan to really appreciate his movies. At night, all four of us watched Clone Wars on blu-ray. The animation looked great...the story was just ok.

Today, Kristy was such a trooper and came with us to a full day of tests at the hospital. Jason had an MRI, chest x-rays, blood work, and CT scans. I think having Kristy there really helped decrease his usual anxiety of these test days. We should find out the results on Monday and we will keep everyone informed. Until then, we will let the pictures speak for themselves as to what a great time we had. We were sad to drop Kristy off at the airport this afternoon. We hope she comes back to visit again soon!!!

Monday

2008-11-10T16:04:00.001-08:00

Just a quick post – we had a very quiet weekend, so there’s not much to tell. Jason was still nauseated and not feeling well. But we’re into his second week of recovery, so things should be looking up.

Debby’s friend, Kristy, got here today from Phoenix, so I’m sure she’ll cheer Jason up. And he should start feeling better this week, so hopefully he’ll be able to get out a little. Kristy's going to be making her famous pumpkin cupcakes and cheese enchiladas - Ymmmmm!

It calls for rain all week – but that’s okay – there are always movies!

Marjorie

Friday

2008-11-07T17:44:00.000-08:00

Today was pretty quiet. Jason got up late enough that Debby and I were able to watch the movie '27 Dresses' at Becky's recommendation. We liked it. Jason wouldn't have.

We didn't even venture out, except for the 2 walks that Jason took. He still wasn't feeling very good.

We did get good news about his blood work and everything looks great.

Debby found a large park about a half hour away that we want to check out - Lake Houston State Park. It was too much for Jason today, but hopefully next week he'll feel like taking a drive.

Marjorie

4th Wedding Anniversary

2008-11-06T18:43:00.000-08:00

Today was Jason and my 4th wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, we had to start the morning off with a trip to the Opthamologist. We sat in a crowded waiting room for 2 hours and they had only called back two people. I went up to the reception desk and asked how much longer the wait would be and they told me there were still 5 more people in front of us. I told them it was our anniversary and we were not going to spend it all day in that waiting room. I had them reschedule the appointment and we took off. We came home and took a nap to catch up on sleep because we had gotten up so early for that appointment...what a waste of time!!!

After the nap, we talked about going to see a movie, but ultimately decided against it because it would be a lot of walking and Jason's leg has been really bothering him lately. So then we decided we would go to Chuy's. Chuy's is a Tex Mex restaurant with a location in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas. Our landlord highly recommended it when we moved into the townhouse. I also just finished Lance Armstrong's book and he claims it is his favorite restaurant. Well, that plan fell through also because Jason got sick to his stomach this afternoon. So we ended up just going back to the hospital so we could get his blood work done. When we came home, Marjorie cooked us some delicious ravioli and we had angel food cake with strawberries for dessert. Then we watched the "chick flick" Casanova which looked really great on Blu-ray. Jason fell asleep but Marjorie and I really liked the movie.

So all in all, our anniversary didn't quite go according to plan, but hopefully this weekend we can try to go out to dinner to make up for it. We want to make sure Jason has his appetite back so he will enjoy it. I've attached pictures of the gorgeous flowers Jason got me as well as this fantastic gift basket the Marissa got for all of us. It contained a ton of amazing things in it including candy, Suduko, poker chips and cards, a pizza kit, and bath products. Thanks to everyone that send cards and emailed us to wish us a happy anniversary! We felt very loved!!!

Thanks for all the great comments!

2008-11-03T20:55:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to thank everyone for the thoughtful, encouraging, and funny comments written in response to Jason's blog. A lot of the time, he doesn't feel up to posting himself, so we read him what we wrote and get his input, and I guarantee you, he reads every single comment that is posted. He has them emailed to his iPhone so he gets them "real time", and I think they make his day just a little bit easier. Hearing from friends, co-workers and family has helped him to stay feeling connected to our "real" lives, which we miss very much.

Also, I wanted to thank Shirley and Colin for the beautiful card they sent. We all think Shirley should go in to business with the cards she makes. They are stunning. Maybe you could do customized wedding invitations for people? I know some rich people in the US that pay $100 per wedding invitation, it could be quite a lucrative online business. But as Stephen says, they take so much time to make, they are just for family...so I guess we prefer you keep sending them our way instead :-)
We have hung them on the wall in the living room and they really brighten up the place.

I also wanted to thank my parents and Lorren and Cora for the anniversary cards they sent. They were both beautiful cards and we appreciate them! Unfortunately, Jason has an appointment with the eye doctor and blood work scheduled on our anniversary, but hopefully we'll still have time to do something fun that day. Maybe we'll finally be able to see Kevin Smith's new movie.

And finally...thank you Patrick for the caramels. The pumpkin ones are scrumptious. And I am really liking Send Out Cards. If anyone is interested in an Internet company that will send out real greeting cards for you, and can even add gifts and gift cards, contact Patrick Ewalt. I will have him post additional information about it in the comments section in case anyone is interested...I am hooked.

Today was pretty uneventful. Jason slept about 18 hours. He is eating a little more which is good, but is still getting frequently nauseated. I accidentally left his cane at the hospital, so I went out and bought him a new one today. There were super tight zip ties around the cane and I was struggling to get them off with scissors. Jason takes one look at me and says "Careful...don't cut yourself", and so of course a minute later I gouged my finger with the scissors. The cut was pretty deep and it still bleeding through the bandage. Not fun! I told Jason that he jinxed me. I don't know about packaging these days. I gouged myself trying to get the packaging off the cane, so how do they expect older people that more commonly use canes to accomplish this feat? That is my rant for the day. I'll spare you the picture of my finger.

Hopefully we'll have more interesting stories tomorrow. Thanks again to everyone and we send you our love.

JASON’S “HOME”!

2008-11-02T13:32:00.000-08:00

We were hoping Jason would be able to come home today, Sunday, but were afraid to get our hopes up, because they were looking at Monday.

I kept getting error messages last night when I tried to post, so I’m including Saturday’s.

I have one more picture from Halloween. Debby and I went up to the melanoma clinic because the two receptionists were supposed to dress up for Halloween and we were going to take a picture of them to show Jason. One of them dressed up – so we also had to take a picture of her with their board which shows if the doctors are on time and if not, how late they were running. This is the first time we’ve seen all the doctors on time! (That’s because it was Friday!) We’re never that lucky when we go in on Thursdays.

We also had to take a picture of our breakfast one morning. Debby and I splurged and had their Belgian waffle with strawberries and whipped cream. It’s imprinted with the state of Texas. These Texans do like their state!

We just found out Jason will probably get 4-6 treatments of this bio-chemotherapy – that’s the average treatment. And then there will be other types of treatments after that – possibly outpatient treatments such as shots or pills.

Yesterday Jason did get out of his room for a wheelchair ride and a short walk. And he already has lost 12 pounds of the water weight he gained which is great. At this time last round he was still gaining it because his kidneys weren’t working right.

We and all the nurses thought he was doing great but Jason just looked at us like we’re nuts – he wasn’t getting that “feeling” yet – he was and is still nauseated, tired and sore! But he’s home!

Susan, hope you had a great birthday this weekend with your kids in Chicago!

Marjorie

Halloween

2008-10-31T21:03:00.000-07:00

Everyone got a kick out of our Halloween costumes today, especially Jason’s - he was a “prisoner” of MD Anderson. His black and white striped hat said “property of MD Anderson” and the back of his hat had his medical record number. And he had this giant chain that “chained him to the end of the bed . He had this new doctor all week who was always very serious, never smiled, and never said much of anything, and they wanted to see his face when he saw them. Well, he came in early (because they all want to get out of there on time on Fridays) and they weren’t ready – they quickly put on the costumes and they said he actually did laugh.

His nurse told everyone at the nurses’ station, “my patient dressed up and wait until you see him walk around!” She didn’t know there was no way Jason would have come out of him room in his costume – anyways, they got impatient waiting for him to come out and all of a sudden about 4 of them popped their heads in to see him.

Since this was the last day of chemo he was still pretty tired and slept most of the day, but he should perk up over the weekend. He also had a problem with itchiness and dry skin this time around. It looks like he doesn’t have as much fluid to get rid of this time around - the dopamine really helped in that department. He has done so much better this round that we’re hoping he’ll be able to get out of the hospital by Monday morning – 8 days instead of 11 days!

We did get to watch Nosferatu, a silent Dracula film from 1922 - interesting. (Brian, I stand corrected – I should have said the SNL’s from 30 years ago were fun to watch. But ‘interesting’ is the correct term for this one.) And I know they’re going to watch some scary Halloween movie tonight- they come alive when I’m ready for bed!

Marjorie

Day 4

2008-10-30T19:56:00.000-07:00

Jason slept most of the day, but tomorrow we should have some good pictures. He's starting to retain the fluids he's getting with the chemo, but not as much as he did last round at this time, so we're hoping he'll do better.

They're happy with his blood work - kidneys look good and no anemia - and said he seems to have the upper hand over the bio-chemotherapy this time. Tonight is the last night he'll get the 5 chemo drugs, and tomorrow night he'll just get 2 of the drugs and that will be it for this round.

More tomorrow.

Marjorie

Day 3 - Over Halfway

2008-10-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

Except for fatigue and some rashes, Jason's tolerating the chemo pretty well, so that's great. He has had some great nurses.

Debby has a pumpkin full of candy for the hospital staff this week and that has been a big hit.

Not much else to report right now. We watched several Saturday Night Live shows from the 70's today - interesting.

Marjorie

Day 2

2008-10-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

Jason did pretty good today. He had a fever last night but it went away, not much nausea, and his appetite was okay. Of course he slept most of the day (because his medications make him sleepy and he can't sleep at night), but that's probably not a bad thing.

So far so good!

Marjorie

A Good Beginning

2008-10-27T20:34:00.000-07:00

Today was a good beginning for Jason's next round of treatment. He said this is the best he has felt in a long time. He was able to walk to all his appointments - blood tests, x-rays, and doctor, which is a major improvement. He was admitted late this afternoon, and they'll start his chemo tonight.

Dr. Kim said today if this chemo treatment shrinks the tumor in his eye, he may get some of his eyesight back - wouldn't that be wonderful!

We have hopes he'll tolerate this week's treatment as well as the last time (except for the swelling).

Marjorie

Sunday Blues

2008-10-26T20:09:00.000-07:00

You know that depressed feeling you get on Sundays because your weekend is over and you have a full work week ahead of you? Well, we are all feeling that today but Jason is feeling it ten times worse. He knows tomorrow he is being admitted to the hospital for his second round of biochemotherapy. Considering the first round took an 11 gruelling days, he is really dreading tomorrow and the anxiety is taking its toll. Neither of us slept very well last night and I have a feeling tonight will be worse. Here's to hoping that this round will go by much quicker and smoother.

On a brighter note, Marjorie is back. Hooray!! Jason needs two nurses, one is not enough! We also had a wonderful visit from my sister and Stephen. So that really helped us keep our minds off the coming week. We watched a lot of movies, went on a driving tour of Houston, and went Downtown for dinner. We also stopped at a Halloween store to get some costume ideas. Even though we are going to be stuck in the hospital, I am not going to let it ruin the holiday. Jason and I will be dressing up, eating candy and watching plenty of scary movies. Maybe we can even get Marjorie to dress up with us :-)

Here is a picture from the Halloween store...can anyone say Hillary 2012!!!

Posting to Post

2008-10-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

Hello Again,

Not much to report today. As far as how I'm feeling its the same as yesterday. We picked up the kids at the airport in the afternoon, we had to make a quick stop at the hospital to pick up a couple prescriptions, we had lunch, went for a (short) walk, ordered Chinese for dinner and now Debby has them involved in a board game called Smart Ass (thanks again for that Mike).

We convinced my nurse to give me a Lasix in hops of getting more of this water off.

And that's about it, I see movies on TV in the near future and I know we all hope to get out of the house tomorrow........we'll see how it goes.

Jason

Bio Chemo Recovery

2008-10-23T21:35:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

Its been a while since I've last posted, and I'm, sorry, but this is the first I've felt good enough to sit behind a keyboard and talk. When they say "recovery period" they really mean it. It seems I'm taking longer than I anticipated to get back to even 80% this time.

I'm scheduled for a number of tests and a meeting with my doctor on Monday, then I'm to be admitted again for round 2 of Bio Chemo therapy. I don't think I'll be close to fully recovered from the 1st round come Monday and that kind of makes me nervous. A positive side is the Bio Chemo seems to agree with me more than the IL2 did. I still have the nausea, extreme fatigue, joint pain, and an addition of 30 pounds of water weight, but over all it went smoothly. I felt much better during the week Chemo that I did during the IL2. I still receive some IL2 but a much smaller dose so my body handles it better. My biggest problem during this recovery is the pain in my legs and other difficulties I'm having because of the leftover water weight I can't seem to shake off.

Debby's sister Becky and her husband Stephen are coming out tomorrow to visit over the weekend. It will be nice to have some company while I'm felling good enough to get around a bit. Hope they don't mind the movies because that's about the extent of my moving around. They just missed our latest storm, our county was on tornado watch which was interesting. I don't think I've ever seen so much lightning, plus a couple times it seemed to hit just right outside our windows.

That's all I have right now, I hope to post a couple more times before it's back to the Chemo.

Thanks again for all your kind words everyone,
Jason

Terry's visit

2008-10-20T18:13:00.000-07:00

We had a great weekend. Jason was able to come "home" and Terry came out to visit. Jason got a bigger TV, 40" Toshiba plasma, as an early anniversary present from me and his parents. We will be celebrating our 4th wedding anniversary on November 6. There is a chance we might still be in the hospital while he recovers from his second round of chemo, so I wanted to be sure he got his present early so he could enjoy it during his recovery. Terry also bought a Blu-ray disc player which he kindly left here for us to use. The picture quality is amazing, especially combined with the new TV.

Jason still isn't able to walk very well, but we didn't want to spend all week sitting inside watching TV. So on Sunday we took a day trip to Galveston. We saw some of the massive damage caused by Ike. We also saw Moody Gardens which we would like to go back to when Jason is getting around better. It is a resort that has an aquarium inside a giant pyramid and a rainforest inside another giant pyramid. It definitely looks like a place worth checking out. Right next to it was Galveston's airport. It was so sad to see a whole lot of planes missing one wing, or both, or just having huge holes. The craziest thing we saw as we drove to Galveston was boats lying on the side of the freeway. There had to be at least 20 boats just lying next to the side of the road, completely far away from any source of water, and some of the boats were quite large. It really demonstrated the power of the storm surge and wind.

We have also been working on a puzzle for the last couple of weeks. It was only a 500 piece puzzle and should have been really easy, but it was 3D which made it much more difficult. The color of the puzzle pieces would change depending on how you held them, so it definitely made this puzzle a challenge. We took a picture to capture the fact that we did finally finish putting the puzzle together and now we are going to donate it to MD Anderson so other patients can enjoy the frustration of a 3D puzzle.
On a sad note, Jason's uncle Joe died over the weekend from a heart attack. Marjorie and Terry will be flying to Indiana for the funeral and from there driving to Ohio for the burial this week. Our deepest condolences to Sue, Karen, Ken, and Kevin as well as the rest of the family. Jason and I wish we could attend as well, but he just hasn't recovered enough to make the trip. We send you all our love and prayers.

Coming Home!

2008-10-15T20:12:00.000-07:00

If all goes as planned, Jason will be coming "home" tomorrow - Thursday. The doctors must have been reading Nurse Debby's recovery plan from yesterday!

He has managed to lose quite a bit of water weight in the last couple days. The physical therapist got him out walking for the first time in 5 days - he was finally able to walk but was exhausted afterwards. He recuperated while watching the debate!

More later - once we're home!

Day 9 and stir crazy

2008-10-14T14:39:00.000-07:00

Today is Jason's 9th day of being an inpatient at the hospital and he is going stir crazy. He can't walk because the swelling in his body is so bad, so he has been stuck in his room. When they finally take him off the dopamine (which is supporting his kidney function) we will at least be able to get him in a wheelchair and give him a change of scenery, but right now he is stuck in the melanoma ward. His doctor said he wouldn't be able to leave the hospital until his weight comes down and he can get around better on his own. The best way to do this would be to give him some diuretics, but they are so worried about his kidneys, they don't want to risk stressing them, and so he is only able to loose about 2 pounds a day of the 35 he has gained. This is not working for us.

I keep asking them to lower his IV fluids and give him diuretics and I keep getting the same answer...No. Today, they finally lowers his fluids quite a bit, but still no diuretics. I told them that Jason's dad is coming on Thursday and we would like to be home by then. They just laughed...not good. They said they would re-evaluate him again this afternoon. I will continue to pester them until I can get my husband out of the hospital...he is sick of being there and so am I. We are only 2 miles away and I don't see why he can't just loose the weight at the townhouse where he would be much more comfortable. We could both use a good night's sleep which neither of us has been able to get for the last 9 days. I will continue to fight for his freedom and hopefully by the next blog or so, he will be home.
Debby

Monday Update

2008-10-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

A brief update –

Things are going pretty much the same – we’re still waiting for the swelling to go down so Jason can start walking. While on chemo he was given an ongoing anti-nausea medication. He’s not getting that anymore, so he’s more nauseated now that when he was on the chemo and therefore not eating much.

On a good note - They did start to reduce the amount of IV fluids he's still getting (to protect the kidneys). His creatinin has gone down a tenth of a point so if it stays down, they'll gradually continue to reduce the fluids.

The oncologists and ophthamalogists met this afternoon to discuss his treatment, so we hope to know more tomorrow.

Marjorie

Last Day of Round 3

2008-10-11T21:27:00.000-07:00

Just a short update tonight –

Jason’s getting the last of his chemo tonight and very early in the morning, and that will be it for this round. Then he’ll have a couple days of recovery in the hospital before he can go home. He seems to have weathered the low level flu-like side effects that have continued throughout the 5 days of treatment. It looks like he got through this without the very serious and painful side effects he experienced with the first 2 treatments.

The biggest problem for Jason this round has been the fluid retention and the fatigue. He should start losing these fluids over the next couple days and continue to improve more during this two week recovery period.

More later.

Marjorie

Sleepy Jason

2008-10-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

I'm just posting what Debby wrote tonight. The internet at the hospital wasn't working.

Jason spent most of today sleeping but with good reason. During the night the nurses come in almost every hour to administer one drug or another and when they aren't doing that, they are taking blood samples, vitals, or getting him up on the scale to weigh him. Neither of us are able to get a good night sleep so we both are doing a lot of napping during the day. He is also very anemic again..his hemoglobin dropped down to 7.6 which required a blood transfusion which he is currently receiving. On top of that, 1) he's got his shiny new morphine button, 2) one of the chemo drugs he is on causes drowsiness, and 3) his nausea medication contains Benadryl, so you can imagine how sleepy he is because of all these factors. In spite of this, he is doing pretty well today. He isn't getting many of the severe flu-like symtpoms that the high-dose IL2 treatment caused. This is probably because the dose of IL2 is much lower now and the nurses have been doing a great job staying on top of pain and adverse symptom management.

Once the anemia has improved, he should get a bit more energy back which will be great. He is also working with physical therapy to try to gain strength in his leg and improve his walking ability. We were worried this morning about his kidney function because his creatinine levels started to creep up again. The chemo drug Cisplatin can cause kidney impairment that does not improve when treatment stops which is a bit scary. He is being closely monitored and with the help of some dopamine and large amount of IV fluids, it looks like the kidneys are improving. Unfortunately he is getting very swollen from all of the fluids he is receiving which can be uncomfortable. (luckily he's got the morphine button for that)

All in all, this week has gone much better that we had predicted. It looks like he should be able to successfully complete the full 5 days of chemo. Unfortunately, during his two week recovery he has to start radiation in his left eye. At least this is an outpatient procedure but there are some risks involved and we were told that the wait time can be long in the radiation department, so we will still be spending quite a bit of time at the hospital. It will all be well worth it when the tumors start to shrink. We are all staying very positive and Jason has been showing amazing strength (when he is not asleep).

Debby

At the Push of a Button!

2008-10-08T19:28:00.000-07:00

The chemo drugs didn't get to the floor until midnight last night, so Jason got a late start. When I came in this morning at 9:00 they had just given him dilaudin, a pretty strong pain killer, so he slept the rest of the morning. I should say he and Debby slept - since treatment didn't start until midnight, they didn't get much sleep.

He gets a combination of 5 drugs each day for 5 days, each given separately, spread out over a 24 hour period. They started his second dose tonight around 9:00.

They want to get him up and walking again but his leg is still swollen and too painful to walk on, so they've started to let him monitor his own pain medication - by the push of a button. It worked - he walked more tonight than he has in a long time. It was more tiring than painful, but that was a good change.

As the internet describes it, the side effects of interleukin are hell on earth, but so far this biochemotherapy treatment has gone pretty well. We hope this continues!

Marjorie

Day 1 - Again

2008-10-07T20:21:00.000-07:00

Today was a long day. Jason's doctor didn't come in until 11:30 this morning. He said since major organs were involved, they wanted to get the biochemotherapy treatment started first, and then do radiation to the eye later.

But, because the CT scans showed colitis, inflammation of the colon, he wanted to call in a gastroenterologist. To make sure the colitis was taken care of before they started the biochemotherapy, the gastroenterologist was considering doing a colonoscopy, but would check with her team and get back to us. After consultation with them, tonight they decided not to do it. Because of his disease, there's a greater chance of perforation of the bowel which could delay treatment, so they recommended not going through with it. So while all this was pending, we spent the day playing Uno! (I wonder how much they charged us to do this?)

And we just got word that they're going to start the biochemotherapy treatment tonight. He's been on a liquid diet today in preparation for the colonoscopy, but at least tonight he'll get some real food before they start treatment.

We'll let you know more tomorrow how his first "day" of treatment went.

Marjorie

Picnic in Bell Park

2008-10-04T18:11:00.000-07:00

Friday morning we saw the melanoma ophthmalogist. Jason has a large tumor in the back of his left eye. The doctor’s concerned about saving his eye and recommends having radiation in the eye soon – sooner than Dr. Kim wanted to do it. He will get together with Dr. Kim and they’ll decide if they’re going to start the biochemotherapy on Tuesday as scheduled (getting checked into the hospital on Monday) or if they’ll treat the eye first.

He’s still having a rough time. He can’t walk very well because of so much swelling in his one leg. We don’t know how long it will take Debby’s twice daily shots to start working in breaking up the blood clots.

He did want to get out today for a little bit, so we had a picnic in a little park close to Rice University. It was a beautiful day.

Someone else thought so too – a small wedding party arrived as we were leaving. We’re trying to make the most of this weekend before he goes in the hospital next week, so maybe we’ll try the zoo Sunday.

Marjorie

Pictures From Weekend Trip to SD

2008-10-04T17:45:00.000-07:00

Here are the pictures from our visit home last weekend...

We got in late Thursday night. We were pretty tired, but we got to visit with Becky and Stephen...and we had balloons and chocolates waiting for us when we arrived which was really great.

On Friday, I had a doctor appt. in the morning. Zack and Deven brought us lunch (thanks again!) and then we had to rush off to Jason's emergency Opthamology appt., which took hours...so the day was pretty much a wash. We were exhausted by the time we got home and pretty upset after learning about the eye metastasis, so we just watched a little TV and crashed early.

On Saturday, Becky and Stephen went to Ryan Davies wedding. He is a friend of the family from way back. We used to play together when I was five and he was four. They said the wedding was great and took place at a beautiful venue in Temecula.

Jason and I took the opportunity of having an empty condo to invite a few friends over. We kept things pretty low key because Jason didn't have much energy. We still had a nice time...watched some football (go Fresno!) and caught up on some of our favorite TV shows (like Weeds) which we don't get in Houston...no pay channels :-(

On Sunday, we celebrated my Mom's birthday a week early. My Mom and Dad, and Terry and Marjorie came to the condo. We had a nice visit and ended up going to a Meditterranean restaurant down the street called Alladins. The food was great, the portions were huge...luckily, we all shared meals. After dinner, we came home and had cheesecake. It was a really nice day.

Monday morning we had to leave since we had a full week of doctor's appts ahead of us. Stephen took us to the airport and we sadly said goodbye to San Diego. We hope to be able to come home again soon. It was great to see everyone we had a chance to see...and hopefully we will have time...and Jason will have the energy to see more of you on our next trip back!

Longest Thursday Ever

2008-10-02T17:34:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a quick blog update because it has been a really long and emotionally draining two days for all of us. Yesterday we spent all day at the hospital. First, Jason got a brain MRI, than blood work and chest x-rays, and finally a CT scan of the majority of Jason's torso. We didn't get home until 9:30 last night.

This morning we had an appt. with an Opthamologist at MD Anderson. I was impressed with their high tech equipment but not with their punctuality. Our appointment was at 9:30 and we didn't get out of there until 2:30. Most of the time was spent in the waiting room. They confirmed that Jason does have a large melanoma in the back of his left eye. He has lost most of the vision in that eye. His right eye is fine. The Opthamologist we saw today was not a melanoma specialist, so they ran all the tests today, but we have to go back tomorrow at 7:30 in the morning to see a specialist and find out the odds of getting the tumor to shrink using radiation and possibly getting more of his eyesight back.

Next, we had an appt. with Dr. Kim, Jason's oncologist. The news was not good. Jason's brain is still clear (thankfully), but the disease has progressed in the rest of his body. The tumors have grown in size in his liver and lungs, and he has developed new lesions subcutaneously and in his spleen. Also his LDH levels were quite high which means his body is being stressed by the tumor load. So this means that the IL2 treatment has not worked. I also debated with the doctor about whether Jason's melanoma was ocular (originating from his eye) or cutaneous (originating from the skin). He won me over with his argument for thinking it is cutaneous. Even though it is very rare for melanoma to go from the skin to the eye, he has seen it happen before. Also, he hasn't seen ocular melanoma metastasize subcutaneously, and I had to agree with him about that from the research that I have done. And statistically, cutaneous melanoma is much more common than ocular. The treatments for these 2 types of melanoma are quite different, so I wanted to be reasonably sure we were choosing the correct treatment to try next.

The doctor convinced us that we need to be much more aggressive. Jason is going to start biochemotherapy on Monday. This is a combination of IL2, Interpheron alpha, and 3 kinds of chemo drugs. I will elaborate more on this therapy later...for now just say it will be no picnic for Jason. We are still waiting to hear about Jason's T-cells from the TIL study. If we can get tumor shrinkage from biochemotherapy, than Jason will hopefully be strong enough to handle IL2 therapy again, and it can be combined with his cloned T cells if they have grown successfully.

Finally, we found out that Jason has multiple blood clots, which is the reason why he has been in tremendous pain with swollen legs and a swollen right arm, and he hasn't been able to walk for the past week. I will be giving him injections twice a day with a blood clotting medication for the next 30 days. Hopefully he will still love me just as much after I stick a needle in him twice a day. The best part is that each injection cost $100 and our insurance company only wants to pay for 10 of them, and we need 60. You gotta love medical insurance! They are really good about not paying for medications that cancer patients need to survive. I won't even get into that rant right now.

On a brighter note, after our early morning appt. tomorrow, we get a couple days of rest. We are all trying to stay positive and we know that Jason is strong and will make it through the next round of treatments. We had a wonderful time in San Diego. It was great to be home and it was great to see everyone. I will post some pictures from the SD trip sometime this weekend when I have more energy. For now, we want to send everyone our love and please keep Jason in your thoughts/prayers. He is tired and needs a few days of recuperation, but he seems to be taking things well enough.

Weekend News

2008-09-30T19:45:00.000-07:00

We got this neat medical kit (among other things) from the girls I work with in San Diego – it says “Nurse Jensen” on it. We put Jason’s heparin flushes in it!

We all really enjoyed our weekend at home. We miss San Diego! Debby will write more tomorrow about their weekend with pictures. Jason was having considerable problems with swelling in his right leg and arm so that, among other things, made his trip home a bit uncomfortable.

The day we left Houston, Jason saw his doctor about blurriness and floaters in his one eye. The doctor would only let him go home if he promised to see an ophthamologist on an emergency basis while he was home. Debby was able to get him in to see her ophthalmologist on Friday. She (the ophthamologist) said it looked like he had melanoma in his eye. This week he’ll get an MRI of the brain and CT scans of his liver and lungs, and see an ophthamologist at the hospital. Then we’ll find out from his doctor what’s next. We are also hoping to find out if his T-cells are growing to add to the interleukin – it has been almost 2 months now.

More later -
Mom

Good news! We are SD bound!

2008-09-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

The physician just called and Jason's hemoglobin has risen from 7.9 to 9.0, so no blood transfusion! Hooray!!! He is still anemic but seems to be on the mend. So we can't wait to see everyone this weekend in SD.

Rough Week

2008-09-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

It has been a rough week so far. Jason's had a multitude of new symptoms pop up, making him both frustrated and miserable. The latest is anemia. His blood work showed him as borderline severe anemic, so he might be in need of a blood transfusion. We just got back from the hospital to get a retest. If his hemoglobin level has dropped, he will have to get a blood transfusion and we will have to postpone our trip to SD. This would be a huge bummer! We were really looking forward to coming out for the weekend. We are hoping to get the results tonight if we can get a hold of the on-call physician, but most likely, we won't find out until morning. He is also having blurry vision and floaters in one eye, making video-gaming impossible, and some various digestive problems. So he is not a happy camper. We have an appointment with his oncologist tomorrow, so hopefully we will find out more about everything that is going on. As far as when we find out if the IL2 is working, he is scheduled for a CT scan and brain MRI next Friday, Oct. 3. We should get the results the following Monday. Jason is also scheduled to be admitted to the hospital that day, so his next treatment will be dependent on the results of the tests. We are hoping for the best...and at the very least, disease stability.

On a lighter note, as a joke, Terry bought Jason a Texas Longhorn blanket. You can imagine how thrilled he was. This has got to be the most unflattering picture I have ever taken, but it was the only one we could get with Jason sort of smiling. So I am taking the sacrifice. So here it is...the picture of us enjoying his new "bankie".

Houston Cowboys

2008-09-20T19:55:00.000-07:00

We saw some Texans putting their cowboy skills to work during cleanup from hurricane Ike – lassoing trees.

Debby talked to the on-call doctor today about Jason’s blood test results and got great news - everything came back fine – he doesn’t have any infection. So it looks like his fevers are probably not due to an infection. His creatinine level was 1.4 which is finally within normal levels. He can now go back on naproxen so that should help his fevers.

We went for a drive this afternoon to get out of the house - and so Carol could say she went someplace besides Target and grocery stores (that’s pretty much our world besides the hospital). We checked out downtown Houston and the J. P. Morgan Chase tower – the building that had many of its windows blown out from pebbles that came from the building across the street. A guy we talked to said the inside was a mess - he had been working inside it all week. Several streets were blocked off to traffic for the repair crews.

While downtown, we found a wonderful cozy restaurant for dinner – Cava Bistro. It resembled a wine cellar with the domed ceiling and walls lined with wines - very friendly people, good service, and great food.

Mom

The Big Cheese

2008-09-19T19:58:00.000-07:00

As promised, here is the picture of Carol with the big cheese. It has been delicious. We have been eating cheese all day long.

Yesterday, we took Jason to the hospital to get some tests to make sure he doesn't have any type of infection that might be causing the fevers. We are still waiting to get results back. We thought it would only take 20 minutes or so, but they had to pull blood from his Central Venous Catheter to check the blood there, and they were unable to get a sample. We were sent to the Infusion Center and they were unable to draw blood either. They said it was a blood clot and they had to inject his catheter with medicine that chews up the clot. We had to wait for an hour and a half, and then they tried to draw blood again. This time, they were able to pull blood with no problem. The blood clot was gone...too bad the tiny amount of medicine they injected into his catheter cost over $500.

We hope to get the results from all the tests soon. If he does have an infection, hopefully it will only take a short course of antibiotics to get rid of it. He has been doing relatively well lately during the daytime, but has not been feeling good at night. We will keep everyone posted when we find out more.

Last night we rented Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day. It was cute and entertaining and most of us thought it was worth watching.

Today, we were able to go to the movie theater (finally open), although it smelled kind of musty and dank from the hurricane. We saw Burn After Reading. I'll let Jason tell you what he thought about this movie when he blog's tomorrow.

Here is a great link my dad sent with some amazing pictures from Hurricane Ike.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/09/the_short_but_eventful_life_of.html

Bye for now!

Quick Update- Ike Aftermath

2008-09-17T19:08:00.000-07:00

I'm going to write a quick post tonight because Jason has a fever and we are working to get it lower so he won't have to go into the emergency room tonight. It started at 102 degrees, then was at 101.7, then 101.5, and most recently 101.2, so at least we're getting it in the right direction. It is difficult to get rid of a fever when you can't give your patient any aspirin, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, or any type of NSAID. We are using wash cloths dipped in icy water all over his body and we put the A/C on full blast. Yes, we have A/C again! We regained power Monday evening and we were so happy, it felt like we won the lottery.

Jason goes in to the hospital tomorrow for more blood work, and they will check him for infection since he keeps getting these fevers. The good news is his Creatinine dropped from 2.7 to 1.6. We are almost at a normal level. (1.5 and lower is considered normal, so we are very close)

Marjorie's sister Carol arrived today from Ohio for a visit. We picked her up from Bush International airport and gave her a quick tour of hurricane ravaged Houston. Then we stopped at Pappasitas Cantina for lunch. Luckily, Houston restaurants are starting to open up again. Unfortunately, the lines for gas are still pretty brutal. Carol brought us some Amish cheese which is the greatest cheese in the whole world. We will attach a picture tomorrow because you will not believe the size of the Swiss cheese wheel she brought over. So stay tuned...exciting stuff coming your way...pictures of big cheese.

Terry will be coming out tomorrow afternoon, so we are excited to have a house full of family this weekend. We also hope to watch a few movies now that power is back. These will both hopefully help with Jason's recovery.

Finally, I am attaching a few pictures of local damage. The first picture is the 288 freeway that runs behind our townhouse. The second picture is some tree damage right by Reliant Astrodome which is near us. The third picture is a fallen tree (one of many) in our complex. The hurricane was terrifying. Since it came during the night, we couldn't see anything. We could only hear really loud wind and banging and crashing sounds. We put our bed in the middle of the bedroom because we kept thinking our window was going to break on us. I am really glad the experience is over. Hopefully it will be our first and last hurricane!!!

River Front Property

2008-09-14T17:58:00.000-07:00

While the power is out in Houston I get to play secretary. Marjorie, Jason and Debby will be telling me what to type and I will TRY to do in right. Here goes:

We lost power shortly after midnight on Friday. We didn’t get much sleep because of the high winds and this “banging sound” on the roof much of the night – not to mention tornado warnings. The worst of the storm was probably between 1:30 AM and 4:00 AM.

Jason and Debby woke up Saturday morning to see a river outside their second floor window – going the wrong way. A frontage road closest to them was OK. The road was about twenty feet below the surface. On the other side the 288 freeway and its onramp were flooded. Debby said we’d been upgraded to river front property.

By Saturday morning, the winds died down a bit and the rain had pretty much stopped. Jason and Debby ventured out to find batteries for a radio, and coffee – pretty optimistic weren’t they! Nothing was open. They saw trees down, some street lights and power lines down, carports blown down on cars, and in one nearby complex chimneys were gone.

Since we didn’t have the internet and use of our cell phones was erratic, for us Saturday was a pretty quiet day.

Late afternoon we went out again for a drive and to listen to some news on the car radio. The “river” behind us had gone down and the freeway was clear. Thanks to Joe and Terry, they have kept us updated on what they could find out about what’s happening around us, and that has helped. And Debby could listen for short periods to radio broadcasts on her iPhone.

Down town Houston was hit pretty hard. The Chase building, the tallest building, had a lot of windows blown out. Chairs were flying out of the open of these windows and hitting neighboring buildings.

The power company is bringing 7,000 additional electrical workers to speed up restoration of the grid. They are working around the clock, 16 hour shifts. This should help us all. MD Anderson didn’t loose power as their lines are underground. Estimates for getting power back have been anywhere from 2 to 3 days to 2weeks.

Debby called Holiday Inn to see if we could get in anywhere and the closest hotel with available rooms was 100 miles away.

It’s Sunday and still no power - light rains off and on – but that’s good – its keeping the temperature down. We found a Taco Cabana that was open for lunch today and Super Target grocery shelves were pretty empty. No one had D batteries and a child’s radio we bought didn’t work – having a radio just wasn’t meant to be!

I talked to my sister Carol tonight. Ike has hit more of our family. Carol is without power Columbus and Brian and Amy are in the dark in Dover, Ohio.

Jason’s hanging in there. His nausea comes and goes, he is still tired a lot and his chest congestion never quite went completely away. Debby said she will post again when we get the internet.

Marjorie

Houstonians VS. San Diegans

2008-09-12T17:22:00.000-07:00

Here are two pictures to illustrate the difference between a Houstonian verses a San Diegan's hurricane preparedness. One of the windows in our bedroom is cracked, so unlike the people from Houston who board up their windows, we used electrical tape to try to hold it together. Wish us luck tonight...crazy Californians!

So far, we haven't had much rain at all and wind speeds are only at 30 mph. From about midnight to 2 am tonight we should get hit the hardest. There is a website where you can check your zip code and see projected sustained wind speeds. Our zip code shows 85 mph with possible gusts that are even stronger. We might be in for a wild ride. So far we still have power so we are fine. As long as the A/C is running and the TV works, we can handle this storm, no problem. We did already have a tree fatality on our back walkway. Marjorie says it was a Plumeria tree, they have one in their front yard in SD.

Jason is feeling a little better today compared to yesterday. He also lost another 3 pounds of water weight! As long as he improves a little each day, we are happy. He is eating well, and sleeping just a little more soundly each night. He is staying strong and keeping his spirits up. We couldn't ask for more.

We even made him watch a chick flick tonight which he good-naturedly endured for the sake of myself and Marjorie. I have the best husband in the world!!! It was actually a pretty good chick flick. Marjorie and I both recommend it. It is called "SWEET land" and is available on DVD. Very much a classic love story that women of all generations can appreciate. I'll let Marjorie post tomorrow and give you all the juicy details about our first hurricane experience.

Yikes...Ike!!!

2008-09-11T18:06:00.000-07:00

In spite of the fact that a major hurricane is headed right for us. And we are expecting torrential rain, wind, and flooding. And Marjorie just had to wait in massive lines at the grocery store and gas station for our hurricane preparedness. And Jason feels like a giant poop sandwich...we are all feeling pretty relieved this evening.

We just got a phone call from Jason's nurse. Jason's Creatinine levels (kidney function) went from 4.2 to 2.7. This is a huge decrease! It is still pretty high, but the levels are dropping at a good pace and his doctor is happy with the blood work results so far. Also, his ALT levels (liver function) went back to normal. His AST and LDH (liver function) are still elevated, but Jason's doctor is not too concerned because everything else is looking good and he believes the elevated levels are due to the IL2 treatment. His magnesium, electrolytes, and platelets all look good. His absolute neutrophil count is a little high, but this should be temporary, and isn't necessarily a bad thing. Neutrophils have been known to infiltrate and kill tumors, so I don't mind if these guys decide to hang around. His hemoglobin levels (anemia test) are low and I think this has been making Jason very tired. He has been nodding off while sitting up all day today which has been a little worrying. Now that I know the cause, I'm not as concerned. I remember what it was like to be anemic...it makes you very sleepy. His nurse said his levels aren't anything to be worried about which is good. Hopefully everything will normalize in the upcoming weeks, so Jason's body will be ready to be destroyed again (poor Jason!)

Jason wasn't given any Lasik (prescription diuretic) this week to help him get rid of the 30 pounds of water weight because the doctors were worried about his kidneys. So I did some google research and found some natural diuretics that help flush the kidneys. They worked exceptionally well because Jason has managed to loose 9 pounds in 2 days, which is faster than when he was on the Lasik. In case anyone needs to loose some water weight or has trouble with their kidneys, these are the foods you should consume. Green tea, cranberry juice, apple cider vinegar, fennel, lemon juice, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, beets, and watermelon. Marjorie made the most delicious salad using all of the vegetables listed as well as some chunks of apple, eggs, and walnuts. She also made a salad dressing consisting of 1/2 olive oil, 1/2 apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper, and fennel. I highly recommend it, it tasted great and worked wonders for Jason's health!!! From now on it shall be forever named "Marjorie's Kidney Salad".

As for the hurricane, we will have to update you tomorrow. The weather was great today..hot as usual. I tried to go swimming this morning and all the chairs were inside the pool. I guess this is how they protect them from blowing away during a hurricane. It was pretty funny but ruined my swimming plans. According to the news, the hurricane has changed course and is now supposed to directly hit Houston/Galveston with "monster force". We shouldn't have to evacuate...only the coastal counties are under mandatory evacuation. But we have to keep the gas tank full just in case. I called Marilyn and she gave us a few good tips. Worst case is we lose power which means we lose A/C. This would be terrible! Houston is very hot!!! She said to call her and if they still have power we can come over.

So we will try to update you again tomorrow, but if we lose power, it could be a few days. Wish us luck through this hurricane! I'll try to get a few cool pictures if I am even able to leave the townhouse. And Jason says to tell everyone "hello" and that he is slowly but surely improving after the last treatment.

"Home" Sweet "Home"

2008-09-09T17:04:00.000-07:00

Well, we finally made it "home". It took a lot of convincing to get the doctor to release Jason today, but finally we managed. We had the physician's assistant on our side and she was the one that ultimately persuaded the doctor to let us go. His creatinine had dropped from 5.2 to 4.2 overnight, which is still on the high side but definitely going in the right direction. The doctor was concerned because his liver enzymes are also elevated now. His AST is at 60 which is moderately high and his ALT is over 120 which is quite high.

1)This could just be a "normal" adverse reaction from IL2 therapy, but the levels usually resolves to baseline in 5 days. It has been 7 days since Jason's last dose. But then again it took forever for his kidney enzymes to start to decrease.
2)The elevated liver enzymes might be a good sign if it means that his immune system is attacking his liver, causing inflammation and killing tumor cells, but also killing some good liver cells in the process "friendly fire".
3)The elevated liver enzymes could also be a bad thing if his liver function is decreasing because of the tumors themselves. I don't think this is the case...but this would be the worst case scenario.

We have no way of knowing which of these are happening, but in any case his blood work will be checked frequently and we are confident that it is just a matter of time before the liver enzymes start to decrease. In any case, I'm going to continue to supplement him with milk thistle, even though the doctor had no idea what it was when I mentioned it to him today. It can help with liver function and cell regeneration and it did wonders for our cat PITA when she had fatty liver disease. (Patti-glad to hear Moe is doing better. Carol-leave Tessie in Ohio).

In the end, we were able to convince the doctor to let us go home since our townhouse is only 2 miles from the hospital and we told him we would come straight in at the first sign of any trouble.

Jason has quite a bit of recuperation before he will feel like himself again, but he is very happy to be back at our temporary "home". Hopefully it won't be long before he's up to posting for himself on the blog. For now, he wants to wish his cousin Brian a Happy Birthday today! He also wants to let everyone know that he misses them. It was great having Terry out over the weekend (Team Jensen was once again complete) and it really helped Jason get through the end of a very long 9 day stretch.

He also wants to thank Pat for the second batch of delicious brownies! And a very special thanks to Kristy, Aunt June, and the Woods for the get well cards. All were received during very miserable hospital days and really helped to make the days just a little more bearable!

One last thing for Marissa and other science and techie friends...sorry about our typo, but for clarification, creatinine is the chemical waste made from creatine, which is an amino acid used for energy production in the muscles. Creatinine is filtered by the kidneys when they are doing their job properly, but when they are impaired, the levels go up in the blood. This makes it a good indicator of kidney function. But in regard to your question about body builders, our physician's assistant said it is a really bad thing when body builders overdo it on creatine supplementation because it can overwhelm the kidneys and cause permanent damage.

Monday

2008-09-08T19:53:00.000-07:00

Just a short post tonight -

Jason was physically pretty good today. We were all hoping the doctor would tell him this morning that he could go home today or Tuesday, but the doctor said Tuesday or Wednesday, so that was disappointing.

With renal failure, they want to make sure his kidneys are functioning on their own before they release him, and losing more water weight will hopefully mean no more complications once he's home. Besides, he has to be in shape for Marissa's and his Aunt Carol's visit!

The kidney doctor checked on him again today - he said he was really worried there for awhile, and was glad to see Jason coming out of it.

He was up and walking around the hospital more today, and not having much pain until this evening, so things are looking up.

Terry had a good visit with him, even if he was in the hospital, and Jason should be home for his Dad's next visit.

Mom

Weekend News

2008-09-07T11:33:00.000-07:00

Sorry we haven't posted since Thursday. Friday and Saturday they continued to monitor his kidney functions - calcium, acid, potassium, and creatin levels.

Friday his potassium levels started to go down thanks to a really good (not!) chaulky tasting liquid medicine, and by Saturday his levels were close to normal. But his creatin levels were still climbing. Since his blood pressure was back to normal without medication, and since they now were just monitoring his blood levels, they were able to move him to a regular room Friday night.

Saturday morning creatin levels slowed down, but still continued to rise. He felt good enough to watch Cool Hand Luke.

This morning his creatin levels finally leveled off and Monday his blood tests should start showing a decrease.

It looks like they want to keep him in the hospital until Monday or Tuesday. Before they release him they want to see his water weight go down more and make sure his creatin levels start dropping. He's pretty down that he may not get to go home until Tuesday, buy by keeping him a bit longer, hopefully he won't have all the problems he did when he went home after the first round.

Mom

ICU - Day Three

2008-09-04T17:22:00.000-07:00

Jason had another rough day today. Because of his treatment, he suffered acute renal failure. This isn't a good reaction, but it's a common reaction in over 30% of interleukin patients.

We feel good because there are so many specialist doctors here who all consult with each other. His melanoma doctor, the head of the melanoma clinic, and two nephrologists consulted this afternoon. The melanoma doctor thinks with close supervison, this should resolve itself in a few days. As the IL2 goes out of the body, the problems and side effects will eventually go away.

Tonight we're just waiting on the blood test results to find out if any other action is needed. If all goes well, he may be able to be moved to a regular room tomorrow. We're hoping for that. He's not in any pain tonight and it appears his symptoms are improving.

Thank you all for your prayers, good wishes, and uplifting humor. As Debby said yesterday, his nurse is the best! He's in good hands here!

I'm picking up Terry at midnight at the airport. Couldn't get a later flight! It will be good to have him here, if only for a long weekend.

Mom

"Worst Night Ever"

2008-09-03T18:14:00.000-07:00

So to keep you up to date, after Marjorie left last night, Jason was doing pretty good. He even managed to eat a bowl of ice cream with M&Ms mixed in (they have great choices for dessert here). But an hour later, the stomach pain came back with a vengeance. The nurse gave him a Naproxen and two oxycodones and it didn't even touch the pain. The pain was so bad, he became nauseous and threw up 5 or 6 times in a row. First came out the pain pills and all the water we had been forcing him to drink, then the ice cream, and then his sandwich from his lunch 5 hours earlier. He was moaning in agonizing pain until 2 in the morning and the nurse had to make an emergency phone call to his doctor to find out what to do. The doctor said to give him morphine and that did the trick. He was out cold 15 minutes later. He managed to sleep until about 7 this morning and the stomach pain finally went away and stayed away. Unfortunately he wasn't able to keep breakfast down either. So those are the gritty details from his "worst night ever".

He only got two doses of IL-2 yesterday and they continued to hold off on doses today because urine production ceased and blood tests showed increasing levels of creatinine which meant treatment was causing kidney complications. His blood pressure also began the same dangerous decent as with his first treatment. Luckily, we had a great nurse, Beverly, who was on top of her game. She was in the room almost all day long, making slight adjustments to his blood pressure medications, nausea medications, dopamine levels, and fluids to make sure Jason maintained a safe blood pressure and heart rate. Jason was able to take a nap during the afternoon which helped him feel a bit better.

By evening, all of us were disheartened because Jason was only able to take 2 doses of the interleukin before his body couldn't take anymore. We didn't know what this meant for his chance of success and future treatments.

Carol from the Melanoma team came by in the nick of time because we were all feeling pretty depressed. She explained to us that Jason's reaction wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She said that his blood work showed that his Eosinophils were high which meant that his inflammatory response was in high gear. This is the response that they were hoping for. She said that some patients immune responses were more sensitive than others, which is why different patients needed different numbers of IL-2 doses to kick the immune system into overdrive. The number of doses does not affect response in the way that regular chemotherapy does. She said she had one patient that was only able to handle one dose of IL-2 and he had a similar reaction to Jason. She was worried for him when they did his CT scan a month later, but the CT scan showed stable cancer. They did another CT scan 3 months later and there was significant tumor shrinkage...all from the one dose of IL-2 he received. This helped us to feel a bit better. She said melanoma is like a game of chess. They will keep him closely monitored and there are a number of treatments at their disposal depending on what the cancer decides to do.

Right now, they really want to carefully monitor his kidneys. They are hooking up an arterial catheter tonight so they can continuously monitor fluid levels and blood pressure to get the kidneys working on their own again. This will be slightly painful for Jason, but it is really important that they protect his kidneys. When the IL-2 doses wear off, his body should return to normal, but his recovery might take a bit longer this time around. He will not receive any more IL-2 doses this time around, but after talking with Carol, we are feeling a bit better about this. She thinks that the symptoms Jason is having are positive signs that the IL-2 is doing its job. Patients that have somewhat of an autoimmune response due to the therapy tend to have better response rates than patients that don't. And that seems to be what is happening to Jason. (He gets a taste of my world...but with nausea, low blood pressure, and flu-like symptoms on top of it). It is not fun for him now, but might be very beneficial in the future.

Right now we are just wishing for as quick of a recovery as possible. It looks like we'll probably be in the hospital for the rest of the week so they can make sure that it is safe for him to come "home". Terry is flying in tomorrow, so that should help cheer Jason up. Team Jensen will be in full force once again.

Here is a quick note from Marissa...Please join me by tuning in this Friday, September 5, at 8 p.m. (EST) to catch Stand Up to Cancer on ABC, CBS and NBC. This first of its kind
one-hour telecast will feature celebrities from film, television,sports, journalism and music coming together to raise money for cancer research. The Lance Armstrong Foundation supports this effort to raise awareness and funds for the cancer fight and Lance Armstrong will participate in the telecast.

Round Two

2008-09-02T20:27:00.000-07:00

First for the good news – no hurricane!

Jason got admitted last night. I spent the night with him because Debby wasn’t feeling well. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, but that was probably because he was in a regular room – the ICU was full on Labor Day.

He did get transferred to ICU this morning. Debby was feeling better so she came in this morning and will spend tonight with Jason.

For the first day of treatment, today was an unexpectedly rough day for Jason. He was having stomach pains before they even started his first dose of IL2 this morning and the pain was with him most of the day. In spite of multiple pain medications and various stomach remedies, nothing helped.

They also wanted to make sure his kidneys were working properly before they started his second dose, so the second dose was delayed because of this problem until 7:30 tonight.

We are looking for tomorrow to be a better day!

Mom

Back to the Future

2008-09-01T15:38:00.000-07:00

From California.

This is a post instead of a comment so Carol could have a picture posted. Carol sends:

Carol – This is Jason as ‘back to the future’. Guess his meds are making him younger. Braces do become you!!?? Jason was 14 years old & in the 9^th grade. Sorry, Jason, but just had to post this picture when I saw it, going thru some old photo’s.

Brian – Corrective orthodontia is the new black. Be aware that this is only the first—Be afraid, be very afraid.

Dad - We all are hoping the next set of treatments goes better than the last set. If all goes well Jason will get even more rounds of the drugs and more Spartans will go after the cancer. It has been tough being 200 miles away but I will be the Thursday night.

There will be more posts with pictures from Carl to follow so Jason, be ready!

Dad

Nasa, Kemah Boardwalk, and the Galleria

2008-09-01T12:27:00.000-07:00

We had a great weekend with my mom and sister coming out to visit. On Saturday, we took a trip to Nasa's Johnson Space Center. We took a tram tour around the facility and saw the historic Mission Control that was used from the 60s, when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, until 1996. The new Mission Control is built directly underneath and is in 24 hour operation controlling every aspect of what is happening on the international space station. Currently there are two Russian Cosmonauts and one American astronaut on board.

We also saw Saturn V in Rocket Park which was amazingly huge. I will attach a picture.

In case any techie's are interested...
The Saturn V (pronounced 'Saturn Five', popularly known as the Moon Rocket) was a multistage liquid-fuel expendable rocket used by NASA's Apollo and Skylab programs from 1967 until 1973. In total NASA launched thirteen Saturn V rockets with no loss of payload. It remains the largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever brought to operational status from a height, weight and payload standpoint.

We also got to see a mock-up of the international space station and they demonstrate how the astronauts eat, sleep, exercise, and even use the bathroom. It was very interesting.

After Nasa, we went to Kemah Boardwalk, which for those in California is similar to Santa Monica Pier. There are rides, shopping and restaurants and it is located right on Galveston Bay. Unfortunately, it was very hot and humid, so we walked around a bit, hit up a restaurant, and headed home.

On Sunday, we met my mom's friend Marilyn and her husband Bill at the Cheesecake Factory in the Galleria Mall. The food was delicious and we got some great information about Houston from them because they are locals. It is nice to know someone that lives in the area just in case we ever need help or advice. They put our minds at ease about hurricane Gustav and said we will probably just get some rain here in Houston. Unfortunately in Houston, if it rains for more than a couple of hours, everything floods because the drainage systems are not very good. So on the phone today, Marissa gave me some good Texas advice in case of flooding "Turn Around, Don't Drown." We will have to take this into consideration over the next couple of days. Right now it is pretty sunny, but the wind is picking up and I'm sure the rain is soon to follow.

In the evening we went to see the Mummy 3, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. All of us found it to be entertaining, and you usually can't go wrong with a Jet Li movie, even if it also stars Brendan Frasier. So we all gave this movie a thumbs up.

This afternoon was a sad goodbye when my mom and sister left. We did go swimming and had a nice breakfast so we still made the most of the day. Tonight, Jason gets checked into the ICU to start Treatment 2. So we will keep you all posted on how that goes. Right now he is pretty gloomy about the prospect of losing his freedom again. Hopefully the week will go by as quickly as possible! We'll do our best to keep you all posted!
Debby

Keeping it short

2008-08-29T20:48:00.000-07:00

I'll keep the blog short, not too much to say. I'm getting admitted to the ICU on Monday, pending a hurricane doesn't get in the way. They tell me if it hits Houston I'll have to wait a week to get it, the hospital locks up during storms.

I dragged Mom to another movie...I'm sure she wishes I hadn't, Stepbrothers. To be honest, I could have done without it myself. It had some funny parts but over all was too silly for my taste. Afterwards we went to a Marble Slab Creamery for some excellent ice cream, it was nice to get out of the house for a bit.

They removed most of my stitches today, I say most because there were a couple scabbed over they couldn't get to so decided to wait for it the heal up some more.

Other than that, I'm just looking forward to enjoying my weekend with family and not in the ICU. Right now we're waiting for Debby's mom and sister to arrive and hang out with us for the next few days. What this means is I'll be getting out of the house even more.

Thanks for the support,
Jason

Deep in the heart of Texas

2008-08-28T17:14:00.000-07:00

Sorry we never posted a blog last night, but we have a very good excuse. We were all food comatose from copious amounts of rich, gooey, chocolaty, delicious dessert. Franz Marie, my former boss from back in the day, and still a good friend, was in Houston on business. She stopped by in the evening for a visit and brought us what is called Capirotada from the restaurant Pappasito's Cantina (which is excellent and highly recommended if in the area). Capirotada is a warm chocolate bread pudding topped with custard and served with vanilla ice cream, sticks of chocolate and a chocolate covered strawberry. The dessert was huge and sinfully rich! We all ate so much because it was just too good to stop. So we were a little immobile last night. We also had a good time seeing Franz's latest pictures of her 11 year old son Tosh and 2 year old daughter Marley. We were hoping to see pictures of Casey, which was Marjorie and Terry's old Senegal parrot which Franz and Lippy adopted a few years back. She didn't have any pictures on her phone but said she would email us some when she gets a chance. We also got to hear about some of her experiences working with famous Oncologists at MD Anderson. It was a really great visit.

It was also Marjorie and Terry's anniversary yesterday. Unfortunately, Marjorie is here...deep in the heart of Texas...while Terry is in California. This was a bummer. So Jason and I were stand-ins for Terry when we went out to dinner. We talked about him a lot so it was almost like he was at the table with us. We probably could have speaker phoned him in, but I don't know if the restaurant would have appreciated that :-)

Terry, Jason and I got Marjorie the new iPhone for their anniversary. It was a bit of a quest that took Marjorie and I all over Houston, but we were finally successful at an AT&T store. After about 10 phone calls, we found a store that had the phone in stock and we were able to pick it up yesterday afternoon. She has been playing with it ever since. She is getting very tech savvy between her new Garmin GPS and the 3G iPhone.

Jason has been doing a lot better since taking Naproxen and he has finally been able to enjoy his second week of recovery. Better yet, we got news today that he wouldn't have to be admitted to the ICU until Monday. He has appointments most of the day tomorrow, but they aren't going to start his second treatment until next week. We were so happy to hear this because my mom and sister are coming to visit this weekend and we thought they would have to spend most of their visit at the hospital. Now we might be able to explore Houston a bit. We have hardly been out of the townhouse but now that Jason is feeling better, we can hopefully check out the city. Hopefully we will have some more scenic pictures for the blog after this weekend. Thanks for sending the comments and we miss everyone back home!

Made it out of the house

2008-08-26T18:49:00.001-07:00

Looks like the long day at the hospital yesterday payed off a little. The doctor gave me a new prescription, an anti-inflammatory, something they wouldn't give me before while they were checking for infection. The new drug seems to be working, I'm not walking normal yet and stairs are a bit difficult, but it's only the first day on the medicine and I was able to make it out to the movies.

Tropic Thunder was the picture Debby and I dragged my Mom to this time. Needless to say, the two of us found it to be hilarious and overall a good movie....Mom not so much. One cast member surprised all of us. It's not hard for me to dislike Tom Cruise on many different levels, but his role as a deranged, eccentric, out of control, over-weight, and hairy movie producer made it hard not to like him, he did a great job. We all thought he did it to get liked by the public again, but who knows.

Other than the movie that's pretty much the extent of my day. Still dealing with some pain, trying to help out when I can, but mostly spending my time planted on the couch, in my new PJ's and slippers, watching TV or playing the PSP or 360.

So much for Jason's recovery week -

2008-08-25T20:42:00.000-07:00

We thank you for all your tips and suggestions on Jason’s problem with his legs. We tried everything. This morning he was worse and could hardly walk. Debby was able to get him in today to see Dr. Kim. But he went everywhere by wheelchair. He has lost quite a bit of weight – about 8 pounds. On a pain scale of 1-10, 10 being the worst, he said it was around 8-9. They took x-rays of his lungs because he is still feeling some congestion. And he was sent for more blood tests – the doctor said there could be an immune response causing inflammation or an infection. While on interleukin 2 he couldn’t take any Tylenol, ibuprofen, or aspirin until they make sure his kidney function was back to normal. His strongest pain medication didn’t touch the pain in his legs. The doctor said he could take one naproxen tonight, and if the blood tests come back normal, he could take more tomorrow. With his regular pain killer and that one naproxen, his legs are feeling a little better tonight. We are hoping an anti-inflammatory is all it takes to make his calf pain go away, but we’re glad they’re doing more tests to rule out any more serious complications.

We watched a movie tonight that was supposed to be a romantic comedy and turned out to be a crazy animal rights movie – Year of the Dog. And Jason didn’t even pick it out and definitely didn’t want to watch it. Hopefully, he’ll be up to going to the video store the next time!

He has been playing his PSP a lot and enjoying all his new games. And yes, Marissa, we got the bracelets and we’re all wearing them. Thanks so much!

Mom

Bad Obama

2008-08-23T18:20:00.001-07:00

Last night was not a good night. Jason woke up at 3 am because he is still having really sharp calf pain in his left leg. He also had some indigestion, so I suggested we sit up and watch some late night TV until he felt better. I turn on the TV and what do I see...Obama picked Joe Biden for VP...grrrr! This did not make our night go any better. Oh well, if I know the Clintons, they will not give up and Hillary will run again in the future.

Jason was pretty worn out this morning because of his devastation over Hillary (just kidding), his lack of sleep. So Marjorie and I left him home to nap while we journeyed to Wal-mart to get some much needed supplies for the house. We bought Jason a scale and he is now back to his normal weight. He still looks like he has a bit of water weight so we think he might have lost a bit of muscle over the past 2 weeks.

So Jason is overall feeling pretty ok except for this intense calf pain. I have tried everything I can think of to lessen the pain and nothing helps. His doctor prescribed two 5 mg pills of oxycodone every 6 hours, you can't get a much stronger pain medicine without going to morphine. He said the oxycodone doesn't even touch the pain. He isn't allowed to take any aspirin, NSAID, or acetominophen. I tried rubbing extra strength arthritis cream on his calf. Didn't work. I tried Tiger Balm. Didn't work. I got him a heat pad and we tried ice packs and neither helped. We tried short walks and gentle stretches...no results. The pain seems to keep getting worse. He can barely put pressure on it and has to hobble along. I even took him to an acupuncturist this afternoon and that didn't help at all.

We are going to call his doctor on Monday. We already went to the emergency room and they ruled out a blood clot. So we have no idea what is causing this or how to make it better. If anyone has any ideas that I haven't thought of, I would love suggestions. He describes it has severe muscle pain in the back of his calf.

Tonight we are all taking it easy. We ordered a pizza and watched the last episode of Eureka, Season 2. It is a great show, quirky and humorous sci-fi. I recommend getting the DVD on Netflix. I hope everyone is doing well and we are missing you and San Diego. Especially Pita and the weather!

My dad made it safely back to Temecula and is now preparing to embark on a trip to Catalina island for some R&R after his road trip.

Better to be safe

2008-08-22T16:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday while talking to my nurse we mentioned a couple symptoms, one being a pain in my arm that passed after a day only to be followed by a severe pain along the back of my calf that is still there. She said that wasn't normal and to go to the emergency room, thinking it might be a possible blood clot. The Emergency room was packed, with people standing because there weren't any chairs left and beds in the hall. After talking with another patient that's been coming there for years, she said it was the worst she had ever seen it......lucky me I thought.

With some help, we were lucky to get out of there after only 3 hours or so, I don't think the other patients were going to be so fortunate. I walked out without having a blood clot, just some worrisome hours and a grumbling stomach.

Debby's Dad made the 1500 mile trip out here to drop off the car, only to fly back 24hr later. We couldn't thank him enough. While he was here he also managed to fix the downstairs toilet and put a couple lights up in the hallway. Thanks again Joe!

Other than that not a whole lot going on. I've been taking short walks everyday but with the leg pain its a sad limp at best. The girls were able to change the dressing on my central venous catheter all by themselves and did a great job.

Tomorrow we're thinking I might be well enough sneak out and see a movie, kinda having withdrawals.

Texas Lizards - -

2008-08-20T17:36:00.000-07:00

It's my turn tonight. It was a pretty quiet day. In fact, the highlight of our day was a little baby lizard. We've heard they have flying cockroaches in Texas which we haven't seen yet, but we had our first lizard come in when Debby opened the front door. I told Jason we needed a cat here! Debby and I moved the couch while Jason captured the lizard. Lucky for the lizard we don't have a cat - it "lived to fight another day".

Today was also another "Dracula" day - Jason "donates" blood at least once a week as long as he's here.

When Debby talked to her Dad this morning, he was in El Paso and was going to stop in San Antonio tonight. He should get here by noon tomorrow with Jason and Debby's car. We'll be glad to see him, knowing that he arrived safely! What a great Dad!

Except for continued all over joint pain and fatigue, Jason was doing a little better today. We thought he'd have a full 2 weeks to recover from the first treatment, but it looks like it will be closer to 1-1/2 weeks. He goes back to the hospital on Friday, 8/29/08, and will start his second round of treatment on Saturday.

The doctors want him to get some exercise every day, so we're hoping he'll feel good enough to start walking tomorrow. The Houston Zoo is close by, as well as several parks, but we'll start with a walk around the complex here.

Mom

"Beaten With a Baseball Bat"

2008-08-19T17:30:00.000-07:00

I will be updating the blog today because Jason has been a little down in the dumps. He is not recuperating as quickly as he had hoped. To quote him "my arm feels like it was beaten with a baseball bat". He also has systemic joint pain and is having difficulty sleeping. The trouble is caused by a central venous catheter on one side of his body and a healing incision from his tumor removal on the other side of this body, so he can only sleep on his back. When he sleeps on his back, he still has congestion in his lungs, and it makes it worse. Did I mention that he also snores when he sleeps on his back (not fun for me) Patti, how do you cope? (hehe)

Marjorie and I have been pampering him as much as possible. I helped him get ready this morning and Marjorie made him breakfast. I went to the drugstore to get some supplies and Marjorie got us Chinese take-out for dinner. We make a pretty good team! We even managed to use a splitter and hook-up cable in one of the bedrooms, all by ourselves without any help from Jason. I am having to learn how to do all the things I usually rely on Jason for. It is not easy. He is definitely well appreciated right now.

The Chinese take-out restaurant Marjorie found was great! It had a lot of vegetarian options and is located right down the street. Jason is getting his appetite back and was able to eat a good portion of his dinner. But here is the best part...This is what his fortune cookie said..."Your troubles will cease and fortune will smile upon you." I couldn't have asked for a better fortune for him and I taped it too the refrigerator. Unfortunately, the fortune cookies were very stale. But I told Jason he had to eat it or the fortune wouldn't come true. Marjorie and Jason said they never heard that rule before and I said that was because I just made it up. We all ate our stale cookies just in case.

My dad is currently on a road trip to bring us our car. He is slated to make it to El Paso tonight and should be in Houston by noon on Thursday. We can't wait to see him. It was so nice of him to bring us the car and he even grabbed Jason's x-box and a few other things we wanted to have with us. We pray that his road trip goes smoothly.

I hope that Jason will be feeling like a new man tomorrow and hopefully he will be ready to post again. Until then, he sends everyone his love.

Longest Week Ever!

2008-08-18T18:45:00.000-07:00

Well I made it through the first weeks dose of treatments, at least the portion that involves hospitalization, unfortunately the week felt like a month! The ICU in a cancer clinic is not a fun place to be. Nurses and doctors are constantly coming and going at all hours, not taking a break to let you sleep. The best is the 3:30 am wake up calls to draw blood (and they can't find your vein while they tell me I have good ones) or they wake me up just to weigh me. In retrospect, most of my neighbors in the ICU were in much worse shape than I, no matter how bad it came down on me, I had their fight to inspire to me, or put me in my place. Sadly, one of my neighbors in the ICU passed away. She had been fighting ovarian cancer for 3 months and my nurse was upset because she had been caring for her the whole time.

I again have to thank everyone who has commented, sent text, and have emailed. When I was unable to read them, Debby or my parents would read them aloud to me. It was always a bright spot in the day.

Now that I'm home (I use the word home loosely) I have about 18+ pounds of water weight to shed, an appetite to regain, energy to get back, and a wooly beard to shave. I'm going to keep this post short, its getting late and I'm not firing on all cylinders yet.

1 More Day to Freedom

2008-08-17T14:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry we didn't get the blog done yesterday - we were waiting most of the day to see if they were going to move him into a regular hospital room - they finally did at 6:30 last night.

Now that he's in a regular hospital room, we can all eat together. There's a number you can call any time of the day to order whatever you want off a very large menu. It's great! We especially like the warm bread pudding with vanilla sauce (Terry)!

Jason got the best night's sleep yet. Even with them having him do breathing exercises at midnight and a blood draw and weigh-in at 3:30 am, the new room is much quieter and more private.

Now all he has to do is continue getting rid of the water weight and walk laps 3-4 times a day to get out. We were hoping he'd get out today, but they said they'd release him tomorrow. Yeh! Yesterday he was having congestion in his lungs, but that seems to be clearing up today and he's feeling much better. He even let us subject him to watching African Queen. He wasn't impressed.

Tonight we'll be getting a TV delivery to the townhouse. We found a used 36" TV and DVD player which we plan on keeping for 3 months - and then will put back on sale on Craig's List. It will be great for Jason's gaming.

Tomorrow we are going to make Jason post - we're sure you'll all be anxious to hear directly from him.

Debby & Marjorie

"I Feel Like Poop"

2008-08-15T17:14:00.000-07:00

We asked Jason to update the blog today and we would take dictation for him, and his response was "I feel like poop, leave me alone." So I, Marjorie, and Terry will be doing the update today.

One of the reasons Jason is not so chipper today, is that starting at 1 am this morning until 6 am, there was construction taking place and a drop hammer being used. Needless to say, we did not get much sleep! Jason requested earplugs for tonight just in case. The problem is they only gave us one pair. Is it wrong to steal from a cancer patient?

As we mentioned yesterday, Jason was having trouble with low blood pressure. He was on two separate medications all night to control it. Today, they were able to wean him off one, and eventually the other, and currently his blood pressure is back to baseline. The doctor came to visit, and thinks Jason should be able to be moved out of ICU tomorrow, and could be ready to go home this Sunday. The doctor has a pretty good sense of humor. He said most cancer patients come to ICU because they are extremely sick, but "IL2 patients come in healthy and we make them sick."

Marjorie and I successfully completed our nurses training course on care of the central venous catheter. We are now able to do cap changes, heparin flushes, and dressing changes. Yea for us!!! So we would now both like to be addressed as Nurse Jensen.

Terry will be departing for San Diego tomorrow and has an hour and a half layover in Las Vegas. He also has two free drink coupons for on the way there, so he might be in trouble when he gets to those slot machines. Lets hope he wins millions so he can fly everyone out here to visit.

That is the update for today. Jason is looking a lot better, but still feeling exhausted. We know he is improving because his sense of humor is back and so is his orneriness. Its amazing though, he has managed to gain 30 pounds of water weight over 4 days. What is even more amazing is that he should be able to loose it all in 2 days with the help of some diuretics, talk about a dieter's dream!

That's the update for today. We'll get back to you again tomorrow.
Nurse Jensen, Nurse Jensen, and Terry

The Sixth Dose

2008-08-14T16:25:00.000-07:00

Jason had a bit of a rough night yesterday so we were a little apprehensive about his next Interleukin dose. They decided to hold off on his 1 am dose and do the sixth dose this morning at 9 am. The first four hours went great. He felt fine and even managed to get down a bowl of cheerios. This gave Marjorie and I time to move all of our stuff from the hotel to the townhouse we are now occupying while Terry looked after Jason.

At about 1 pm this afternoon, things took a turn for the worse. It started with nausea, and then his blood pressure started to drop. It kept dropping...and dropping. The lowest it got was about 52 over 30 so we were all very worried. He also did not look well. He kept getting dizzy and lightheaded. He was clammy and covered in sweat. His nurse Rikki was wonderful. She kept on top of things all day. She put him on two separate blood pressure medications and right now he is at 100 over 52, which is a big improvement. He is also looking much better.

So after a discussion with his doctor, he thought that this should be Jason's last dose for his first course of Interleukin therapy. We were hoping to get to about 8 doses, but the doctor assured us that a patient is either a reponder or not, and the number of doses does not correlate with whether it will work or not. He thought that 6 was an adequate number of doses and that it wouldn't be worth it to push Jason any further at this point. So Jason will stay in the ICU until he can maintain his blood pressure without the medication. Then he will be moved to a regular hospital room for a day or two of recovery before he is allowed to come back with us to the townhouse. In two weeks we start this all over again.

I will continue to stay nights at the hospital with Jason while Terry and Marjorie have been running all kinds of errands to get the townhouse liveable and ready for Jason's arrival. They have also been spending as much time visiting Jason as the hospital allows and keeping everyone up to date with the blog.

There have been a lot of inquiries about what Jason might like or need. Everyone's comments have really meant a lot to him and we can't thank you enough for sending them. Everyone has been so encouraging! If anyone would like to send him a card, that would be great also. The address is finally posted in the blog. I also managed to force Jason to create a short Amazon wish list if anyone is interested. The link is attached in the blog below. Jason also likes gift certificates to Game Stop or Best Buy. He could also use a pair or two of comfy XL pajama bottoms. He usually wears his own T-shirts with them, so he doesn't need the pajama tops. Jason's buddies Steve and Jim are well connected at Playstation, so we will not be needing any more PSP games. Steve, I will send you the list you requested as soon as Jason is feeling a little better. Also, Marissa, I had a request to get 4 "live strong" bracelets from Marjorie. I remember you have one, so maybe you know how to get them for us? Suprisingly, they don't sell them here at the hospital but everyone around us seems to have them.

So even though Jason had a rough day today, he has gotten through the worst of it and will now be allowed to recover for a while. He has shown so much strength and courage this week. I could not be more proud of him. He would keep getting treatments if the doctor would let him, unfortunately, his body is telling him it is time to stop. We are all very optimistic that these treatments will work and again we want to thank all of you for your encouragement!

Jason's Amazon Wish List

2008-08-14T16:17:00.000-07:00

Treatment Times Two

2008-08-13T21:01:00.000-07:00

ICU Bling

Today Jason received his third, fourth and fifth doses of Interleukin 2. The doctor told him this morning that he had about a day and a half to go for this first round, which would be 8 treatments. The 3^rd and 4^th went well with little discomfort. Tonight the 5^th was not the same story. He had bad chills and nausea. The nausea was the worst so far. For us the bad part was that we could not be there to help. They gave him the medicine at about 5:30. We had to leave at 6:00, (they kick all visitors out between 6:00 and 8:00, both A.M. and P.M.) He didn’t start to get a reaction until after we were gone. His reaction did top out just after we got back so he had us there to help with the worst part. When Marjorie and I had to go he was beginning to feel a little better, nausea way down but sore all over.

While we were ousted we used the time to go to Sonic Burger – a first drive-in experience for Debby - and then the new townhouse. We are now happy renters.

The new address for the next three months is:

3116 Holly Hall Street

Houston, TX 77054.

After Debby and Marjorie took their first class for intravenous catheter care, Debby went back to the hotel at noon to get cleaned up and take a nap (the chair does not sleep all that well) and to pack. We move in to the townhouse tomorrow. Debby will get back to submitting items for the blog when Jason gets home.

Joe, we want to wish you a very Happy Birthday! Another Leo!

Carol, you thought Ohio was the orange barrel capital of the USA. Houston is giving Ohio a run for its money. ( No offense intended to our friends in Houston).

Mom & Dad

Day One of Treatment

2008-08-12T21:09:00.000-07:00

ET SAYS "OOOUCH"

Today was the first day of the Interleukin 2 treatments. They woke Jason and Debby up at about 8:30, yes Debbie spent the night with him. The easy chair converts into a bed. Jason’s bed troubles him some. It adjusts the lumbar support and firmness every time he changes positions. To me (Terry) that would be a dream, but he finds it irritating.

At 9:00 the team came in and administered the treatment. All went well. The only side affects that Jason felt were chills (for about 15 minutes) and nausea. He had a bit of trouble eating breakfast and even more trouble with lunch.

The second dose was at 5:00 P.M. The only trouble this time was the chills, a little worse than the first time but they gave him some new drug that knocked them, and any other pain, down for the count. He recovered well and had a good appetite tonight. It seems that he is handling the treatments better than most as they say few eat anything the first two, sometimes three days.

Debby is in trouble! They are spoiling him with heated blankets and meals on demand and more attention than he has ever had before.

As if they don’t wake him enough at night, the next treatment is scheduled for 1:00 A.M. Do you see a pattern here? The doses are given every eight hours, and continue as long as he can handle them. Most only get eight and that is our target. The record is fourteen.

As cell phones are verboten in the ICU, Jason can not read the blog himself at this time. Debby can go to the lobby and read it and pass comments along to Jason. Starting on Wednesday we will be printing them out for him, so keep the comments coming. They mean a lot to Jason, Debby and us.

Mom and Dad

300 Billion Spartans!

2008-08-11T17:33:00.000-07:00

Jason’s Visualization of His Immune System Fighting the Cancer

I’m not as good at this as Debby and Jason are, but I’ll try. It was a long day, but a little easier than we all thought it was going to be.

Jason had his intravenous tubes put in – he said it actually wasn’t too bad – they drugged him pretty good. Then he had to go down for x-rays to make sure it was in right.

We then saw Dr. Kim again to get Jason checked out one last time before getting admitted, a two and one half hour wait. Then we headed back to the dreaded diagnostic lab to get more blood taken - five more tubes - because he’s participating in a research study to find “different protein expressions and how they influence interleukin 2 as a melanoma treatment (Debby’s words of course). It won’t help him, but it will help future patients. And at Debby’s request they’re going to check if we can get the results of Jason’s study that we can compare with preliminary study results.

When we finally found Admissions, they couldn’t admit him until after 7:00 tonight so we came back to the hotel for a few hours to relax.

Marjorie and Terry

Next stop...ICU

2008-08-10T17:30:00.000-07:00

Not sure when my next blog will be. Tomorrow I get the IV inserted into one of my main veins leading to the heart and I spend the next week in the ICU while being administered an aggressive treatment. Word on the street is it wont be a fun week and the weeks following for recovery might be a long road as well. At least I know what to expect and the whole process has proven to be relatively safe. Still there's that nervous feeling about spending a week in a strange place where people are giving me stuff that they know will make me feel like shit.

On the brighter side, I received the package of brownies Pat sent - Thank You. Everyone loves them and you were right, they brightened up our day. Now we have a desert every night for the next 2 weeks probably.

Ron and Cristina, a big thanks goes to you as well. The beer mug vase with the flowers for Debby cracked us up. Very original and it is currently the center piece in our hotel.

It's my Mom's birthday tomorrow but we decided to celebrate it today instead. So in honor of her we took her to see Pineapple Express, she said something along the lines of it expanding her horizons. There were four of us and the movie got 3 1/2 thumbs up. You can guess who gave it the 1/2 thumb. Later to make up for it we searched around for a nice Italian restaurant but ended up settling for one more casual.

So that's is...tomorrows the beginning of what we hope to be a very successful treatment. Hopefully the first attempt works and I can get out of this place and back home working on our place and drinking some home brew.

Jason

Early Saturday

2008-08-09T10:47:00.000-07:00

It was a long day at the hospital yesterday, but the hospital has thought of everything. Debby already told you a little about it. Their ‘hospitality’ rooms have little mini marts, a computer with printer, craft kits for those so inclined, chairs, and tables – with a jigsaw puzzle on every table. The adjacent room is dimly lit with recliners and couches (with pillows and blankets) for those who want to sleep or rest between appointments/treatments. If you’re alone, they’ll wake you in time for your next appointment. And for appointments at the Mays Clinic, which is in another building, they offer golf cart rides to get there through an air conditioned ¼ mile enclosed bridge.

The hospital also offers free classes for patients and their families – not only those specific to cancer, but their wellness center offers yoga, tai chi, Pilates, massages, and lectures.

Today Jason is recuperating from the excision he had yesterday. Debby didn’t mention that the surgery yesterday took more than just cutting. The doctor told Jason that the smell of burnt meat was just Jason burning. They use electric arc cauterizing before sewing him up. The burn part seems to be causing the most pain for him today. Today will be very calm – it’s probably a movie day. You might even get a movie review or two, Brian!

Joe & Kathy - we just wanted to thank you for the dinner too. That was very nice of you.

Carol, Sue & Mindy (Brian & Amy too?) - hope you have a great time at the Ohio State Fair - eat a funnel cake and a couple of elephant ears for us!

Marjorie & Terry

Fun Friday

2008-08-08T17:48:00.000-07:00

Today was a long day that started with us waking up at 5:45 in the morning and racing to the MD Anderson Diagnostic Center to beat the crowds. We were too late, it was already pretty busy. As Jason says “old people get up early”. They had to take 16 large vials of blood. Jason said they actually ran out of blood from the vein at the elbow and had to take more from a vein on the top of his hand. He said he felt pretty dizzy after that and he wasn’t even allowed to eat a cookie or anything because he had to fast for 5 hours before his cardio echo stress test. After the blood draw they took some chest x-rays.

Next, the four of us had to watch a video about the insertion of a Central Venous Catheter. Jason will be getting one inserted under his collar bone on Monday in order to get the Interleukin 2 infusion therapy. Marjorie and I are the lucky ones that get to attend two 90 minute classes on care of the catheter because Jason will have it in during his recovery periods. We will be learning sterile technique for dressing changes, daily catheter flushes with heparin solution, and changing the heparin cap every two weeks. It is very important that the catheter does not get infected because it is inserted into a vein that goes straight to the heart.

Next on the list was a complete pulmonary function test which consisted of breathing into boxes. Jason says he passed with flying colors. There was some time to waste before his cardio testing so Jason and I took a nap in the nap room and Terry and Marjorie worked a puzzle.

Jason says the cardio echo stress test was the worst part of the day. He was in a small room with 5 other people all looking at various monitors. What is pretty funny about the situation is that they actually had him use his iPhone to work out some calculations for them because their calculator was broken. Instead of making him run on a treadmill, they gave him an adrenaline type drug through an IV to make his heart rate go up. He said he felt like his heart was going to explode through his chest. Not a pleasant experience! He finally came out of the room two hours later and was shivering all over. He looked pretty beat. We gave him some pretzels to eat and took him up to the Melanoma Center to await his surgery.

We thought the surgery would be the hardest part of the day for him, but he was literally in and out of there in 30 minutes. He said the surgeon was cracking jokes to put him at ease and it didn’t hurt at all. So now instead of a tumor, he has 10 stitches on his stomach. Now…to get rid of the tumors in the liver and lung!

On the way home, we stopped for a gourmet Texas dinner at Taco Bell and Jason has been resting since. We plan to watch the Olympic Opening Ceremonies tonight on TV.

Again we want to thank everyone who is following the blog and posting encouraging comments. Jason has them sent straight to his iPhone and he enjoys reading them while in the hospital. I’ve had a few requests to put together some ideas for items Jason might enjoy while in the hospital. I will have him compile a wish list this weekend and should have a permanent address for people to mail things to by next Wednesday. We really, really appreciate all of the support from family, friends, and co-workers!

We are very happy that we decided to come to MD Anderson. We understand now why it is rated one of the best cancer centers in the world. Everyone that we have met, both staff and patients, have been extremely kind and encouraging. The hospital has every possible amenity to make patients and family members comfortable. It really is an ideal environment for healing. I cannot say enough good things about the hospital at this point and I am confident that we made the right decision in coming here.

My Turn Again

2008-08-07T17:42:00.000-07:00

My turn again to blog it looks like. I want to thank everyone who has posted comments and has been sending emails. I would love to reply to to all of them individually but I don't think I have the time or the energy right now. Just know that we love reading them and they always cheer us up.

The last few days have been kinda rough on me physically. I'm not getting a full nights sleep, been waking up to fevers and some pain. We believe this is because they asked I stop taking Ibuprofen (get to why in a bit) and it was probably keeping the symptoms at bay. Other than that I'm still doing pretty good as long as I'm on the pain meds I can take.

Today was good, we were asked to come in and have the surgeon take a look at the melanoma on my belly, it's about the size of a dime, almost too small for them to work with but they figured it couldn't hurt. Whats surprising is it really hasn't grown much in the last couple weeks and this "might" be due to this mushroom extract Debby's been feeding me three times a day. Its given via a dropper so I cant help but feel like a baby bird.

The best part of the day was all Debby's doing. She was able to find a nice 2 bedroom gated community for a very very nice price which helps out tremendously. The owner was willing to do a 3 month lease and was extremely nice. So it looks like we'll have a more permanent address by next Wednesday, only a few minutes from the hospital.

Tomorrow will be a busy day. We go in early for a pre-procedure assessment interview, then a couple tests to check my heart and lungs which will take several hours. They need to confirm I'll be able to survive the treatment but no one seems worried because of my age and I don't smoke so I'm not too concerned either. I'm also having the melanoma talked about above, and in the picture, extracted and sent to the lab. With it they hope to grow a bunch of little fighter T cells they can later inject back into me (TIL study). Sometime between all this I get more blood work done and some more x-rays.

I have to thank Debs parents for dinner tonight, we went to Chile's where my Dad was finally able to get some ribs. - Thanks

Jason

Wet Wednesday

2008-08-06T21:14:00.000-07:00

Today was to be a day of rest and exploration. We enjoyed a late reveille and leisurely breakfast. Jason was a little more fatigued than usual so we decided on an outing that would not require much walking - NASA Space Flight Center.

We had some interesting weather just trying to get the 19 miles to the center. Jason was driving when we hit one of the heaviest downpours that any of us have ever experienced. At times we could see just beyond the hood. Luckily this did not last too long and the sun was out when we arrived. We thought we were done with the storm but the weather ended up canceling the tram tour, the reason we went there. We cut the trip short but hope to go back this weekend.

We drove by the townhouse we hope to rent next week and were very impressed. The neighborhood is pleasant and it and the surrounding communities are gated and secure. It is just two to two and ½ miles from MD Anderson. From what we have seen on the internet and the drive-by we think it will be great for Debby and Marjorie when Jason is in treatment and even better for Jason during the recovery weeks.

We splurged on supper. Marjorie and I walked across the hotel parking lot to pick up Pizza Hut pizzas. After watching Ironman on Pay Per View we called it a night.

Dad

News for Tuesday

2008-08-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

Tuesday started out exciting – we woke up to a lot of rain - - but no hurricane. It would have been so much more interesting to watch from our 8^th floor windows than just rain - we can get that at home (if not very often).

Jason got to sleep in today – so that’s a good day for him. We all talked him into getting some exercise today – walking a mall of all things! It was Houston’s very nice and large Galleria mall. He didn’t think we could walk a mall without shopping – well, we almost did – but, he passed up a lot of good stores! This mall had 375 stores and restaurants, 2 Westin hotels, and an ice rink. And we did it all in fifteen minutes – NOT.

It was a relaxing day, so it was nice. We’re so glad we can be here with Jason and Debby. We just want him to know we are here to give him any support we can, even though it doesn’t feel like enough.

Talk about support - Debby is a miracle worker! She has used the internet to find so many great things that are helping Jason while awaiting the doctor’s work. We are calling ourselves Team Jensen.

Debby also spent much of last night and this morning searching for a long term place to stay while Jason is going through the treatments. We’re so hoping the place we’re going to look at Thursday is a winner – it’s like 2 miles from the hospital. It is a two bedroom townhouse in a gated community with a two car garage, furnished. Isn’t the internet wonderful????

Mom

Bubble Girl's Blog, First doctor appt.

2008-08-04T17:47:00.000-07:00

Today we went to Jason’s first doctor appointment at MD Anderson. The hospital is huge, but very nice. There are fish tanks with tropical fish on every floor. There are lazy-boy recliners for the patients to lie down in while waiting for appointments. There are even tables with games and puzzles to pass the time. We first registered with the Melanoma Cancer Center and then we were told to go downstairs to the Diagnostic Center so he could have blood drawn. It was a scary place. There were over 100 people waiting to get their blood work done, and many of the people had bald heads from chemo and face masks to protect themselves from germs. Seeing so many sick people was a little overwhelming for all of us. Luckily the hospital is so large, they were calling about 10 people at a time to get their blood drawn and the whole process only took about half an hour.

Next, Jason was assigned a nurse, a physician’s assistant, and a medical oncologist. Each person spent a lot of time with us and did a thorough patient history and physical exam. Jason’s oncologist is Dr. Kim. He is very knowledgeable and a straight-shooter. I was very impressed by him. Since Jason has already has so many diagnostic tests completed in San Diego, we were able to already talk about treatment options at our first appointment. Since Melanoma is an aggressive cancer, we all agreed that Jason would need aggressive treatment. He is young, in good health, and should be able to handle whatever they throw at him.

One promising treatment that I have been reading about that they are currently conducting clinical trials for is called TIL (Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes). Basically, they remove one of Jason’s tumors and grow the surrounding T-cells that are all ready trained to kill melanoma. They grow billions of copies of these T-cells and inject them into his body along with high doses of Interleukin 2 (which ramps up his immune system, “Cytokine Therapy”). This is a Phase 2 clinical trial so there will be no placebos and all patients get the same dose and treatment. During Phase 1 trials, they had over a 50% success rate with melanoma tumor shrinkage. The only downside of this therapy is that it can take 2 months to grow the billions of T-cells needed for the injections. Jason has a lump that has been growing on his stomach that they are pretty sure is melanoma, so instead of having to do surgery on his lungs or liver to remove a tumor, they can probably excise the tumor on his stomach. The only problem is that it is only 1 cm, and they said that usually larger tumors work better for the therapy. So our oncologist is meeting with a team of other surgeons and oncologists today to discuss Jason’s case to decide if they should remove the tumor now, or wait until it’s a little larger.

We would really like to participate in this clinical trial, but we will be starting therapy in the meantime while we wait for his T-cells to grow. We have two choices. One is to start right away with the high dose of Interleukin 2. The other choice is what’s called Bio-chemotherapy. It is a combination of Interleukin 2, chemotherapy, and interferon alpha. Both of these therapies are very aggressive. Jason will need to stay in the hospital for 7 days, then will get 2 weeks of recovery time. Then he starts the cycle over again. They can do up to 6 cycles, but they usually do two cycles and run a CT scan to check for shrinkage. If the therapy isn’t working, then we switch to a different type of therapy.

Sorry for the long blog filled with medical jargon, but we got a lot of information today and I figured some of you might want the details. The doctor said the main thing to keep in mind is that each person is different. The first therapy we try might not work, but then we just switch until we find something that does. He was very positive, but at the same time, warned us that Melanoma is a hard cancer to fight. Luckily there are many new treatment options and if we can buy some time, there will be even better ones in the future.

On Friday Jason will spend all day in the hospital. They will run a lot of diagnostic tests on his heart and lungs to make sure he will be able to handle the aggressive therapies. On Monday he will be admitted into the hospital and therapy will begin. We got a phone call tonight and they told us that he will have his own private room in the ICU unit and I am even allowed to stay the night with him. I thought that was absolutely wonderful! One quick note, he is not allowed to receive any flowers. So if anyone wants to send gifts, I suggest PSP games J I can give recommendations if anyone needs them. We probably won’t have a lot of therapy related news until next Monday, so in the meantime we will just let you know what we are up to. If anyone is interested in coming out to visit, we will be securing corporate housing in the near future and I’m sure Jason would love to have visitors during his recovery weeks. So I can let people know good times to visit and you are welcome to stay with us.

Day One and Nothing to Do

2008-08-03T15:42:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

I first have to let you know that blogs and such things have never been my thing, so I apologize if mine are short and don't give too much information. Debby will also be posting so I'm sure you'll get more out of her posts.

We just arrived in Houston TX.....yeeehaaaaa! Its overcast and HOT..in the 90s. Our suite at the Holiday Inn is nice. Kitchen, dining room table, little living area and two bed rooms. One for Deb and I, the other for my folks who also came out with us. Having them around will help alot I'm sure.

Right not we're still exploring the room, putting together a grocery list and deciding what we're going to do for dinner. The flight was good for everyone but my dad who happened to get three little boys traveling alone and sitting right behind him.....HA

That's it for now...I'm starting to get nervous about my first appointment tomorrow with the doc, every things starting to happen and making it all very real.

I'll add images once I figure out how. (ok..I did...picture is the view from our hotel)

Jason