LAST CHANCE

Posted by emmett on March 7, 2011

So here you go . . .

Under the TeamEmt Wear tab at the top, you will find shirts, wristbands (my favorite!), and for one more week, Cycling Gear. We have a desgn running, with the jersey, bib shorts, and even cycling gloves. You can order all three parts, or just one part! Perhaps you just want some new cycling gloves, or a new jersey to add to your collection to wear out on rides, especially as the weather is turning so much nicer!

We have extended the deadline on this limited edition Item until the end of the week. You have until This Friday evening to place your order, and then it’s gone! So hop on over, browse a little, click on the cycling gear image, and get a close up view of all the items. It’s cool stuff! As always, Thank you for your prayers, and for walking with us through it all -

Here we go again

Posted by wendy on March 8, 2011

So we get the results from our blood work this morning and Emmett will start chemo sometime today or tomorrow.

not. excited.

We haven’t really had a break from the last chemo round, which hammered Emmett so hard, he wasn’t even really able to get out of bed for two weeks and the last two weeks have been so unpredictable that it has been difficult to make plans even as we leave the house. I would like to update more, but my heart has been in a bad place. Every time I look at this screen to write something, nothing wholesome will come out, so I just close my computer and wait for my heart to change.

Needless to say, we need your prayers, even more when we’re silent for a while. But good things are still happening, even though our circumstances are wearying, God is building in us a faith deeper than desperation, as our pastor so beautifully said it last Sunday. Check out the March 6th sermon here: http://www.gccnashville.org/resources/tapeorders.aspx. It is amazing and a beautiful picture of where we are and so much more encouraging than I can be right now. So I will share his words instead of my own.

Don’t forget to register for the Team Emmett 5K (by clicking the link at the top of the page) this week if you want to be guaranteed a Team Emmett race shirt. Awesome things are happening with cash prizes, fun race cups, chick-fil-a, and maybe even rumors of a radio station sending a van out with some fun things. Our friends the Shifrins and Silvermans have really outdone themselves. And just think, in 5-10 years, when Team Emmett has gone national, you’ll be able to say that you were there when it began!

Top 10 Reasons To Participate in the Team Emmett 5K

Posted by teamcaptain on March 9, 2011

Attention Team Emmett-eers,

The blog has been hijacked by the TEC2C5K Race Committee. Well, hijacked with permission. So really just borrowed. But anyway…
If you haven’t signed up for the Team Emmett 5K on Saturday, April 2nd, here are the top 10 reasons why you should consider doing so!

10. The Chick-fil-A Cow will be there to run with the kiddos during Quinn’s Kids Fun Run!

9. Cash prizes for the top 3 male/female winners. Yup. Cash.

8. Free Chick-fil-A for a YEAR for the top male/female winners, courtesy of the Brentwood Chick-fil-A!

7. Super cool exclusive official one-of-a-kind-no-one-else-will-have it 5K race shirts provided to all participants. Register BEFORE March 12 to guarantee an official 5K race t-shirt!

6. You’ll be done by mid-morning, even if you walk the entire thing. Still plenty of time in your Saturday to clean up, take a nap, do the laundry, feed the hog, pay the bills, paint the house, wash the car, do your homework, and update your Facebook status to say you just completed a 5K. Bam.

5. Help raise money for one of the most underfunded forms of cancer – 100% of the proceeds from this event goes to Team Emmett, which is dedicated to raising awareness and funds for esophageal cancer research

4. The certified 3.1 mile race course routes by the Cadillac dealership in Maryland Farms and I hear they are giving away a free Caddy to the 45th person who runs by
(that might not be true)

3. The Brentwood Academy cheerleaders will be there. G-O, say Let’s Go. GO!

2. A great way to tune up before spring marathon season – our course is certified, fast, and flat – the perfect opportunity to achieve a PR

And the #1 reason to participate in the Team Emmett Courage to Conquer 5K this year:

1. Simply to be able to say that you were a part of the 1st Annual Team Emmett 5K. 2011. It will only happen once. Be there.

By supporting Team Emmett and being a part of this awesome event, you are supporting Emmett and Wendy. They never grow tired of seeing their family, friends, strangers, new friends gathering for one common cause!

Run the Race. Join the Team. Team Emmett.

www.teamemmett.org/events/

Ten ways you don't want to spend your spring break:

Posted by wendy on March 14, 2011

10. Being thrown up on by a 3-year old.

9. Having movie marathons on the bathroom floor.

8. Running between your vomiting husband and your vomiting child at 4 am.

7. Anticipating your impending doom, made certain by the quantity of vomit you handled throughout the day. (still praying it stays away)

6. Eating enormous quantities of junk food, which you rationalize because if there’s a large probability that you’re going to throw up too, then you might as well turn your tastebuds against cookies and chips rather than something healthy, right? That, of course, is the smart option. (note the use of heavy sarcasm)

5. Driving to the bank so you can have some sanitary personal interaction (of which you are in desperate need) so you don’t feel guilty about infecting anyone.

4. Hand washing the vomit off stuffed animals.

3. Doing your taxes (I must confess, I actually like doing my taxes, but most people don’t, so I thought I’d include it to drum up sympathy).

2. Folding the 8 loads of laundry that have been sitting in your kitchen so long that your son now goes to the kitchen when you tell him to get dressed.

1. Crying because you’d rather be at work.

Chemo update

Posted by wendy on March 14, 2011

Well now that I got that off my chest (see the previous blog post), I’ll give a general Emmett update.

The most frustrating thing about this experimental chemotherapy is that it is so unpredictable, although I must confess it might not be entirely appropriate to blame the chemo alone. Emmett started chemo late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning, and the start was much better. He was able to get out and about a little on Wednesday evening. Thursday and Friday were rough, but he seemed to turn a corner on Saturday. He was able to go to Lowe’s and putter around the house some. It was so nice. Sunday morning was a rough morning for both of us. We were grouchy with each other, although we made up quickly. He spent most of the day in bed because he was making an honest effort to take in enough calories.

Today has been awful, though. I’m not sure if the storm front and drop in temperatures has made his mucus problems worse, but he’s had 3-4 long sessions of vomiting and felt gross most of the day. Needless to say, he’s eaten little to nothing. Please pray for his nutrition. Since January, the doctors have been telling me that his blood work shows he’s malnourished, but no matter who says that to Emmett, he does not hear it. Emmett’s essentially starving himself to death. He told me he had a good day on Saturday. You know how many calories he consumed? About 695 (according to my calculations). And most of those were from nutrient-poor foods. Yet in his mind, he had an excellent day. After our Sunday morning grouch session (part of which was about his nutrition), he managed to take 5-6 cans of food (1500-1800 calories), but today he has thrown up most of what he has taken (although, to be fair, he has tried to take in more food today), getting little to no nutrition. That may be pat of the reason he struggles to get out of bed and that chemo is so rough on him. Please pray that he would take more initiative to feed himself. The doctors threatened to put him in the hospital if his nutrition didn’t improve.

Sorry this reads more like a news article than a blog post. I am so bone-weary right now that I don’t have much energy to write. Emmett had scheduled play dates for Quinn this week to give me a chance to have some real restorative rest, but with the stomach bug (see previous blog post), we’re essentially quarantined until further notice. One day Emmett or I will comment on all our life observations, but for right now we’re just hanging on and trying not to go crazy or worse, give up. Pray for an extra measure of grace for us this week. We are in great need of that grace right now.

Vampire Diaries of Spring Break

Posted by Adam on March 19, 2011

Hey Everyone, Wendy asked us to update the blog about their most recent trip to Vandy. Due to Emmett’s extremely low white blood cell count, they went into the ER around 11:00am on Friday. Then they promptly spend the next 8 hours sitting there waiting for a room to open up. Emmett was administered 2 full units of blood, and then the Doctors decided to give him another 2 units. Each unit takes about 4 hours or so to complete, and they were finishing the final unit not too long ago.

I was able to go down to the hospital to hang with Emmett today while Nicki took Wendy for some much needed home time. It was great to sit with him. The drugs they were giving him for his nausea made him really tired, and really thirsty. The boy drank like a fish today, I’ve never seen someone drink so much and such a great assortment of drinks. He had Sprite, Water, Sweet Tea, Apple Juice, Orange Juice, and a mixture of Apple and Orange juice. He was only awake for a little bit of the time, but it was good to be there with him.

Please continue to pray for Emmett that this transfusion will help him to get his strength back. He really needs to be eating about 1300 calories a day in order to keep these levels where they need to be, so pray that he’ll be able to eat and that it will stay in his system long enough for him to have the nutrients that he needs. Also, please pray for Wendy, it’s very difficult to be in the hospital for long periods of time, and she’s not really getting a ton of sleep as you may imagine, so it’s easy for her to burn out. So we need to lift them both up in prayer tonight. We’re thankful that Wendy’s dear friend from CA Marci is in town and is helping take care of Quinn.

We will keep everyone posted about his status, the hope is that he’ll be home either late tonight or early tomorrow.

PS – We are now up to 300 registrants for the 5K, if you haven’t signed up yet, please go to teamemmett.org/5k and join our team to raise awareness to fight esophageal cancer. We really want to make a difference. If you need some inspiration, we’re heard that Emmett’s grandmother is actually training for the 5K, so no excuses here people!! Thanks for reading. Be blessed!!

Just another week in the life of a cancer patient

Posted by wendy on March 22, 2011

I’ve started this blog post at least twice a day. It’s not that I don’t want to update you, it’s more like I’m in a place where I constantly feel like opening my mouth to speak, literally or figuratively, is a bad idea.

We are exhausted, crushed, broken, weighed down, and full of sorrow.

The first two days of my spring break were fabulous. Warm weather allowed all of us to spend some time outside. We planned some spring yard projects and took a trip to Lowe’s. We bought a couple bird feeders for Quinn, well for all of us really, but Quinn is a good excuse. For the first time in months, I got enough sleep for two days in a row. Emmett was feeling a tad bit stronger, and we had hopes that this round would be less brutal.

After Quinn and I had a round of stomach bugs and I had to scour the house, I was hoping to salvage the rest of the break. Thursday night, I had a massive panic attack. After a particularly rough night of Emmett hacking and coughing up mucus, I moved to the couch about 2 am to try and snag whatever sleep I could before Quinn woke up at 6:30 (the downside of singing birds and beautiful sunshine). I ended up having a massive panic attack, sitting outside until about 3 am, and unable to sleep until about 5 am.

So Friday morning was rough to begin with, even before we got the message from our doctors in Texas. Emmett’s red and white blood counts were dangerously low and he needed a blood transfusion and shot. So off we went to Vanderbilt early Friday morning with a day bag because we knew blood transfusions could take a while. We didn’t realize that we would sit in the ER for 9 hours before the transfusions would even be started. They were waiting for a room to admit Emmett to the hospital, but they could have completed the transfusions before we got to our room. As it was, they didn’t start the transfusions until about 10 pm. Since they have to check vital signs every 15 min or hour when you’re getting a transfusion, they were in and out of the room all night Friday night, so neither of us slept. Four units of blood and 36 hours later, we left the hospital with no shot (They gave us some reason about insurance that our Texas doctors seemed to think was bogus). The pharmacies that had the shot were all closed until Monday, so Emmett’s white cells continued to plummet until we got him the shot Monday night.

So we got home (from our first visit) about 8 pm Saturday night. After getting Emmett’s various prescriptions filled and setting up his night time medicines, I finally passed out about 10:30. About 12:30 Sunday morning, Emmett did this weird cough/sit up maneuver and his feeding tube popped right out of his stomach. So back we went to the ER. This time our ER doctors were pretty top notch. They replaced the tube quickly, and we were almost on our way when Emmett started bleeding pretty seriously out of his tube site. When the feeding tube came out still fully inflated, the tissue in the lining of his tube was irritated. Since his platelets were low, it took a while for him to stop bleeding. A lot of the precious blood we’d spent so much time putting in him was now pouring out his tube site. Eventually the bleeding tapered off, and they sent us home. We got home about 7 am Sunday morning. Sunday and Monday were spent recovering. We got Emmett the shot he needed on Monday, and he was even up and out of bed some.

Does that sound like a nightmare to you? Because it sure felt like one to both of us. We are beyond exhausted, to the point of feeling physically and mentally and emotionally destroyed. Weeks like this one leave us both feeling like we are losing this battle. We take turns crying and holding each other. We’re strongly considering changing chemo regimens or taking some time off. We’ll make more decisions when we see the results of our CT scan next week, but we need a lot of wisdom right now.

We just need rest, physical and emotional and mental rest. Pray for us to have rest this week.

Breaking Radio Silence

Posted by emmett on March 27, 2011

It seems like when Chemo gets really bad, I stop posting, crawl into my little hole, and try to wait things out, praying and hoping that they will get better sooner than later. The downside is that I don’t post much, or call or email, I tend to turn into a hermit of types. Today breaks that several week long silence. I know how exciting right !?! There are so many things that have happened, are happening, and about to happen. It’s kind of exciting !!

This past round of chemo was (and still is) and Interesting one. It didn’t lay me out quite like the round before, but it took its toll on me none the same. We wound up in the hospital this round for blood transfusions, and feeding tube issues, not to mention having issues with my white blood cell counts, and needing a SUPER expensive shot to help stimulate more white cell counts. It was a dicey several days, and messed with my head a good deal. It can be depressing, never seeming to recuperate or bounce back, and instead being met with dead ends or frustrating news.

This week, we leave for Houston for one of our longer trips. We’ll get CT scans, x-rays, more blood work and so on. We’ll discuss the effectiveness of the current chemo we’re on, whether or not to continue, possibly taking a break so my body can REALLY rebound and I can have a week or so of more normal feeling life, not worrying about throwing up, or about counts plummeting as much. We’ll probably discuss other options of chemo for in the future. but needless to say, we’ll have lots of discussing, and potentially lots of decisions to chew on. On the brighter side, Thanks to some friends of ours, we will be able to bring Quinn with us. This will be his very first plane trip, and, he has been asking for a month or so now about when does he get to go on the airplane with us to Houston. Our friend Marci will be traveling with us as well to help with Quinn while we see doctors and make appointments and such. If nothing else, it should be a fun experience. I pray that we don’t encounter any problems, or medical delays that would keep us there any longer.

As soon as we get back, we’ll hopefully be able to dash from the airstrip to the Chick-fil-a where the Pre-race packet pickup for the 5K will be under way. Hopefully there won’t be any delays and we can get out fairly early from Houston, thus getting us home on time. Then this Saturday is the First Annual Team Emmett Courage to Conquer 5K Run. From what I hear there are lots of people who will be turning out to run/walk/stroll this Saturday. And, according to the weather it should be perfect weather for a run. I’m planning on the Houston trip going smoothly so that we’ll for sure be back and able to come hang out at the 5K. A lot of my family, my Grandmother included, are headed into town to run the race, even Quinn is running in the kids fun run with the Chick-fil-a Cow. It should be a Super fun time!!

So needless to say, we’re gearing up for a jam packed week, and praying that the healing continues so that I’ll be in much better shape for traveling and for the run this weekend. We greatly appreciate your continued prayers and support for us. It’s been an incredibly long run, and super bumpy as of late, and we still have a ways to go, so thank you for sticking with us. I can’t communicate enough how much it means to us. Thank you.

To Houston, To Houston

Posted by wendy on March 30, 2011

Well, we leave today at 1 pm for another trip to Houston. Emmett has blood work and his CT scan tonight and then we meet the doctor Thursday morning to go over results. We’re praying for good news, but we definitely need wisdom and discernment about treatment options and moving forward. Quinn will be going with us as well, so pray for him and our friend Marci who is coming along to help out with him.

here we go!

Moving on

Posted by wendy on March 31, 2011

Well, I suppose the best place to start summarizing our visit is at the end when our doctor said, “well, you’re in a much better place now than when you came to us in October.”

The CT scan revealed that the tumor in Emmett’s liver had shrunk again, but the tumor in a lymph node by the stomach that had been slowly growing was almost double the size it was at the end of January. The scan also showed that there was a significant amount of fluid in Emmett’s left lung that will need to be drained soon. Add to that the compounding side effects that are now somewhat overwhelming, and the consensus was pretty unanimous to discontinue this trial. It does not do a whole lot of good to continue beating Emmett up so badly to kill the tumor in his liver while it spreads elsewhere.

So the doctor gave us some suggestions for what should come next, and his top choice for the next round are two drugs given by infusion. They are breast cancer drug actually, and though it hasn’t undergone a formal study for GI cancers, there has been some promising work showing their effectiveness in other tumors and the side effects have been shown to be much more mild than this experimental drug. That’s one thing we love about our doctors in Houston, their breadth and depth of knowledge as well as their ability to think outside the box. Because of the nature of infusions, we would like this to be done in Nashville, but that would necessitate getting our Vanderbilt doctors on board. Given their past level of cooperation, we’re a little uneasy about working with them. We could go across the street to the other cancer center in Nashville (which is also very good), but it is technically out of network for our insurance, which means it’s cheaper to fly to Houston for treatment than drive across the street from Vanderbilt (very silly, in my opinion). I may spend some quality time on the phone with the insurance company this coming week trying to see what our options are.

So we’re going to take about 3-4 weeks of chemotherapy while we make the arrangements for the next round. Emmett desperately needs a break since these last couple of rounds have been especially brutal. His symptoms have increased dramatically in such a short time, and the fluid on his lungs has made any sort of activity exhausting. Pray specifically that the process of draining the fluid goes smoothly. What would be a “simple outpatient procedure” in Houston never fails to be an ordeal at Vanderbilt. In fact, our Houston doctors suggested going to the ER if we couldn’t get in to see our Vanderbilt doctors this week. We almost just went straight to the ER tonight after getting off the plane because Emmett was so anxious about the fluid on his lungs, but we just couldn’t make ourselves do it. So we’ll probably head into the ER early next week.

Pray for peace as we make decisions about treatment centers and wisdom to make good choices. but most of all pray for Emmett to find relief from some of the worst symptoms from this last round of chemotherapy. Pray for the neuropathy (numbness) in his feet to improve, for the mucus secretions to decrease, and the fluid to stop building in his lungs. Pray that we could get good nutrition in him.

Also pray for Quinn and I as Quinn makes the transition from being home with a sitter most days to a full time preschool. This change will mean getting him up a couple hours earlier than usual and out the door with me when I go to work in the mornings. It will be a rough couple weeks for both of us, but it is the perfect solution to our needs, provided at exactly the right time.

April is going to be a month of change in our house. Pray for deep, abiding rest, both physical and emotional, during the transitions. Pray for sweet time to enjoy spring together as a family. And pray for renewed spirits. Thank you for walking with us in prayer.