One Day at a Time

by Matt | Jul 17, 2009 | Friends and Family, Personal

It’s been an interesting week, that’s for sure. Let me fill you in on a little of the back story before I jump right into the present. A couple weeks ago, my father was feeling rather ill. He couldn’t keep food down and his stomach was hurting. He went to the doctors, had a couple scans and it seemed to indicate that he had a small intestinal blockage. Those of you who remember what my father-in-law went through might find this strangely ironic, or frighteningly similar, one of the two. Anyway, they did a colonoscopy to see what was blocking the intestines and said he had a small (non-cancer looking) pollop. They scheduled a fairly routine surgery, to be done laproscopically, for last Friday. As they started the surgery, the surgeon didn’t like what he was finding. Apparently, not shown on the initial scans, was a large mass hidden behind the pollop. They went ahead with a normal incision surgery, removed the pollop, the large mass, and the section of affected intestine. They closed everything up and sent the mass off to the lab to be analysed.

That’s how we got the bad news on Monday. The mass tested positive for cancer, which they’re classifying as Stage 3 because it had apparently spread to the surrounding lymphnodes (which were also removed and tested positive). Stage 3 means that it was one specific place (colon, liver, lungs, etc) but is now spreading.

The good news is that, while open for the surgery and having the foresight to check, the surgeon checked the other common locations for spots. According to him (and the scans) places like the liver, lungs, kidneys, etc, all seem to check out ok. They didn’t find any spots or questionable tissue.

So, what does this mean? Well, it means essentially that it had just started to spread and they caught it. More tests will be needed to confirm that, but that was the general thought of his doctors. Of course, we haven’t talked to the cancer specialists yet. That meeting is set for Monday. We’ll see what they have to say and what treatment they recommend going forward.

In case you’re wondering, I’m not actually in NH at the moment. I’m still here in Houston. All this was garnered by rounds and rounds of phone calls and probably ridiculous phone bills. I had fully planned to go up the instant I heard, but air travel is so retardedly expensive that a last minute plane ticket would have cost upwards of $900. I know that might not seem like a lot, but I have about $20 in the bank at the moment.

The plan, as I’ve discussed it with the family, is for my brother to be there this weekend and that we’ll trade off weekends in the future. I’ll probably plan on coming up either next weekend or, depending on what the doctors advise for a treatment, whenever the chemo starts, whichever comes first.

I wish terribly I could be up there with them. I still feel guilty for not being there at my grandfathers funeral about 5 years ago and I’m really torn up about this.

This is really the one time a family should really come together. I wish I could blame the airlines alone, but not having an emergency fund is my own fault. This is precisely the reason to have one, before anything else.

Personally, I was really pretty shaken this week. I was a wreck Monday and Tuesday. After lots of discussion, uplifting words from Lauren and from you guys, now I’m feeling better about it.

His chances are very good that this will be merely a bump in the road. He’s very healthy, in great shape and not showing any signs of infection anywhere else. With luck, the chemo shouldn’t be very long and he can get on with a normal life shortly.

It’s funny, I know things don’t always make sense when they first happen, but in the end, they start to come together. Things happen for a reason. We may not get that at the time, but they do. Usually they happen to make us strong people, I really believe that. After this entire year, I think as a husband and as a man, I’m a much stronger person than I was 12 months ago.

Thank you all for your support. As always, I’m astounded by the awesome friends I have. You guys are the best.

I’ll let you know when I head up to New England, maybe a couple of us could get together for a drink or two.

Matt out.

The Fun Never Stops

by Matt | Apr 17, 2009 | Friends and Family, Personal

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update. I’m sure most of you remember that my father-in-law was in the hospital last year with a very complicated bowel resection surgery. I haven’t really talked about it since, but it’s been ongoing since April of 2008. It’s now been an entire year and, provided his current surgery from last week was successful, he’ll need yet one more surgery in the near future to finally be done. His bowels have been operated on at least 8 times now, the actual number is hard to figure since there have been so many “minor” surgeries in between major ones.

Currently, he’s at home, trying to rest but going a little stir-crazy.

If that were the only thing going on we’d be lucky.

My mother-in-law, at some point around Christmas (no one is really sure), started acting strangely. In an ongoing debate as to what happened, multiple doctors have gone back and forth in between diagnoses of either a very large stroke or the onset of some form of dementia. Her reasoning and logic skills have taken a major step backwards while her motor skills, speech and daily functioning remain relatively untouched. She can do all the normal day to day things like get dressed, make food, watch TV, etc, but is unable to grasp higher concepts and trains of thought. She’s not disabled in any sort of way, she’s just dropped a few levels in maturity and reasoning. It’s like she’s a 12 year old trapped in a 50 year old’s body.

That’s creating quite a bit of stress for everyone, my wife especially. During the periods that my father-in-law is in the hospital, my mother-in-law is staying with us. At times it really is like taking care of a child. They don’t understand why things are a certain way. They get bits and pieces of conversations and become fixated by them. They can function, but with supervision. For example, everyone was doing their taxes the other day. She read a question from Turbo Tax that asked if she received a tax rebate last year. The fact that she didn’t and should have, in her mind, became the talking point for the next 5 days.

So, in between trips to the hospital, helping her at home, and trying to take care of ourselves, we’re also trying to help with the care for my wife’s grand-parents, both of whom are in a care facility the next town over. Things were going well with them, despite the early onset of Alsymers and the normal aging process (using a walker, being forgetful, etc). That was, until this week. The Grandmother, over Easter, seemed to be wheezing when she breathed so we decided we needed to take her to the doctor this week. Once they got to the appointment the doctor suggested we call an ambulance and take her to the ER because there was a possibility of congestive heart failure. So, rushing to the ER yesterday, and waiting until 2am to get a room at the hospital for observation, she’s now being monitored and tested. Early indications from blood work and CAT scans are positive but it’s still too early to rule anything out. We’ll find out more today.

So, three of my in-laws are suffering from some sort of medical ailments, all at the same time. We’re trying our best to help each of them out in their own right but it’s taking it’s toll, on Lauren especially.

I worry so much about her, especially about her getting run down and sick. She’s a giver, it’s one of her greatest strengths. She gives and gives and gives and tries to help everyone. It’s one of the things I love about her. Families are going to face some hard times every once in a while and it’s up to them to stick together and get through it. It’s what makes everyone stronger.

It just seems like it’s too much to handle sometimes. Her dad being sick was a large enough shock but now both her mom and her grandma are sick as well.

We’re trying our best. It’s all we can really do.

I love my wife so much, her family too, it’s hard to stay positive and keep their spirits up. I know we’ll get through all this, but I know it’s hard for them to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Anyway, I just wanted to give everyone an update. Take care,

Matt out.

We’re Alive

by Matt | Sep 18, 2008 | Friends and Family, Personal

Well, it was a hell of a storm, but we made it through. I’m borrowing an internet connection so I’ll make this quick.

Our apartment suffered only minor damage but lost power, phone, and cable Friday night. Phone came back up first on Monday. Power on Wednesday and we’re still waiting on cable. We spent 5 days, 4 nights without power. We had enough supplies to make it until Tuesday when we moved ourselves to Friendswood which had power.

Our house in Friendswood, somehow, survived. The street and most of that town looks like a war-zone. Trees are down everywhere. It looks like someone marched across the area in tanks and randomly shot up houses. Streets were flooded until Tuesday when the water went back down. The house itself was surrounded by trees and every single one of them fell down, thankfully into the street and not ONTO the house itself. We’re missing a shingle or two and there was a ton of debris, but it faired ok.

The in-laws house wasn’t so lucky. The large pine tree in the front yard fell onto the top of the house. It was removed and roofers are estimating the roof to be a total loss. The fence along the back and sides of the property is complete gone. Non-existant. The have power and phone, so utility wise it isn’t doing so bad.

The area itself, like I said, looks like a war zone. Trees, powerlines, signs, billboards, anything over 15ft tall is basically laying in the street. Just now, on Thursday, power crews have gotten power restored to enough gas stations and grocery stores that are able to fill the need so we’re seeing the lines for food, water and gas start to shorten.

Other areas of town are just as bad or worse. Parts north of us, who should have had a signifigantly weakened storm once it made landfall, are still without power or even water.

I could go on forever, but the situation simply isn’t good. There is, at this moment, about 60% of the area without power. The latest estimate is that 60% equates to about 1.3 million people. It’s gone down from the 2.x million on Sunday.

We’re extremely lucky. Houses not far from us are completely gone, Galveston is completely gone, whole sections of the state are without power.

Life is starting to return to normal, little bits at a time. There’s a TGI Fridays that opened nearby, which was taking cash and making hamburgers for people. You should have seen the line.

I’d love to say that we’re 100% ok, but the area won’t be back to completely normal for quite some time. Businesses were really hit hard and “non-essential” things won’t be open for some time to come.

This was a real tough one, but we survived. No one was hurt and that’s the important part. Houses and fences can be repaired, people can’t.

One last thing, it bothered a lot of people down here that once we got power back and were able to turn on the news, the lead story in the national news was this financial bullshit. Houston was the #2 story. At the risk of sounding like some “victim”, this is some serious shit going on down here. People are barely hanging on. And somehow we’re #2. Sorry, but I’ve got to call that out. I’d love to see some Wall St. types try and live through something like this.

Anyway, I just wanted to give everyone an update. We’re alive, we made it, and we’re fixing and getting back to normal. My office will be closed until Monday, so that’s when I’ll be back in the office with (possible) internet and I’ll give everyone another update then.

Matt out.