Day 1

Wow!!! What a day!  First thing this morning the nurse came in to tell us that she had orders to get him started today.  That meant that we must have had good news with the bone marrow biopsy.  We just didn't know the details yet but knew we were getting started today, YEA!!! The sooner we get started, the sooner we get to go home.  She just started hooking him back up to all his wires and machines.  The doctor came in and said that it will be about a week before we have the final report from the biopsy but we know there is no other cancer and that was enough information for them to get going.  They did find that Steve has a disease called ITP.  It's an auto immune disease where his body kills off his own platelets.  He's probably had this for a long time but we just found it because they were digging. It's not serious but it will be a bit of a stumbling block going through this treatment.  With bio chemo, it really lowers your platelets so they will have to watch him closely and the doctor said he may have additional hospitalizations during this to do transfusions and things to help his platelet levels.  We were just so grateful there wasn't any other cancer found in his bones.  They got started around 11:30 and about exactly 4 hours later Steve was hit with a vengeance. Everything they warned us that might happened did happen.  We have had wonderful nurses that are so smart and caring.  We feel so cared for and are so grateful to be where we are.  They have the best of the best working here.  They were very good and quick to treat all his symptoms that came on so quickly.  Even though they gave us heads with what to expect, it still wasn't easy watching him suffer.  Steve is a rock star.  He is one tough guy!  He is very humbled and is always telling the nurses and everyone thank you for all they are doing to help him.  This experience will be something that changes a person for ever.  It is something we will look back on and be grateful for the growth.  Going through something like this brings out the good in so many people.  We have seen the best sides of so many people.  Both Steve and I are extremely grateful for the support we feel.  We have been blessed with such a great family, friends, neighbors, and staff that have all stepped up and taken many of the burdens off our shoulders. It's hard to express in words how grateful we are.  We both just hope that some day we can pay it forward and do the same to lift another in their time of need.  Steve is resting quietly now tonight.  One day down, 4 to go.    

Bio Chemo week one

Yesterday was our first day we checked into the Huntsman to get started on Steve's Bio chemo.  It was an exhausting day!!!  The night before neither of us got much sleep anticipating what we were going to be facing the next day.  We met with doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, physical therapist, nutritionists, and many more people.  Steve got his PIC line placed which turned out to be a bit more difficult than they had planned.  Because he was so nervous, his veins shrunk right up and mad it difficult for them to do.   It took two tries but they finally got it in.  He got all the pre meds and blood draws done.  We had to wait  for all the test to come back before they could get started.  It was taking longer than we had hoped.  They finally came in and told us that they weren't going to be able to start him today because his platelet count was to low.  His last labs that were done he had perfect counts but for some reason they had dropped and they had to investigate further to find the cause.
This morning Steve had to have a bone biopsy.  That wasn't a fun test for him.  They had to go into his pelvis and take a 3 inch piece of his bone out.  They sent it out for a biopsy, so now we wait.  They have put a rush on it so we are hoping to hear by tomorrow morning.  If everything comes back okay then we will start in the morning with his bio chemo.  Now if we start tomorrow we wont be home till Sunday.  Steve is not the best patient, but he is learning patience. There is a lot we are learning right now, the both of us.

There's no place like home!

Since we last met with the radiation oncologist so much has happened.  I'm not very good at keeping up to date with these posts but I feel like I really need to do better since we have such a support system and many of them are quite far away.  So I will do my best.  A couple weeks ago we headed back down to the Huntsman to meet with our medical oncologist.  Dr. Grossmann is a very respected and well know oncologist.  We really liked him and feel like we are in good hands with him.  We really didn't like all he had to say though.  He gave us a lot of information and statistics which didn't look very good for us.  Having stage III is good and bad. Good because it hasn't spread to other major organs in your body yet, bad because they have spent all their resources and time researching stage IV and that is where most of the advancements have been made.  We don't have a lot of good options for treatments.  He told us we had basically three options.  First, do nothing wait and watch.  That makes me have major anxiety.  I for one can't sit back and just wait for his cancer to move from stage III to stage IV with out at least trying to stop it.  Dr. Grossmann also thought that this option wasn't what he would recommend either where Steve is young and healthy and has a young family at home to take care of.  Second, is a treatment called Interferon.  We have heard nothing but horror stories about this one since being diagnosed.  It has been the treatment for the last 20 years and hasn't had good results.  It goes on for 12 months and you are super sick.  You lose your hair and lots more ugly side effects.  Third, is Biochemo therapy.  This is what Dr. Grossmann described as nailing a nail in with a sledge hammer.  It's  a 3 month treatment with Steve having to stay in the hospital for a week then home for two weeks then back in the hospital again. Doing this for 3 rounds. On week 2 he will also receive interferon as part of this therapy.  He will most likely lose his hair and be really sick for the full 3 months.  Both the interferon and the Biochemo therapy only improve your survival rates buy 5-10 % at a 5 year mark.  For all that heart ache and pain it almost doesn't seem worth it unless of course you are the 5-10%.  The difference with interferon and biochemo is that the studies show that by doing interferon, it pushes the rate of a recurrence out a year longer and biochemo will push a recurrence out for an additional 2 years.  The hope we have as well as the doctors is that if we can postpone a recurrence long enough then maybe in the next few years we may have some better options for treating Stage III.  Sounds really frustrating to me and that frustration came out a little while talking to the doctor.  I asked him, "Is this the best you have to offer?" It just seems that with all the research and developments being made there could be something that would improve our odds better than that.  But after thinking and praying we are going to move forward with the biochemo option.  We figured he would be really sick for 3 months or a year.  3 months seemed better than a year.  Hopefully, we can just hunker down and make it through 3 months then get our lives back a little.  Steve's main concern, besides thinking of the poison they will be putting in his body, is trying to figure out how his office will survive with him gone that long.  We are hoping that he will be able to work for part of that time but I really think it will be time to put our trust in the Lord and trust He will provide a way for it all to work out.  Our Start date is May 11th.  Steve wanted to take a quick trip back to Kansas to see his family before he started this next part of his journey.  Last weekend Steve and I flew out to Kansas.  We got to see his sister and brother-in-law, who we never get to see, and many of his aunts and uncles.  He has such a cool family that are really close.  I would say his extended family is close like my immediate family is.  It was really good to spend some time with them before we started our 13 hour drive home.  I really enjoyed that weekend and the time I got to spend with my husband just one on one.  We don't get a lot of that with 4 very active kids.  But it seemed that as soon as we got home it was back to reality.  Today we had to go get CT Scans of his neck, chest, abdomen, and pelvis.  They want to make sure the cancer hasn't spread before they start the biochemo. On Friday he has to get a heart test done then next week will be his lung test.  All these have to be done before we can get started on May 11th.  It seems to give me great anxiety when it comes time for these scans.  I just hold my breath and can't seem to breath until we hear that all is clear.  Hoping to get that news sometime today or tonight.  I can't even begin to express my gratitude to so many people in our lives that Heavenly Father has put there to help us through this trial.  I know many people are much worse than we are but going through this seems pretty tough for us.  It seems that with the support of our families and some very dear friends, that it makes life much more beautiful.  We see the Lords hand in our lives and are so very grateful for the many blessings he continues to bless our family with.  He answers our prayers always.  Just not always the way we want them answered.  But he knows best what we need to grow and become more like Him.  It's just our job to allow Him to work his miracles in our lives as hard as it is at times.  We then will look back and see all we have become because of the trials we go through. 

Go Steve

About a week ago today we met with the Radiation Oncologist.  A doctor comes up to Logan once a week from McKay Dee Hospital to over see the radiation treatments done up here at the Cancer Center in Logan.  When we met with her, we left more confused than when we went.  She told us that Steve has a 50/50 chance of having a tumor return to the same location as the first one because the cancer was found on the outside of the lymph node.  That is why they at the Huntsman were recommending  radiation treatments for him.  But her opinion was that because of his favorable pathology report that came back after the last surgery and because of his profession as a chiropractor and the need he has for the use of his right arm, she felt that the risk of server lymphadema was to great.  She felt it is more important for him to get started on a systemic treatment like Chemo rather than do radiation. They can't do both at the same time because they are counter productive.  The other issue we have is that Steve still has 2 drains in his chest draining fluid from his last surgery.  It's now been 4 weeks since his surgery and there is a window of 6 weeks after surgery that they have to start radiation treatments.  What to do?  That is the big question.  The doctors at the Huntsman have all recommended radiation treatments as his next step but after talking to the radiation oncologist, we just weren't sure if that was the right choice for us??  We have another appointment next week with the medical oncologist at the Huntsman.  They told us that he will be our quarterback in this process.  So we are just going to wait and see what his opinion is on this whole mess.  Steve is now back to work full time and treating all his patients.  That feels good to be back to doing what he use to.  He's still not 100% yet but he's getting there.  We continue to feel an out pouring of support from our family and many neighbors and friends.  That makes this much more bearable to go through.  One of the things that my family did was to make a special quilt for Steve.  They all got together and spent many hours making this especially for Steve.  It meant so much to him and to me to see how much they all love him.  It was truly a labor of love.  It's hard not to tear up when we look at this special quilt knowing how many people worked on it for him and how many hours it must have taken.  It will be used and enjoyed through this entire journey. Once again, THANK YOU!

Emotional Wreck

It's been a week now since Steve went in for his second surgery.  Last Tuesday we headed down to the Huntsman Center once again.  This time they did a complete lymph node dissection of his right axillary region.  That means they went in under his right arm and took out all the lymph nodes and tissue surrounding them.  It is a pretty big surgery that required them to leave 2 drains in him to drain lymphatic fluid until his body figures out how to reroute that whole lymph system.  Pretty remarkable how the body can figure out how to heal and fix its self after something this altering. He was left with a big crater under his arm.  He was really sore from the nerves they aggravated and  the drains they left coming out his chest that are sutured to his skin.  We have to drain the two bags that contain the drainage about 3 times a day for now.  They said that will taper off when the lymph system starts to reroute.  The doctors said that he would have the drains in for about 3-4 weeks.  Not exactly what Steve wanted to hear.  I think Steve expected that he would bounce back as quick as he did after the first surgery but that hasn't been the case this time.  He was knocked down a bit harder this time.  Although, we feel very blessed with the way things are playing out.  The night before his surgery was a really bad day for Steve.  We had about a 2 week wait from the time we first met with the doctors till the second surgery.  For that 2 weeks we went back to our busy crazy lives as we knew it.  We both kind of pushed the next step of this journey to the back of our minds for the time being.  Then the night before his surgery, it seemed to all come crashing in.  Lets just say, it was a bad day!  Knowing this would be a bigger surgery than the last, I really felt like Steve needed another priesthood blessing.  When I suggested it to Steve that night, his first reaction was NO!  That is just not where his mind was at the time.  For me, I really had concern and reason to worry for this surgery had more risk of damage to his right arm.  If anything went wrong with his right arm, his career could be over.  I personally wanted some reassurance from our Heavenly Father that the doctors would be under his watchful care.  Once again, I won.  I asked who he wanted to come over and give him his blessing and he thoughtfully named 2 great men that were our neighbors and friends.  That night was an incredible and spiritual experience that neither one of us will ever forget.  Not only did Heavenly Father assure me that the doctors would be attended to, but he promised some other very personal and miraculous things to happen for Steve.  Both Steve and I felt very at ease and comforted by the power we both felt that night.  The next day was his surgery and just as we had been promised in the blessing, everything went very good.  His surgery was about two and a half hours long and recovery was another 2 hours.  We spent most of the day at the hospital.  I walked around a bit and went outside and enjoyed the beautiful weather that day.  I talked to some other people waiting for their loved ones that were also in having surgery.  It's like we have joined a club and in this club, you have an instant bond and support from these people in your same situation.  Everyone has their own story but we all have a common desire to fight this awful beast.  When Steve came out of his surgery, he was aware he would be a bit loopy.  He was trying to be "normal" this time around.  After his first surgery, he was pretty funny and really friendly to everyone, even the cows.  The nurses could even tell he was trying really hard to be normal.  When it was time to go, they all left the room so I could help him get dressed.  He hadn't moved his arm yet and I don't think he expected it to be as sore as it was.  Getting dressed turned out to be harder than he expected.  I had to help him do everything and he didn't like that.  When it came to putting his arm in his sleeve, he had a breakdown.  He had to move it a little to get it in and in so doing, it caused him a great deal of pain.  Since I was the one helping him, I got the blame for this.  He sat on the edge of his bed and started to sob.  Oh, I felt bad.  I had really tried to be careful in helping him but it still really hurt.  This was just the beginning.  He pulled it together long enough to get out of the hospital but as soon as we got out the front doors as we were walking to our car, he started to cry again.  He started to tell me how mean I was being to him because I was making him walk in the middle of the road.  He could be hit by that "parked bus over there!"  It was then it clicked to me that may be he wasn't quite in his right mind again.  He was probably still under the effects of the anesthesia.  So I just went along with him and thought the sooner I get him home and in bed the better.  He just needs to sleep this off.  We still had a hour and half ride home that seemed like forever.  He saw a life flight helicopter on the roof of the hospital as we drove past and he wanted me to stop and let him ride that home.  He said he would get home a lot faster if he could just ride that helicopter.  When I wouldn't stop, I was again in the dog house.  He started to cry again.  He could tell he was being emotional, but he just couldn't help it.  He wanted to listen to some music.  I said, "do you want me to turn on the radio?"  He got mad at me for that and said, "NO! you would probably make me listen to some stupid music, I don't want to listen to stupid music."  This is when I decided I better get out my video camera and document some of this funny behavior.  I knew after he came back from this he would get  a good laugh too.  The entire ride home proved to be pure entertainment for me.  Good thing I didn't take any of it personal because he was really mad at me for everything I did.  One thing he wanted me to do is stop and let him look at a herd of elk that he saw off I15.  I told him we needed to keep going so we could get him to bed.  He was not happy about that.  When we got him home the 2 oldest boys were home and got to see some of his crazy behavior before we got him something to eat.  After he ate, it was like a switch came on and he was back.  Needless to say, we had a good laugh the next day when we watched the videos I took.  Steve stayed home and rested and recouped the rest of last week then went back to work this Monday.  He is still really sore and unable to do to much in way of adjusting patients.  He can do neck adjustments because that doesn't take much muscle.  His good friend is coming up tomorrow to help take care of his patients that he is unable to muscle.  It will probably be a good 3-4 weeks before he's back to normal and able to adjust all his patients on his own.  We have another appointment tomorrow morning down at the Huntsman.  We will discuss the results of the pathology report and maybe some of our options.  3 days after his surgery we got a call from our doctors office.  They called to tell us that they had gotten the pathology report and it stated that they had removed a total of 50 lumpy nodes.  All 50 had come back clean from melanoma cells!  Yea!!  Steve says that he feels like he has won the national championship of life.  The Nurse practitioner that had called to tell Steve the news told him that he has a "peculiar" case.  We know it is peculiar because we are witnessing miracles right before our eyes.  These little bits of good news here and there are nothing short of miracles in our lives and answers to prayers.  We are so grateful for the collective prayers from so many people.  It is the first time we have been on this side of so many prayers in our behalf.  Let me tell you, it's powerful.  

March Maddness

Since we met with the Doctors down at the Huntsman, we have had some time to digest and process all the information we were given in that first week.  We had read  a lot of information on line that said he may be stage IV melanoma.  After talking to the Doctors at the Huntsman, they staged it stage III since the cancer hasn't spread to any other organs.  After thinking he might be in stage IV, stage III sounded a whole lot better.  The doctor was out of town this week so he scheduled Steve's second surgery for the soonest time, which was Friday March 13th.  That gave us 2 weeks to get back to our busy crazy life and try to find a new normal.  Jacob and Riley are both playing in the State basketball tournament this month that goes for 3 weeks.  With all this going on with Steve and trying to keep the kids going as normal as possible, this is truly March Madness at the Garvert home.  The hospital called this week and said that they had rearranged things to fit Steve in sooner.  Now his surgery is scheduled for the 10th, a few days earlier.   We have been so overwhelmed by how many people in our lives truly care about our little family.  We never thought that no one cared but we had no idea the so many people would step up and sincerely want to help us where they can.  It is very humbling to hear people call or text and tell you that their family is praying and fasting for you and your family.  We have truly felt the power of those prayer.  When Steve went back to work the day after his first surgery I wondered if he would be physically able to do anything.  Being a Chiropractor requires a lot of physical strength at times and having his right arm effected by surgery I had my doubts that he would be able to do anything.  When he came home and told me that he was able to adjust all his patients and that he felt okay, we both knew we were witnessing prayers being answered.  That is a powerful thing to be a part of.  Looking back on the past couple of years we have been able to see some amazing things that have taken place that has put us in a good situation to go through this trial.  It's as if the Lord knew this was coming our way so He helped us get things in order so we would be better set up to go through something like this.  One thing that happened was we changed our office from just having Steve in there treating Chiropractic patients to a multidisciplinary clinic.  We now have Steve, a nurse Practitioner to treat medical patients and a Physical Therapist and Massage therapists.  Together they are able to treat a whole new group of people.  Not only has it made it possible for Steve to be gone, it's made it possible for us to have a passive income if he is gone.   We still don't know what this next year is going to look like but I really feel that Heavenly Father will take care of us.  He always has and I know He won't leave us now.  Another example of Heavenly Father taking good care of us is that 3 of my sisters have moved into my back yard.  Not exactly, but all three of them are with in walking distance from our home.  That will be a great blessing to have wonderful sisters so close.  The Lord loves us and we know that.  He is aware of what we are going through and He will be there to help us through it.

Ironclad Immune System

After going through that day of testing, Steve headed back to work which felt like a relief compared to the testing he had just gone through.  It wasn't physically hard but the emotional stress was starting to weigh us both down.  The next 24 hours were excruciatingly stressful.  If the cancer had spread to any other organs or his brain, we were looking at Melanoma stage IV.  Everything we had read on that only added to our heart ache.  While waiting for test results to come back, I was still being the squeaky wheel, trying to get him an appointment at the Huntsman Cancer Institute.  I knew that is where we needed to be, but getting in was proving to be a challenge.  I have a friend who has a 12 year old daughter with melanoma.  She was the one I called first when I read the pathology report and it said Melanoma.  She took my hand and guided me to the right doctors to call.  When I told her I was having a hard time getting an appointment she suggested I call a dermatologist and see if they would refer us.  Maybe they had a special number to call or a magic touch?  Once again, she directed me to where we needed to be.  Through other friends and connections, we were able to get him in the next day.  We already had an appointment for a follow up with the surgeon that day so we made the appointment just an hour before.  Luckily, they were in the same hospital, so it made it very convenient.   That morning, we were very anxious for the results of the scans we had done the day before.  We called our doctor that morning to see if they had been sent to her yet.  She hadn't seen them yet but said they would be watching for them and they would call us the minute she received them.  When we went in for the scan at the hospital, they had just recently switched over to a new system and no one seemed to know how to work anything.  I knew they probably had the results in but didn't know how to post them so the doctors could have access to them.  I called into the hospital and I was right.  They did have the results but didn't know how to post them.  They said they could fax them to our doctor if I could give them our doctors fax number.  I had a phone number but not a fax for our doctor but I had my fax number.  That is what I gave her.  She faxed our results to our office and we got them before anyone else.  Steve and I raced down to the office and read the last page of the reports where is says conclusion.  Both scans said "There is normal activity in all regions."  I Cant even begin to express the feelings of relief we felt with this new news.  We now felt like we were given a chance to fight this cancer.  If it ended up in other organs, it sounded to us like a death sentence.  Now we had hope!  We headed off to see the dermatologist and surgeon.  I was driving so Steve could read a little closer what the reports had to say.  I knew the dermatologist had squeezed us in to his schedule so I didn't want to be late.  I wasn't thinking and I made a wrong turn. I ended up way past the hospital where we needed to be.  I was racing down the street trying to get back on the right path when I was caught speeding.  Yep, I got a ticket!  I was so relieved with the news that my husband might live through this that I didn't even care.  It's funny how your perspective changes when something like this effects your life.  We made it to our appointment no problem.  The cop was really fast to give me my ticket and send us on our way.  The dermatologist was the first doctor, up to this point, who sat down with us and talk to us about our new diagnosis.  He did and exam on Steve to try and find a primary source of the melanoma but couldn't find it.  He told us what to expect next and explained more about this awful cancer.  Even though it isn't a good diagnosis, we felt somewhat better having someone walking us through it now.  He said he would call down to the Huntsman Cancer Institute himself and talk to the melanoma doctor personally.  WOW!  now we're talking.  This is when we got somewhere.  They said they would call us that day and get an appointment. They did!  We got in to the Huntsman Center the very next day.  What a blessing!
Walking into the Huntsman Cancer Center is a surreal experience, hard to explain.  It is beautiful, big, and very scary but comforting all at once.  They had fit us in at the end of the day so most everyone was gone for the day.  We first met with the surgical intern who got his history and did a full body exam to try again to find a primary source of the melanoma.  Still no luck.  Next we were introduced to Dr. Andtbacka a melanoma surgeon.  He also came in and did a head to toe check to find a primary source.  Let's just say, they are very thorough!   Still no luck.  He told us that they see about 800 melanoma patients a year and about 10 of those are ones like Steve with no primary location found.  To me that sounded bad like if we didn't find where the melanoma was coming from it would keep spreading.  According to the doctor, he said statistically speaking, the melanoma patients that have no known origin do better.  The reason he said was that he probably did have an primary location, but his body recognized it as bad and fought it and destroyed the primary location.  That makes sense seeing that Steve has an amazingly strong immune system.  The other theory they had was that about 20 plus years ago, Steve had a spot removed from his back.  It was suspicious at the time so they removed it but never heard anything else about it.  That was so long ago, it was forgotten.  The doctor thinks that maybe that spot was melanoma but was never properly diagnosed.  If they removed the mole but didn't get deep enough the melanoma cells would have been left behind.  If that is the case, it's been 20 plus years that his body has been fighting this and been successful.  Both scenarios mean his body is super strong with an ironclad immune system and will be a benefit to him in this future fight.  The next step will be another surgery called a complete axillary lymph node dissection.  This is where they will go back in under his right arm and take out all the lymph nodes in that area.  They will send that to pathology and see what they find.  After that, they will have more information to determine the next course of treatment. For now we wait.  So much has happened in the last week that we are okay to take a break for a couple weeks and get things in order at home and work.  This time we will have time to prepare a little for what is to come.