A cause for celebration!

Burt celebrated his 62nd birthday Saturday! We all went down to the SkipJack Cove for dinner. We were supposed to eat outside on the porch but of course, the weather would not cooperate, gave us a little rain showers. The old man looks good, huh? He's now officially a Senior Citizen! We forgot to ask for a 10% (senior citizen) discount on the meal.....

The kids all went together and got their father a CD collection of Oldies but Goodies, so when we got back to the house it was dance time!

A great day for everyone, wish those days happened more often, but when they do happen, we cherish them!

On a more serious note, tomorrow (Wednesday) Burt get's the last bag of chemo for the infusion pump! He has to wear it until next Wednesday and then no more pump! Radiation will end October 8th so we will have a real cause for celebration next week! He has two weeks off and then starts another round of chemotherapy, one hour once a week for three weeks and off a week. We repeat that one more time and hopefully....hopefully we will be finished with all this!!

An unwanted change....

Well, I guess it was bound to happen sooner rather than later. Taking the radiation and chemo, Burt's sugar is now sorta out of control again. Dr. S today told him he needs to take shots of insulin to keep his sugar under control. So depressing. We have all the stuff.... pen, needles, vials of insulin, but haven't used it yet. I wish he had to do the first one at the doctor's office. They just told him how to do it and how much to use and sent him home. I am not much help, don't like needles any more than he does but I guess I'm going to have to learn how to give the shots in case he can't do it himself at some time....

He's supposed to give himself the shots in the stomach, but there's not much fat there so he may have to use the thigh. Can't use the arm because of too many veins. The needles are not long, maybe 1/2 an inch.

Tomorrow is day 14 of the radiation so he's half way through. Only 14 more days to go if everything goes ok. Once he's done radiation, he'll have two weeks off, no bag, no pump, no chemo, no nothing. I really think he's looking forward to that!

First week is almost over

Burt is tolerating the radiation and chemo well. Since the insurance company didn't approve the pill form of chemo he's using an infusion pack for 6 weeks. It's a little pump he carries around in a fanny pack that feeds a continuous stream of the chemo drug to his chest port (like a mini IV). It's a hassle to have it on all the time, I was not sure how we were going to get him comfortable for bed last night. At the last moment, I brought a chair upstairs and we hung the pack on the back of the chair so he would not have to have it on the bed all night. The tubing is quite long and I did not want to get tangled up in that during the night! Or pull it out accidently!

The doctor's office decided that he will wear this 24/7 for the whole 6 weeks, no weekends off. The radiation he has during the week, none on the weekends.

So he's got 4 days of radiation under his belt, only 24 more to go!