Dumo Cell Carcinoma

Dan's decided to switch to a plant based diet. Dan doesn't cook. So, I guess I'm switching to a plant based diet. First up today, was some Oat Crumble Bars from our new cookbook Oh She Glows with my sisters homemade Strawberry Jam. Next, again from the new cookbook, Thai Crunch Salad with a homemade almond butter dressing. Preeeetty good. Recipe suggestions are welcome.

Lots of positives lately, of which I'd like to focus on tonight. Dan has been home a week! And a day! It's Saturday!  And two days! It's Sunday! And Game of Thrones is tonight! And we get to watch it from the comfort of our living room, not from a hospital bed! YAY! His numbers are awesome - mostly. His iron is totally back to normal, which sort of blows me away. His body gets rid of this awful things and is just bouncing back like crazy. The day of hospital departure, he had his last dialysis treatment. It was stopped halfway through because he had to pee, and he had gone right before starting treatment too. The doctor shook his head at Dan and said to stop the treatment, he's good. No more dialysis! That right kidney, Leo the Lion, came roaring back and has been doing amazing. For the last few days in the hospital it picked up the slack and was giving out super impressive numbers. Remember how I said he gained over forty pounds of liquid from the operati...

In the past month, I've gotten a lot of compliments on the blog, on the humor and the writing, and on the positivity of it. What needs to be understood, is that this blog is pretty much like facebook - you see all the good bits.  The bits I want to share. You see the funny bits and get my writing on days I feel positive about this whole situation. On a lot of days, I struggle to be positive. Today was such a day. I'm not the cancer patient - I'm the spouse of one. I'm a wife and (mostly) homemaker, and a mother to two young girls. I work hard at making sure I keep "me" at the forefront as well, and that's pretty hard to do when you're a mom ... and so far, a little harder to do as a cancer spouse. Dan being home is amazing and wonderful, but it's also a big adjustment - for him and for me. We didn't have much time to adjust to the fact that he even has cancer. Within a month of the diagnosis he was admitted into the hospital. For most o...

Some updates! Some CAT scans were done to confirm bleeding in Dan's abdomen, just about where the kidney was removed. At first scan it was about 9cm big. For a few days it was a matter of playing the clot in his leg against the bleeding in his abdomen. Too much heparin made his hemoglobin levels drop, which meant the bleeding was getting worse. But dropping the heparin too quick made THOSE numbers bad. So the docs had to figure out the magic number. Eventually ... with back and forth changes in heparin, and even some time off of it, further scans were done to confirm that the mass of liquid in his right side was shrinking. So they did hit that magic combination. His hemoglobin levels began to stabilize and stay good. His other numbers were good, and left kidney function has been steadily improving for days. The swelling was receding rapidly, and now he is back down to the weight he entered the hospital at. Correction: as of this morning, he's actually lower. Seeing as he...