Mike's Fight: Cycle 4 and more

Wow! The last few weeks have been very busy! Today we are at Dana Farber for Mike's treatment and I finally have some time to write a post. Two weeks ago Mike finished this 3rd cycle of Gemabraxane and is starting his 4th cycle today. Last week was his week off from treatment. He has treatment 3 weeks on then one week off. As long as all of his labs come back at appropriate levels, he is able to get treatment. So far with this new treatment we have only had to skip one treatment due to his platelets being too low. I always have a little bit of fear going into each treatment knowing that we could be sent home. We like it when things are on schedule and hate the unpleasant surprises. Cancer always keeps you in the unknown.

Luckily his levels were good and he is getting treatment now.

Two weeks ago on September 24th, I was getting off the elevator at Dana Farber and was in deep thought feeling overwhelmed. I was looking around at all the other patients, watching young children and toddlers being pushed by in strollers with bald heads and tubes coming from their noses. Mike and I always struggle when we see a young child that is sick. It's so heart wrenching and I was feeling pretty down. I was walking towards the pharmacy and I crossed paths with another couple. I was in such a trance that we did the awkward excuse me, go ahead no you can go dance. I then got in line for the pharmacy. A woman touched me on the shoulder and said, "excuse me, are you Stephanie?" I looked around for a familiar face. In my head I was searching for the answer of who this woman was but I didn't know. I told her yes I am Stephanie. She paused and said, "I read your blog!" With tears in her eyes she thanked me for writing and said that it has really helped her. She told me her husband was a pancreatic patient too. I thanked her and she walked away. After she left I lifted my shoulders and stood a little taller. I had tears in my eyes. I am happy to be able to make a difference. That was one of the reasons I started this blog. I have no idea how she found it but it made me feel good. After I picked up Mike's prescription I went back to his room and told him what happened. He teased me for the rest of the day and called me a "celebrity blogger". Thank you to the woman who recognized me. You made my day and gave me reassurance that what I am doing is making a difference. I'm sure we will see each other again some day around Dana.

September 26th we participated in the 2015 New England Pancreatic Cancer Research Walk through the Lustgarten foundation. Our team raised over $3,200 and the overall walk raised more than $150,000 to go towards Pancreatic Cancer research. It was a beautiful day out and we all dressed up in our purple gear! After the walk we all went out to lunch at Salvatore's. Mike was proud of himself because he had treatment two days before the walk and he was able to walk the full 3 miles. It was a lot of fun. The walk was along the beach. There was a lot of people there. It looked like a sea of purple coming down the street.

2015 New England Pancreatic Cancer Research Walk "Mike's Fight"

Let's DO This!

We GOT This!

Family

Me & Miss Ava

On October 3rd we held the 2nd Annual Michael Howell Softball Tournament. We started bright and early at 7 am we were down at the field setting up. It was raining out and the wind was whipping us around. As the day went on the rain let up and eventually stopped. We had 15 softball teams attend. They started playing at 8am and the championship game ended at 9pm. The winning team this year was KLN Fatman.

Champions!

A lot of people kept coming up to me and saying how good Mike looked. Almost as if he wasn't sick at all. He looked like his normal self. Every once in a while I would look over at him and have to catch my breath because I was in awe with how well he was doing. People don't realize that every morning we wake up we don't now what that day will bring. It's hard to plan anything beyond the hour because he doesn't know how he's going to feel. So when we have a day where he feels good the majority of the day it's a good day. Last year's tournament Mike had just started chemo and he was very sick. He wasn't able to make most of the event and was very upset about it. It was so nice to have him there not only enjoying it but also running the tournament.

Thank you to all the people who donated items, raffle items, their time, came down to support, bought raffle tickets or food, and those who volunteered their man power. Thanks to all that came out and braved the weather with us to make this event happen.

Thanks to our helpers...
Mark & Cindy Lanza
Judy Howell
Ken & Gail Howell
Melanie Adamo
Michelle Carmody
Sue Comeau
Kristin Perry
John Proia
Derek Gogas
Matt Daniels
Vince
and many more!

Tournament

Mike & His Dad

Mike, Me, & Melanie

We couldn't do it all without the help from everyone. Mike and I got home later that night and unpacked our cars. We sat in the kitchen talking about how the overall day went and how helpful everyone was. I started to cry. I get so overwhelmed with all the support we are always receiving. This illness has taken so much from us but it has also shown us how much people care about Mike, myself, and my family. Mike often says it has restored his faith in humanity. Sometimes we feel like we are constantly accepting and asking for help from others. It's not easy but we need the help right now. Our lives have been opened up for the world to look in on. Our journey is an open book for others to see and learn from.

Our Wedding

Sunday, October 4th was Mike and I's 1st Anniversary. My parents surprised us with a night stay in the hotel we got married at in the exact room we stayed in on our wedding night. Which was at the Union Bluff Meeting House in York, ME. Thank you mom and dad! On Sunday morning I surprised Mike with his anniversary gift which was zip-lining. We headed up to Kittery, ME to Zip-line at Take Flight. It was a zip line course that had 6 zip lines anywhere from 75-400 ft long. There were also obstacles such as climbing up a 50 ft telephone type pole to get to the top. There was a tight rope walk, hanging ladder and a very wobbly bridge that was put together with wood and ropes. I went first and he came after. Mike struggled on the first climb to the top. It was very strenuous. The instructors Maddie and Travis were great! We had let them know ahead of time that Mike was a cancer patient. Sometimes Mike likes people to know so he isn't so hard on himself when he struggles and others don't know why. He always has me tell the person because he doesn't like to. As Mike was climbing to the top I turned into a sap and tears started rolling down my face. I was just so proud of him. He's a one year pancreatic cancer survivor patient and here he was climbing 50 feet into the air. A year ago now I wasn't so sure that he would still be here with us. The statistics for his disease told us otherwise. To be able to spend our one year anniversary doing something we wanted and staying where we got married meant more to me then anyone would ever know.

Mike was able to do 5 out of the 6 zip lines. The last one had a difficult obstacle to get to. It was the bridge. You had to step on small wooden steps hung by ropes with spaces in between each step. Me, with my sprained ankle I was surprised that I even made it across. Mike tried but after two steps his legs gave out on him and he fell. The instructors tried to get him back up but he had decided that he had had enough and that was okay. He dangled 30 feet from the air and thought it was really funny. He said hanging by his harness was almost as fun as the zip-lining. They belayed him down to the ground and I finished the last zip-line on my own.

Me Zip-Lining

Mike Zip-Lining

Hanging out in the trees

After that we went to check into our hotel. The hotel gave us complementary breakfast and we also had received $100 towards food at their restaurant. We got ready and went out to dinner. We ordered a ton of food Mike even got a sandwich to go for back in the hotel. I had forgotten to take out our wedding cake so we ended up going to Clara's cupcakes to make up for it. After dinner we relaxed in our ginormous hotel room and snuggled up and watched tv. It was a nice relaxing night. We were so sore from standing at he tournament and all the climbing when we zip-lined. It was nice to have a night in. In the morning we went out to breakfast then I convinced Mike to do a little shopping before we headed home. By the time we got home we felt like we could sleep forever but our house was trashed from bringing in all the boxes from the tournament. We cleaned up a little ran some errands and then crashed!