Wow, this summer sure has flown right by. Weird looking back at my last entry on this page. School was out then, it is now in. Summer was here then, but fall is making its push now, with the leaves already beginning to change colors and the ever decreasing amount of skeeters. I am still another year older, but have felt as though I might have aged 10 more years. I do have beer:-)

The 'C' word... What is it? Cancer. A couple days after I made my last entry, way back in June, we found out that Michelle would need to have surgery to remove a tumor in her thyroid. The surgery was scheduled for August 2nd, so we had entirely too much time to sit around and dwell on it, about 5 to 6 weeks. They told us that 95% of the time, these types of tumors are benign, so it really wasn't that big of a deal. True, it was a big deal for Michelle, as they had to make an incision across her neck, and it does come with a fair amount of risk. The laryngeal nerve runs right through the surgery site, not to mention the vocal cords. She handled the stress well and we just kept upbeat about the whole thing, after all, 95% of the time it's okay.

August 2nd comes around and we head to the hospital, surgery takes an hour and 45 minutes and she's in her room in 3 hours later. The surgery went very well, about 10 sutures cover the 4-5 inch incision. They attempted a preliminary pathology screening of the tumor in the operating room. The results were inconclusive and the sample needed to be sent to the lab. The doctor told us, before the surgery, if they could identify it as a malignant cancer, they would remove the entire thyroid gland. As it was, they removed only the left side of the gland. Still playing the odds that 95% of the time they are benign, they opted to leave the right side alone. If they had removed it, and it was benign, she would have been on lifetime thyroid replacement hormone medication. She stayed in the hospital for 24 hours, we were to have a follow up appointment with the doctor on Friday, August 6th, to remove the stitches and go over the pathology report.

August 6th comes around and we head to the hospital to meet with the surgeon, who is a REALLY nice man, and who I felt, gave Michelle some of the best care a doctor could give! It's unfortunate that he, the good doctor, had to give us some awfully bad news. Yup, the 'C' word. He told us that Michelle had thyroid cancer. Specifically, "follicular carcinoma, angioinvasive type". This is the second most common type of thyroid cancer. "Angioinvasive type" means that it has spread to her vascular system, really meaning, it could be anywhere in her body. The doctor explained to us that this was probably the second best type of cancer to have, if you were going to have cancer. Skin cancer being the best, if cancer can have a ranking of best... There is no chemotherapy; instead, radioactive iodine is used to kill off the remaining cells. These cancer cells are the only cells in the human body attracted to iodine. No hair loss, no sickness, so yeah, in that regard, it sounds pretty good. But I can tell you this; it didn't make it hurt any less. That was probably the single worst day of our lives, and the weeks that followed haven't been much better. I won't get into all the emotions and shit that ran over us, especially Michelle, but suffice it to say, if you've ever heard the word "cancer" directed at you or at a loved one, we know how you feel. So, before we leave, we've scheduled her second surgery to remove the right side of the thyroid gland for August 16th. Now we (mostly I) have to tell the family and friends. That was a major pain in the ass, having to keep reliving that doctor appointment, having to tell people over and over again. Hard enough dealing with an emotionally drained wife and kids, but having to deal with family and friends crying on the phone just sucked some major butt!!

August 16th comes around and we head to the hospital, it's like deja vu all over again... Much the same as the first surgery, just two weeks earlier, everything went well, surgically. No complications, no problems, no sutures. What?? No sutures?? Yeah, they used super glue on her incision this time around. They said it would heal up better and there is pretty much no reason to ever have to go into that incision again. Cool, super glue:-) This time, she had to stay in the hospital for 48 hours. They had to monitor her calcium levels more closely since she does not have a thyroid gland. The second surgery went better for Michelle, not sure why, but she felt much better the second time around. Now she has her discharge instructions and she has her follow-up appointments.

August 31st comes around and we head to the hospital to meet with the surgeon, hmmm, more of that deja vu crap:-) Michelle has been feeling pretty lethargic these days since the surgery, a side affect of not having a thyroid, I'll explain more about that later. Doctor said Michelle was healing up well and apart from a little bit of swelling, thought she was looking real good. They ran the right side of the thyroid gland through pathology and no additional cancer was found. We'll come back for a follow up in a couple months.

September 2nd comes around and we head to the hospital to meet with the doctor who will take care of Michelle from this point forward. He's a really nice doctor, a bit hard to understand, but when he talks slow, it's ok. He talked very slow:-) We learned more details concerning the protocol for the radio iodine ablation. First, they will give her a low dose of radioactive iodine and scan her entire body during an outpatient visit. This will allow them to see any potential hot-spots, in case it has spread. If the scan turns up hot-spots they we'll schedule an inpatient stay of 3-6 days where they will give her a higher dose of the radioactive iodine to "nuke the bastard cells":-) The duration of the inpatient stay depends upon how well Michelle can flush the radiation through urine/bowels. I'm sure she'd drink gallons of water each day to try to get out as fast as possible. In order to come in for the outpatient scan, her thyroid hormone levels need to be at a certain number. They have purposely kept her off of thyroid replacement hormone medications to get her to that point. The way it was explained to us was that, the brain sends signals looking for the hormone, this stimulates the cells, wherever they might be, then the radioactive iodine does its thing and takes them out. That's why she wasn't allowed to take the thyroid replacement hormone, if she had been taking it, the brain would not be sending out these signals for it and thus, not stimulating the cancer cells. While there, they took a chest x-ray and drew blood from Michelle. They called back the next day and said her thyroid hormone levels were at a point where they can do the scan. They also said her chest x-ray looked good. Having a clear chest x-ray is good, because the lungs, brain, and bones is where this type of cancer will usually spread into a secondary cancer. As of this writing, we don't know when her appointment will be for the outpatient scan. We'll find out after the Labor Day weekend.

1. Sammi had her Junior Prom.
2. Kids made it through another year of school.  Mike on to 8th grade and Sammi will be a Senior.
3. Work is work, going through some downsizing, some of it deserved, some, not so much.
4. The Great Northern Beer Festival is this Saturday in Eagle River, WI. Come look for the fat guy drinking loads of beer, that will be me.
5. Speaking of beer, homebrewing has been going great! BP South and I have been splitting batches and making some kick butt beers!  The best stuff is some barleywine batches we have brewed!  Insane alcohol in this stuff.  A sippin beer with tons of hops.
6. Getting ready to go on vacation at some point in the near future. First 'real' family vacation we have ever really had, not driving, flying. We've done weeks away, but none this big, will be fun. When we get back from that vacation I will be staying home for another week to recover.
   
7. Mike is in Senior Little League this year, first year...  He's getting some playing time, but not a ton.  He's doing well and enjoying it. He'll miss three games when we go on vacation, but he's free to stay home.  NOT!