Keith Arthurs's personal blog

Sue has a Caring Bridge website to journal her journey with cancer. The website is at:www.caringbridge.org/visit/suearthurs

We're back from meeting with the surgeon. He said that from everything they could see, the tumor hasn't spread anywhere outside the bladder -- yay! It's only stage T2!

He gave Sue all the options as far as surgery goes, and recommended chemo before the surgery to get rid of any micrometastisis that there might be.

The urologist today also wants to do a second pathology on the biopsy at WCI.

It looks like we have a plan, and that Sue will likely start chemo soon, and it would probably last around 3 months, and the surgery would follow -- probably around July.

I decided to post an update here for anyone who is not on facebook and is not receiving updates.

Sue has been diagnosed with bladder cancer. She had a TURBT to remove the tumors and to biopsy them. The biopsy came back as high grade bladder cancer. The tumor is at least deeply invasive into the muscle of the bladder, and possibly beyond the wall of the bladder. Scan results, which we should get tomorrow, should tell us more what is going on in the pevis/abdomin region. From the previous CT-Scan, they didn't see any spread of the tumor to nearby organs or to lymph nodes, but the MRI should give a clearer picture. The chest CT was clean. This makes Sue at least a stage T2, and possibly T3 or T4 if they find anything in lymph nodes. So far, there is nothing to indicate that the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes.

Sue has a bone scan tomorrow (Wednesday, 03-18). She'll pick up the MRI report then.

We met with an oncologist today, Dr. Cheryl Aylesworth. She was very nice, personable and seems to be very knowledgeable about bladder cancer. She seemed to be leaning towards chemotherapy and radical cystectomy (removal of the bladder).

We meet with a urologist at the Washington Cancer Institute on Friday, Dr. Mohan Verghese. He should have all the scans, and should be able to give us his opinion on how to proceed.

I had my checkup today with Dr. Malkovska, and everything looks good! My bloodwork and lymph nodes are normal!

Last Thursday I had my appointment with Dr. Malkovska, and everything is well! Still no swollen lymph nodes, and my bloodwork all looks normal!

I had my family doctor's appointment today, and everything looks good there too. He said that from everything he can see, my health is in the top 5% of all americans. With the exception of the lymphoma of course

I've also started facebook-ing, so if you're on facebook, look me up and add me as a friend. If not, then sign up -- it's really a great way to stay in touch with people.

Today is the second anniversary of when I had my last round of chemo! Keep praying that I'll have many, many more anniversaries!

As far as appointments, I've got a Dr. Malkovska appointment on the 30th, and a Dr. Papoi appointment the first week of November.

Even though the kids didn't make the cut for the TV Program, they made it to the bonus scenes on the website! The clips will probably be there until next Sunday when the next program is aired. Ellie is the one knocking on the Gene's Johns door, Danielle is behind her, and Sarah in the middle of the line!

As hard as it seems to believe, it has been two years that I've been in remission! Time seems to have flown by, but consistently God has shown that He is sovereign, and He is good!

2 Chronicles 5:13
in unison when the trumpeters and the singers were to make themselves heard with one voice to praise and to glorify the LORD, and when they lifted up their voice (N)accompanied by trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and when they praised the LORD saying, "He indeed is good for His lovingkindness is everlasting," then the house, the house of the LORD, was filled with a cloud,

The episode where the kids filmed 2 scenes with Paul Dimeo was on tonight, but the scenes they filmed got cut. It's too bad, because I thought they were fun scenes. It seemed like all Pauls scenes with the kids were short, I guess they film a lot during the week, and end up cutting out a lot. I may post the video of the scenes that I shot, I'll have to convert them to a much smaller size, and splice them together since I shot a lot of short scenes and the original files are too large for the web.

It was fun watching the show having been there watching them build the home. It was also fun watching them film scenes around the county at places I've been (We shop at that Sears where they had the shopping spree!).

This summer I decided to grow my own broccoli, and I had also planted spinach and pumpkins. The broccoli has been coming up and I've been picking it for the past couple weeks. It is so cool being able to just go out to the yard, pick some broccoli, wash it and then eat it right away! That's as fresh as you can get!

The spinach never came up, but I am growing some pumpkins. We had one in a pumpkin pie, and there are 3 more growing -- 1 is being eaten by something, but the two others are inside the fence and are growing well -- one is about ready and the other is still green.

Those who knew me from 2 1/2 years ago know how far I've come -- I used to be a carnivore who ate no veggies, but now I eat mostly veggies, fruit, nuts, fish and grains with some occasional chicken or turkey. Broccoli has become my favorite food, mostly because it's one of the healthiest foods you can eat. Mmmmm... broccoli!

Coming up on September 29th will be my 'remission birthday' celebrating 2 years of complete remission. God has been very good to me in answering prayers in the way that He has!

While my MRI showed no cancer, or even any scar tissue from the surgery, it does show that I have a herniated disk. This showed up 2 years ago, but the main concern then was taking care of the cancer. This explains the back pain that I've had, so I've been going back to the chiropracter (Johnathan Davis) for treatment. So far, it's been working well and I've noticed I can do a lot more without pain than I have since the surgery.

I read an interesting article about follicular lymphoma today, which I thought I'd post as well since it gives a really good overview on the state of treatment and 'cure' for follicular lymphoma. Even though I've been 'cancer free' for 2 years now, I'm still not considered 'cured' yet. Here is the article

Philipians 4:4-9
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

The Washington Cancer Institute called to let me know that my scan was clean of cancer! They didn't say if they found anything else in the report, they just called to say that the scan was clean. I'll find out next week if there's anything in the report (ie; a herniated disk which was on my original scan).

I had my checkup appointment with Dr Malkovska last Thursday, and everything is good -- my nodes are still normal!

I started going to the chiropractor, Dr. Davis, a couple weeks ago. He thinks the back pain I've had is due to the herniated disk that showed up on the MRI 2 years ago when they found my tumor. My pain is in the lower back, and goes to the left along the pelvis, and the disk was herniated on that side and at that location. Since going back, my back has felt better leaving the appointments, but the pain still comes back -- although it is still only a slight pain, it doesn't prevent me from doing anything.

Dr. Malkovska was concerned about the pain, and felt that I should have an MRI just to make sure everything is still doing OK from having the surgery. She was concerned because they had to remove all my disks to get to the tumor. Also, this would completely rule out the lymphoma growing back. I'm pretty sure it's probably the herniated disk because of the location and side.

My MRI is on Thursday, and I'll update the blog when I hear any results.

Yesterday we all went to see the Extreme Makeover Home Edition team building a house. We expected to stay there 1/2 hour or so watching what they do, and hopefully getting to see one of the stars of the show.

After about 1/2 hour, one of the behind the scenes guys from the show came over and asked if our kids were all together -- they were looking for some kids to do some stuff with Paul DiMeo. So, our kids got to go behind the scenes and meet Paul, and shoot some scenes with him!!

The house is being built for someone with 14 kids (10 adopted from her sister when she died of cancer). They tore down a 1000 sq/ft home she bought and are replacing it with a 5000 sq/ft home.

So, they had grabbed 14 kids total to do the scenes. The first one, the kids are lined up shortest to tallest in front of a port-a-john, with Paul in the back waiting. He wanted to show what it would be like in a home with 14 kids. Danielle got to star in this sequence -- she was in the front of the line and got filmed knocking on the door to get in.

The second scene they filmed was story time, and the kids falling asleep. Paul told the kids a story... "Once upon a time there was a bus, filled with designers...". He told the story of the designers, and when he told about Ty, he used Eliana's hair against his chin to illustrate Ty's hair on his chin. Then the kids (and Paul) all fell asleep. Sarah's in both scenes too -- she's in the line for the bathroom, and on the blanket with the twins listening to the story and falling asleep.

All in all, it was pretty cool to go behind the scenes and for the kids to shoot some scenes, which hopefully, will make it onto the show. They supposedly were filming scenes every day with kids, so we don't know if this will make it onto the show or not.

The second scene was filmed by the artists tent, where the stars build the stuff for the show. Ed was there, although we didn't get to meet him. He was busy building something. Supposedly Ty was somewhere, although we didn't get to see him either.

Afterwards, the kids got to get Icees in the food tent, and they all got T-Shirts to keep. Very coooool!!!

Tuesday was my last day of Rituxan for this round of maintenance! Everything went well, and it'll probably be mid November that I'll have my last rounds of maintenance.

Yesterday, 6/5/08, marks 2 years since I had my back surgery and was diagnosed with Lymphoma. Time sure flies! I'm just glad the chemo and surgery recovery is over, and that life is back to a routine. I guess though, after having cancer, it never really gets totally back to the old humdrum routine, but every day becomes treasured as a gift from God. God is very good!