Chemo Fingers!

I was watching an episode of CSI, and one of the victims in the show was shown to have transverse white lines across his fingernails. The show went on to say that it was a side effect of heavy metal poisoning, and the lines on the fingernails represented separate significant events of poisoning of the victim.

I happened to look down at my own fingernails and, wouldn't you know it, I have transverse white lines on all 10 fingernails (didn't check toes). One of my fingers is shown on the right. We had trouble finding a camera that could take good close up photos, and the lines are actually more pronounced in real life than shown here.

As it turns out, CSI was correct about the causes of the white lines. They are results of heavy metal poisoning (which I don't have), and also caused by fever, liver or heart disease, iron deficiencies, and a number of similar conditions. As it turns out, the chemotherapy treatment I received caused me to become anemic during treatment.

They tested me before entering into each phase of chemotherapy, and going into the final round the doctor said my counts (anemia) were low enough that I might have to get daily injections to combat it so treatment could continue. Of course, I talked him out of such a course.

Notice there are three lines on the fingernail above, one for each cycle of chemotherapy. If I can find time, Capt's McCall and Rutledge and I will perform an image analysis of the fingernails and attempt to determine the exact times these events occurred, although I doubt if any of us would be surprised of the results :)

Edit - Thanks to Jeff I know I was heavy metal poisoned!!

American Idol

Thought I would write a short post about things I do when not posting about cancer or infertility! As everyone knows American Idol ended this week. I am a huge Jason Castro fan, the boy just melted my heart whenever he was on. So, I thought I would just post a couple of my favorite songs from the season.

Carly & Michael - The Letter
Brooke - Let it Be - The Beatles
Syesha - If I ain't got you - Alicia Keys
David A - Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me - Elton John
David Cook - Hello - Lionel Richie
David Cook - Billie Jean - Michael Jackson (Studio Version)

Jason Castro:
Daydream- Lovin' Spoonful
Somewhere over the Rainbow - IZ
Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen
Mr. Tambourine Man (Studio Version)- Bob Dylan

IVF prep month

I met with my fertility doctor today for my post-op check up. With the surgery done with we can now start the next chapter in our quest for a baby, In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). This cycle will be more of a starting point than anything else, full of tests. There will be basically 2 events occurring this cycle.

First one is to get some baseline blood work done. The last time I had the full fertility blood work done it was April 2006. So almost exactly 2 years ago back in Florida. This is pretty simple stuff, on cycle day 3 I get a handful of blood tests (Follicle stimulating hormone (FSH),Estradiol,Prolactin, Thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH)). Then on days 5-9 I take 100mg of Clomid. Another set of blood tests are drawn on CD10 to re-evaluate and compare the results to determine ovarian reserve. Now nothing too exciting here, my only concern was 2 years ago when I did the Clomid challenge a couple weeks later I was admitted to the hospital for 6 days in a horrible flare up of my Ulcerative Colitis(UC). Maybe it was related, maybe not. The fact that I stopped taking my UC meds when I began my workup was probably the main reason...

Second thing to do is meet with the doctor that will do the egg retrieval and embryo transfer (Dr. Bidwell). He is the partner of my current doctor (Dr. Groll) So Dr. Groll will handle everything that can be done on base (lab work, ultrasounds, medicines), aka things insurance will cover. Dr. Bidwell will do things that isn't covered by Air Force insurance. I will meet with him June 10th. I will also have to go to a nursing meeting, where they go over the medicines, how to give shots, etc. Dan is really against having to give me a shot, so I will probably end up doing it myself.

Hopefully everything goes well and we can start the actual process in late June or early July. Once we get through these first hurdles I will go into more depth about what my IVF treatment plan looks like.

Race for the Cure

This past weekend Dan, Ophelia, Bosley and I all went to Columbus to Race for the Cure! There were over 40,000 people running or walking the 5K. It was a nice race, and the longest thing Dan has done since finishing Chemo. We took it easy and walked for a minute or two every mile marker and finished in 36 minutes. It was great seeing my sister's family also, Cole is getting so big! He loves to throw things off the table and then say "uh-o"

Korea Adoption on Hold

Well as positive as Dan's medical future is the folks at the adoption agency have to be more careful. They reviewed the letter but unfortunately they cant let us start the process for at least 3-5 years!

The letter you submitted from Dan’s doctor was very helpful. I have consulted with our Ohio Program Administrator, Karen Ristow, as well as the Director of our agency, Lorene Cook. While we are very happy that Dan appears to be doing well, we are unable to proceed with your application at this time. Korea Social Service has a policy about delaying an adoption application for 3-5 years following treatment for a serious illness. I know this must be disappointing for you, but I’m sure that you understand that we must first consider the best interest of the children who we place for adoption. We would not want to have you proceed with a homestudy, only to find out later that you were not able to be approved in Korea . If Dan continues to remain healthy and he progresses as expected for the next few years, please feel free to contact us again to further discuss your plans to adopt.

So for now Korea adoption is off the table (could try another country or domestic, but they all might want to wait). This whole having a baby thing just gets more frustrating every turn it seems. First we cant get pregnant for 2 years, then we finally do and I miscarry, then we decided to start looking into adoption, then Dan gets cancer, then I need surgery for ovarian cysts, then adoption isn't an option for a couple years. And now we move on to in vitro. For those of you who watch Lost on TV, all I have running through my head is "your not meant to raise him" It seems that the island has a plan and no matter what you do it will turn out as intended. So I am not sure what the plan is (not something a goal setter and obsessive planner likes to admit) for my family. Maybe the in vitro will work, I think we have a decent percent chance at it. I preferred the 100% chance with adoption. That was just a waiting game but once you were in you were in. This in vitro experiment seems much more of a roller coaster ride with the added bonus of daily hormone shots to make the ride more fun!

OK, enough rambling from me. Hope everything is going well with everyone. My friend Wade was in a bad car accident a couple days ago, you can read all about it on his blog (link to the side). I am so glad that he is doing better and his upcoming move to Costa Rica sounds absolutely amazing. I wish him the best of luck!

Captain Karrels

Today was a nice day in Dan's career, he was promoted to a Captain with the Air Force! He had a small ceremony today on base with some of the important people in his career. In the picture above is Lt Col Dave Ryer, he gave a nice speech about Dan and gave him the oath. Also present but not in any pictures was Lt Col Matt Sambora, Major Tom Corej, Major Chad Hale and Dr. Bert Peterson, Dan's PhD adviser.

We both really enjoy the Air Force life and look forward to a long career with many new places to live and work.

5/6 Update

Update on all fronts!

Adoption - We started last week needing a letter from Dan's doctors saying he was in remission and could go ahead with adoption. We asked Dr. Wood first, 5 days later he called us and after talking for about 15 minutes said he didn't have time to write a letter. Pretty sure he could have just written the letter in that 15minutes, but oh well. I was pretty upset about this all weekend We on Monday we asked Dr. Lewis, who gladly did the letter for us!

Fertility - My follow up meeting with Dr. Grohl is May 22nd. This is a checkup meeting from my surgery. Hopefully at this point we will also talk about when we can start the IVF protocol.

Air Force - This Thursday Dan will have one of his major PhD milestones. He will met with his advisory committee and they will ask him questions about his proposal for research.

Also very soon it will be Lt. Dan no more - May 14th Dan gets a big promotion to Captain Dan!

Nursing - The unit where I work is finally going to computer charting. Because I am the only one under 50 who works there and I am pretty good with computers I have been made Super User for this new system. I get to help train my co-workers and be the contact person between my unit and the computer reps which is kinda cool for me. If I ever get tired of bedside nursing, something in medical information or computer charting actually sounds like fun to me.


So that's all for now, the next couple weeks should keep us all busy. My parents will be in Europe for a couple weeks on vacation, so I wish them a safe journey! Hope everything is going well with the people still following my blog!