I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and the sky come to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "There, she is gone!", there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes!"

And that is dying...

-Henry Van Dyke (from Gone From My Sight by Barbara Karnes, RN)

Christopher Howard Soethe, husband, father, son, nephew, brother, and friend has gone to meet the Lord. He passed over peacefully June 5, 2015 with Taigen and I by his side. We will miss him dearly every day until we see him again.

Home Tonight

The surgery went well yesterday.  The surgeon put a new longer stent in the bile duct, extending into the liver past a tumor that was blocking the entrance to the old stent.  Today Chris's liver enzyme numbers were already better due to the increased drainage the new stent allows.  The surgeon also went all through his stomach and into the duodenum to check everything out down there.  All looked good as far as the stent from January was concerned. He also checked the stomach for ulcers, etc.  No problems except the tumors that keep blocking different parts of his system's flow. 

Chris was discharged this afternoon and is home resting.  His right side and stomach areas are sore from yesterday's procedure but he is doing better than before.  Although, when he started telling me they were moving the elephants this afternoon, I thought he was delirious and I started to worry until the medical tech in the room reassured me the elephants really were being moved from the Woodland Park Zoo to a refuge down I-5 around 5pm today.  Whew!

Catching Up the Blog

It's been a while since I've written on the blog.  During the last few months, my anxiety has been higher than I've ever experienced before, not only with dealing with cancer and seeing someone I love so much going through such a hard time, but also because my world at work has been turned upside down, starting with the abrupt departure of my boss a few months ago.  Between my work and personal life stresses, I didn't feel like writing much.  Lately though, I've been so encouraged by all of the good thoughts and well wishes sent our way and I know everyone wants to know what's been happening with Chris.

Perhaps it is a good thing that a couple of months have gone by though I'm still a bit angry at the turn of events in January.  We were referred by our oncologist at Swedish, Dr. Gold, to see if Chris would qualify for a trial at VM.  As the last few blog posts described, the first thing the oncologist at VM did was get Chris into surgery.  Chris is still happy they did that as they drained 2 and 1/2 liters of bile from his very distended gall bladder.  It comforted him to have the risk of a ruptured gall bladder lowered.  It would have likely been fatal for him if that had happened.  After several appointments and a PET scan, the oncologist informed us that Chris didn't qualify for the trial after all.  Turns out the trial was for pancreatic cancer and the doctor concluded after the PET scan that Chris had gall bladder cancer.  The frustrating thing about it was that Dr. Gold had already given Chris a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer a year ago and we've been told that no one can tell the difference between gall bladder and pancreatic cancer even under a microscope, much less from a PET scan.  The good news was that the PET scan showed the cancer had not spread beyond the areas we already knew it was in.  Once the VM oncologist determined no trial for us, he told us to go back to Dr. Gold at Swedish to continue chemotherapy.

I don't remember if I wrote this before, but Dr. Gold had already told us that Chris had undergone all of the chemotherapies that were commonly used to treat both gall bladder and pancreatic cancers.  He said there may be a trial at Swedish in a few months and that there was one additional chemo treatment he was willing to give Chris to help perhaps slow down the cancer growth enough that his condition would not deteriorate any further in case he could qualify for the potential future trial.  The catch was that only three cycles of the Mitomycin chemotherapy could be given because there were dangerous side effects, usually at a cumulated total amount higher than the three doses would amount to, and that the side effects could be fatal for someone in Chris's condition.   

Mitomycin is given via a very large syringe pushed through a tube into his IV.  It only takes about 5 minutes, a dramatically different chemo experience from our previous 5 hour sessions.  He has had two cycles so far, 28 days apart.  In addition, he takes Capecitabine chemotherapy in pill form, three in the morning and three at night for 14 days in a row and then two weeks off so the cycle is also 28 days to match up with the Mitomycin cycle. It was seeming to help him for the past two months. 

Ever since the surgery in January, Chris has had more stomach pain.   This makes it difficult for him to ingest food and liquids as that intensifies the pain. It has been somewhat manageable by taking Alka Seltzer and Tums after eating.  It seems to me that ever since he had the new stent put in between his gall bladder and duodenum of the small intestine in January, he has had this stomach pain (previously the pain was more around the gall bladder on his right side).  In addition, a couple of weeks ago, Chris tripped and bruised his midsection. Since then, he has had additional pain and has had a really hard time eating.  We've been in contact over the past two weeks with our care team at Swedish and after last week's appointment with Dr. Gold, the doctor and I both contacted the GI surgeon at Swedish that operated on Chris last October, Dr. Brandabur.  He called us last night at 9pm and said that from the lab tests Dr. Gold had done last week, he thinks Chris has cholangitis, an infection of the bile duct. 

That brings us to current day.  Dr. Bradabur had me bring Chris down to Swedish first thing this morning so he could go in endoscopically to see what is going on.  He will likely clean out or swap out the two stents.  Chris is in pre-op now, waiting to go into surgery. I am very glad this surgeon is going to get a close look at not only what is going on in his bile duct but also with the new stent from January and I hope they figure out something that will ease the stomach pain so Chris will find it easier to eat. The man can not afford to lose any more weight!

There have been so many people praying for us and for Chris to be healed and I am so grateful to everyone.  We don't need much right now but prayers and positive thoughts.  I'll likely post again today and/or tomorrow to let you know how everything turns out after the surgery.

Wendy

Go Hawks!

What a great day!  Chris was discharged today around 2pm and I got to have him home and watch the Seahawks game with him.  He tried really hard to go to the game but was wise to not push it after a week in a hospital bed.  Although he has had a fever come and go every evening, they decided today to let him go home with a bunch of antibiotics.  He hasn't had any sign of a fever yet tonight (knock on wood!) so hopefully the timing was good to leave the hospital. 

What a game! Hope most of you got to see it.

Go Hawks!

Chris Told Me to Stop Saying He's Going Home Each Day

Guess I keep jinxing it because each day I say that hopefully Chris will be home the next day and he's still not home. He went from IV antibiotics to oral ones today but then his fever spiked again tonight. We will see if he needs another procedure tomorrow once the hospitalist consults with the GI doc. Otherwise he is feeling and looking pretty good considering.

Hopefully Home Soon

Chris is still in the hospital due to his fever spiking three times yesterday.  The doctors have said it is not abnormal for this to happen and they have him on some powerful IV antibiotics.  So far today, he has not had any fever.  The optimistic outlook from the GI doc is that he will be able to start oral antibiotics tomorrow and be home by tomorrow evening.  The conservative outlook by the hospitalist doc is that he may continue on IV antibiotics another couple days so remain in the hospital until the weekend.  Just so he makes the Seahawk game on Sat evening!!! Go Hawks! :)

The GI doc told me that they drained two and a half liters of bile out of his gall bladder on Monday and that he had never seen a gall bladder as big as Chris's was with all that fluid and inflammation!  Think about a two liter of soda...wow, that's a lot of bile.  No wonder Chris lost a lot of his lopsided 'pooch'! 

They did another CT scan last night because of the fevers.  There is still some inflammation and bile in the gall bladder but so far nothing out of the margin of what they might expect.  The stent looks to be in the right place and hopefully is not leaking bile anywhere as that would be a problem. 

Dr. Picozzi, the VM oncologist, is going to set up the PET scan and an appointment to review in a couple weeks, allowing Chris some time to recover.  We'll see what is next at that point.

Today Chris seem to be doing well and even ate French toast and a poached egg for breakfast.  Considering he has been having such a hard time eating lately, that was a feast and he said it wasn't hard to eat it.  Hopefully an indication that this week was worth it and he'll be able to enjoy some food again.

Successful Surgery

Chris's surgery today went well.  They used a new procedure to put a stent in between his gall bladder and small intestine to help the gall bladder drain.  They also drained out the fluid that had built up in his gall bladder.  We can already see the difference!  Chris no longer has a big pooch on his right side.  He is doing well eating his broth and Jello, which is a good sign too as he hasn't had any kind of an appetite recently.  If he doesn't get nauseated or start throwing up, he gets to advance to lowfat foods tonight or tomorrow morning.  He'll get to go home tomorrow afternoon if no complications.  The GI doctor thinks everything went extremely well today so we are hopeful that will happen.

We haven't seen Dr. Picozzi, the oncologist, yet today.  We are interested to find out next steps and will keep you updated as we find out more.

Chris is very, very touched by all of the well wishes and help that everyone is offering.  He wants to let everyone know he is moved by all of you and it means so much to him, to us.

With love,
Wendy

Hope Everyone Had a Special Holiday

Hope you all had a merry Christmas and happy New Year! We are back from travels after spending time in beautiful places and with many of our family members. 

Chris has been seeing a new oncologist since we've been back as his CT scan showed that the cancer in his body has been growing again. We were very surprised and didn't really expect to hear that so soon as the cancer markers in his blood had been going down so much. His oncologist at Swedish, Dr Gold, referred us both to Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) and Virginia Mason (VM) this time to see if there were any trials that Chris could qualify for. SCCA did not have any at this time though they are still watching for one. Virginia Mason wanted to see him so we went in on Friday to visit Dr. Picozzi, who was supportive in a way that we were not expecting. He said that there were still several options for Chris to try, which was encouraging. The first thing that they want to do is to drain his gallbladder because it's been causing him increasing discomfort and interfering with his eating and sleeping. We were very surprised to get a call today from Dr Picozzi stating that a group of doctors had reviewed Chris's case last night and had agreed that they could put a drain in internally and that should ease some of his issues.

What they are going to do is have Chris check in to the hospital tomorrow and he will have surgery first thing on Monday. If all goes well, he will be able to come home perhaps as early as Tuesday.

The next thing that they want to do is a PET scan, which Chris has not yet had. This will tell them where exactly the cancer is. The third thing they want to do is try to determine the true type of cancer that Chris has. It seems it is still in question whether Chris has gallbladder cancer or pancreatic cancer. Dr Picozzi stated that depending on the type of cancer they may have a trial that Chris could qualify for. 

I have also been on the National Institute of Health (NIH) website which lists cancer trials going on all over the United States for different types of cancer. I did find that there is a hospital in Vancouver Washington (I believe it might be Peace Health but I can't remember for sure at the moment), that has a trial for gallbladder cancer. Dr. Picozzi asked me to bring in the information I've found about this trial in the event that it may be the best match for Chris's type of cancer. 

For now, Chris isn't getting any more chemo treatments, as he has to be at least four weeks 'clean' from chemo in order to participate in a trial. He hasn't had a chemo since before the holidays so he can start a trial anytime now.

Thank you for continuing to support and encourage us with your positive thoughts and prayers. Please continue to pray that God will work through these talented doctors, nurses and technicians to heal Chris.

With love,
Wendy