Connie is home and doing well...been here for a couple hours, at least. She has had a nap and has taken her first pill for pain. She wants to head over to the church for the Primary "meet and greet." She is going to teach one of the Sunbeam classes this year and doesn't want to disappoint anybody who shows up expecting to see their teacher. I'll have to make sure the kids don't get too excited and bump her, by accident.

How did the Surgery go?

Dr. Ferguson said that there was more scarring in the radiated area than he had expected, so he had to release those areas. I believe that this means he had to make small cuts to make the area more flexible. He also released a couple other areas to help with a more natural look. She goes back for her first visit in a week and starts range of motion movements in two weeks, hoping she doesnt reopen the scarred areas. There was also the possibility of needing some fat injections to smooth at least one area, but we wont know for sure until she's healed awhile.

Making the Exchange

We made it through the raging snowstorm and was actually on time for our 9:45am check-in. We labored through checking in and found ourselves in tiny little room #11 back in a corner for Pre-Op. Connie's nurse was very good and explained eveything. She did fail at getting a vein the first time, and since Connie only has one good arm to draw from, the nurse called in an expert who got the job done. Dr. Ferguson then came in with a Sharpie and drew out his game plan all over Connie's chest. Before he was done the anestesiologist was in there and explained his part. A quick kiss and she walked out of the room and was gone. An attending came and directed me to a waiting room and here I sit for the next hour and a half.

11/7/10 Update

Hi everybody - Thought I'd give an update as to Miss Connie's health as it's been a long while. She completed her radiation (10/18) about 3 weeks ago. She continued to feel the aching for a good couple of weeks afterward, coupled with a few waves of nausea. In the past week she has, I believe, began to feel better daily. Her stamina has greatly improved. When she is tired at the end of the day it is mostly because she still has problems staying asleep all night long. Occasionaly life is good and she'll get a day or two of a full nights sleep in.

Her hair is growing back and as we suspected, it's not the same color it was when we got married. Of course, neither is mine. We were told that there was the possibility of it coming in curly, or a different color, etc. That didn't happen. Just this morning I told her she should start considering taking the wig off, coloring her hair and moving forward. She just told me that she's "thinking" about a reveal after the first of the year. I think she should start with purple hair...that would be fun!

She's got more appointments coming up before the end of the year. One is with the plastic surgeon, who wants to check how the radiation affected the area that will be worked on in the spring. Another is with the radiologist. He wants to make sure the bright red irradeated area has lost some of it's glow. Then there will be a bone scan appointment at 7:30 am...hope she gets up in time! This is because, she thinks, that there is a drug she'll have to take every few months and it may cause bone loss. They need a bone density base line. The last one is with the chemo doctor again...he's the one that will administer this last drug via an IV drip.

The journey is not over, but she's been doing great. Yesterday was our 23rd wedding anniversary and we started the day with a free breakfast at our ward building that was made from food storage items...it was "preparedness fair" that was very thought provoking. While we were there we were offered tickets for the BYU football game (BYU 55, UNLV 7) that started at noon, so we grabbed some Mickey Dees on the way and headed to Provo. We hit a few of stores afterwards and headed home for the evening. She has taken up crocheting again and was busy making some hats that are being donated for people who have cancer. We took a break and got some ice cream and then I finally had to hit the sack. She got to bed at 3am (or would that really be 2am w/daylight saving?) after making 2 hats. Like I said...lots more stamina!

Three Weeks (out of Five) of Radiation Complete

Connie tried to tell me this morning that she only had one week of radiation left. That's not true, Connie, you have 2 weeks plus one final day on 10/18 (to make up for the dry run on 9/13) to do until you are done.
She has been extremely tired from the inside out and very stressed out at work due to the large amounts of loans that are going across all of the Mortgage Processor's desks. The group, as a whole, is working hard and fortunately they put a cap on the amount of overtime hours they can work.
Great news, though...on Thursday Connie took a new job in the company in the Underwriting department! Congrats to her...she starts on Monday, 10/4/10!

Nyquil is her friend!

This past week Connie has come down with a cold and a cough, probably due to the cooler weather. I finally talked her into taking some nyquil that I scrounged up in the cupboard and when she got up this morning she said she slept through the whole night. She didn't sound too stuffy when she woke up this morning, but she was still internally exhausted, nonetheless.

Since tomorrow is her first dry run radiation treatment, and Tue starts her first day of real treatment, she only attended Sacrament today and is in bed trying to rest up for it. Her treatments are only supposed to be 20 minutes from the time she arrives to the time she leaves, but we imagine just getting her undressed, radiated, then dressed again is still going to wear her out...it's best to get as much rest as possible, just in case.

And now for the Radiation...

Connie has been regaining some strength since her last chemo treatment. On Friday she had a visit with Dr. Thomson, a very tall Dr. who reminds me of a childhood friend's dad (Kendall Wahlquist/Fred Wahlquist). He came into the room and was curious wether or not we were going to go ahead with the treatment. Last time we talked he told us that she was in a grey area. We assured him that we are going to do everything to give her the best chance possible. With that he set Connie up to have a scan and to get a few tattoos. Found out that a few is 5...one on each side of her and three on her front side. Lasers use these tattoos to consistently line up where the radiation will be pointed during the treatment. There should be no variation from one treatment to the next. Treatments begin the week of 9/13 and last for 5 weeks. The 13th is a dry run, and the next 25 are live. No treatments on Sat & Sun! Side affects will be a loss of strength (but not as bad as chemo) and possible redness in the radiation area which can be helped by a number of ointments, etc.

Just an update...

Connie was really hit hard by this last treatment. She wasn't even close to making it into work yesterday and today she was able to only get to the kitchen and then take a quick shower and she was back into bed for the day totally exhausted. Here's hoping for a much better tomorrow!

GoodBye Chemo!

Last Thursday Connie endured her last chemo treatment. Her cousin, Shelly, was down from Washington and sat through it with her. Connie was given a bottle of apple cider that looks like a champagne bottle when her treatment was done from the center. She and Shelly picked up another cousin, Terri, and headed out to lunch. After that Connie headed into work for a few hours and her friend got her a beautiful flower arrangement for having finished.

She went to work on Friday after getting her final after-chemo shot and already noticed the effects taking place very early...in fact, she felt it Thursday night. Saturday we made it to Roberts for a 50% sale just before 10am, then we did a lap around the South Jordan Farmer's Market and then a quick trip to Harmons for some milk for the week-end. She spent most of the rest of Sat in bed.

Today (Sunday) we went to the Single's Ward to see Whitney (and her friend, Tawny) give their farewell speaches. Tawny went first, then a guy who's getting married in 13 days, and then a great musical interlude by Whitney (flute) and Eric Davis (piano). Then Whit got up and gave a great talk and we came home. Connie's been in bed, again, most of the day. She just wandered out to the couch for a little while so she could be more comfortable (change of body position) after she had dinner in bed. (Not as glamourous as that may sound!)

Still hanging in there

Connie is still pressing forward with her treatments...always tired from the inside out, she says. She has been able to reduce her workload at work a little bit, trying not to take on more than she can chew and trying to stay close to just 8 hours per day, rather than the 10+ hours she was trying to do earlier. She didn't go into work yesterday, but did do some laundry and dishes, which (of course) wore her out. Today she rested most of the morning and only went to Sacrament meeting. She made the comment today that she can't wait for the 19th (her last treatment) and then for the 3 weeks after that to start feeling a little better. Of course, about that time the radiation begins.

Facing Our Trials

I receive a "Daily Gems" and this one reminded me of my hero, Connie:

"Each of us will face trials and tests, and . . . it is how we react to those difficulties that will determine our success and happiness. Each of us will face adversity no matter where we are. We are taught in the scriptures that there 'must needs be . . . an opposition in all things' (2 Nephi 2:11). We will each face times of difficulty, and the question is not when we will face them but how we face them."
James B. Martino, "All Things Work Together for Good," Ensign, May 2010, 101

Getting Ready for Chemo #5 of 6

Well, nothing too new has happened over the past couple of weeks. Connie has gained enough strength to work some crazy long hours at work, but her life has mostly been going to work and coming home to sleep so she can get ready to go to work again. She still has her intermittant cough and has been taking some natural sleeping pills to help her stay asleep throughout the entire night...haven't helped a ton, but it does a little, so she will continue with that.
Tue night she will take Whitney through the temple to receive her endowments in preparation for leaving on her mission on Sept 1st. On Thur she goes in for Chemo #5.

Chemo #4, Day #7 - Coming back to life

Connie didn't make it to church on Sunday and, fortunately, slept all day. She tried to be a trooper and get up for work on Monday. It was like, go to bathroom (back to bed to rest), go eat breakfast (get halfway there, rest on couch, finish trip, eat very little, hobble back to couch, rest, back to bed to rest). There's take shower, rest, trying to get dressed, rest several times, get hair on, rest, gather keys, purse, waterbottle, fall asleep on couch while resting. I finally had to let her boss' know that she was going to take a nap and try going in in the afternoon. She was so out of it that I had to advise she wouldn't be in on Monday at all.

Tuesday she made it 10 hours, somehow. Came home, ate and went to bed.
Today was about the same, but with a little more bounce to her step.

Did I mention she is going to do 6 treatments?

Chemo #4, Day #3 - Tired Already

Connie had her 4th treatment on Thursday. She went right back to work afterwards and worked late to make up some time. Went to work Fri and worked late also...a team member at work is going on vacation and she's trying to get her ducks in a row to be able to help out. She took a sleeping pill last night and managed to get a pretty good amount of sleep. The day before, the day of and the day after she takes one pill that keeps her up at night, so the sleeping pill is to try to help her not get so tired simply from lack of sleep.
Today she went to work for about 5 hours and came back with a red face. After a couple hours of sleep and some rest, that went away and she wanted to go get a few errands done. We didn't get into the first store for more than 30 seconds and she was tired. She sat a few minutes and quickly shopped and we went to another store across the parking lot and then to one other nearby and sat at each place. I took her home and she's been in bed ever since (some sleeping, some watching tv). She just took all her pills for the evening and is hopefully out for the night. I am going to do everything I can to keep her from trying to go to church tomorrow. We've been down that road before!

Fourth of July, 2010

Hi everybody,
It's been awhile since I've posted news about Connie. Sorry...with all the hub-bub going on with getting Elder Denton II (Cody) out the door and into the MTC, I've been a little lax.
Connie was told that the more treatments you have, the longer it takes to recover. This is true! She continues to get tired very easily and needs a break to recover. Her 4th treatment is this coming Thursday and we are going to do everything that we can think of to make sure she does not over-do it this time and use all her energies to simply get through what will probably be 5-7 days of recovery time. She continues to go to work full time and is a champion, but by the time she get's home, she is ready to eat and hit the sack. Sometimes just laying down for awhile helps her rekindle her energies, but most often a good nap is exactly what the doctor ordered.
We continue to be thankful for all of the thoughts and prayers (among other things) that are rendered in her (our) behalf. We are getting nearer to the end. We still have not decided for sure whether it will be 4 or 6 treatments, but I'll just put it out there. I'm all about just doing the 4 that the doctor recommended.

Chemo #3, day #4 - Ice Cream and Church

On Saturday night Connie and I went over to the South Jordan Country Fest and spent 2-1/2 minutes walking through all of the vendor tents and went over to visit the Dreyer's Ice Cream vendor, sponsored by "Heather Glen School of Highland Dance" and picked up 3 qts of ice cream for $5.00! We walked back to the car and Connie was spent!

She made it through all 3 hours of church today and even managed to make a delicious dinner for Father's Day (crazy woman!!!). Thanks Connie!

Chemo #3, day #2 - Sooooo Tired!

Went and got her "day after" shot this morning and sent her off to work. She made it until 6pm and was very tired. Grabbed some dinner and I don't think she'll be up much longer!

Chemo #3 - Ya learn something new every day!

We are here at the Huntsmen Center and before the treatment began, this morning, the doctor pulled us into a room (this is normal) and discussed how things are going. We got to talking and he said he just wanted to remind us of why we were doing the treatment because there was still talk about doing 6 treatments vs. just the prescribed 4 treatments. He told us something that he had failed to tell us before. The biggest reason that we are doing the chemo is this: The surgury got her to a 35% chance of the cancer reoccuring. The chemo will reduce the risk to about 10%. The kicker was that if the cancer did show up again (and most likely it would occur in the bones), it would most likely be uncurable...it would also still be called breast cancer. If it did happen to show up in the breast, that would be the one area where it probably would be curable. I don't know if that hit Connie like it hit me, but that was a "what the crap" moment for me.

Day 18 after Chemo #2 - Sending off a Missionary

Connie has been strong this past week, but still tires easily. She helped prepare our home for guests to come see Cody after his farewell yesterday. She tried doing weeds on Saturday, but found that made her feel like she would pass out. She did do some pressure washing of the cement in the back yard and found that to be exhausting too. We did make it to Sams club on Saturday evening to purchase items for the small party and she came home and made up some excellent chicken salad and got things ready to be quickly placed after we arrived home from Church on Sunday.

A big thank you to Whitney and her friends who had a couple hours break between classes on Saturday (similar to an efy) and ran home to help us clean the house...that was awesome!

Tuesday night we meet with the Stake President at 9pm to have Cody set apart and then we take him to the MTC at 1pm the following day to drop him off.

Chemo #3 is Thursday morning.

Three Denton Missionaries all out at once!

Whitney (Elder Kyle Dentons' sister) received her call today to the Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh mission (English speaking) and will go into the Provo MTC on Sept 1, 2010!

Cody (Elder Kyle Dentons' brother) received his call on Apr 28, 2010 and is going to the Nicaragua, Managua North mission(Spanish speaking) and enters the Provo MTC next Wed., June 16th!