hamptonsarasota
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The term ‘gator trout’ just means a speckled trout that is a BIG FAT MOTHER!! Typically 20″ or more in size and a huge girth with a big fat mouth and large two front teeth! You get a lot more meat off of them than the typical 15″ -18″ trouts.
Don’t mess with tarpon too much, they are a trophy fish, I like being able to keep what I catch and put some of it on the table, not that I could with the bonnet head shark, but that thing was fun anyway! Good luck up north!
Dianne,
I went out this week Wednesday fishing in Sarasota bay, had a blast. Caught a bonnet head shark about 2.5′ long, fought for 15 minutes and my arm was way tired. Also, nice keeper 18″ spanish mackerel, and (this is the good part) 5 gator trout!! Shortest one was about 19″, all were fat fat fat! Lots of fun! We had the mackerel and trout for dinner Wednesday night and still have a bag of trout frozen that will feed the family for one more dinner. Fresh fish, right out of the water, nothing better!I so pray and hope that I’ll be able to make a post like yours!! I’m 8 months in, scan next Friday after my 5 cycles of chemo finishes up today. Inspirational for sure! Congratulations!
Trevor,
Hello from a former Jax, FL resident! Lived there in the Mandarin area off of Scott Mill and Beauclerc from ’95 thru ’05 and both of my kids were born there too!Regarding Dr. Javle, as you may have read in some of my posts as well as Kris’s, I emailed Dr. Javle out of the blue and was very clear/concise in my situation and he literally emailed me at 11:30 pm about an hour after I sent the email. I hear he has done this with several other people as well. He is a doctor that truly cares, that’s for sure. Wish you luck, and go on that trip and have fun!
Well, that was fun… 12 sessions with Gemzar being injected and the 12th one the nurse decides to use a hand located IV… Man that stuff was not comfortable going in. I guess my arm veins are bigger than the hand ones… Added saline at 1000 ml/HR to stop the burn/pain. Saline ran out with 10 minutes to go of Gemzar, pain kicked in again and I pushed the stop button on the pump myself until the nurse could come over and get me another saline bag!
I’m officially at my last chemo session with Gem/Cis. About 2.5 hours to go, half way through the first dose of Potassium/Magnesium. Numbers from today’s bloodwork:
wbc 2.3 (4.7 last week)
hbg 12.2 (13.1)
hct 37.8 (40.2)
Plat 220 (218)
ANC 0.9 (2.5)Well, gotta pee, talk to you all later!
Amy,
Most definitely NOT laproscopic, as the 14″ scar proves that point! I haven’t lost any hair yet either and only one day to go for chemo (this Friday). It hasn’t thinned either, but slowed down growth wise and is a bit finer and not as coarse. Gemzar wasn’t bad, only one time did it sting any and only for 3-5 minutes. I’ve done all IV, no port also. I can imagine being a bit tired starting so soon after surgery, I had to wait because of my leaking bile situation and had time to heal up and exercise to get back into shape. I was at the gym moving the weights with the drain tube sticking out of the center of my chest with the little ‘hand grenade’ collecting the bile in my pocket!I have a CT set for the 20th, this Monday I meet the radiation oncologist, whom we know through our synagogue also. Probably start the radiation some time the last week of April or early May. Great birthday present for me huh? 41 on the 25th of April…
I hope you have a better week this week regarding Dr. appointments and get some movement! I had the same outlook in my mind, regardless if this is cancer or not, something has to get cut out for me to function normally. Keep us posted!
Amy,
I’ve handled the chemo extremely well. No real nausea whatsoever, and the fatigue has been a day or so each week. It was a little bit more this past weekend, but a nap here and there works! I still work out at the gym 3-4 days a week with heavy weights and cardio so all things considered I think I’m handling it OK. Gemzar is about an hour (30 minutes for the steriods and 30 minutes for the Gemzar). Gem/Cis combo is about 4.5-5 hours. Same Gem time, hour for Magnesium/Potassium, hour for Cisplatin, another hour for more Mag/Pot after and then you’re done. My question for you, how was the radiation/Xeloda? That’s what I’m on to next, probably in about 3 weeks or so. Keep the positive attitude and good luck!Matt,
Amen to all of the comments above! Fantastic news for sure. And taking out less is way better than more that’s for sure. They do get you up and moving as soon as they can, I was up the next day as well. Keep the positive vibes going and we all wish your sister a speedy recovery!Amy,
Wishing your mom the best on the 10th. My wife was in the waiting mode during my surgery and it was about 2 hours before they came out and told her they were proceeding and the gall bladder was out. The Dr. didn’t come out, the nurse did. So he’s probably right if the doctor himself comes out it can’t be a good situation. Prayers are coming your way, and keep that positive attitude everywhere, it helps!!!Amy,
Welcome! Not that you wanted to join the club, but you’re in with the rest of us now… I am so glad to hear that you guys had such a fast reaction to the initial symptoms and the actual surgery, 6 weeks overall! That is great, I was lucky enough to have an overall turnaround time from initial hospital admission for symptoms to surgery of about 16 days which from what I’ve seen on this site is way fast. I’m just finishing up chemo next Friday and on to radiation with Xeloda for 3-5 weeks, meet the radiation oncologist in 1.5 weeks. You are correct in that the positive attitude is an absolute MUST! Without it, I think any cancer thrives on the negative. Wish you all the best with your husbands treatment and keep us posted!TFJ,
Reading your intro I had flashbacks…. Everything you described, literally everything, was exactly what happened to me!! I’m 40 (41 in 19 days), have a 13 and 11 yr old, and all of my symptoms came to a head my son’s Bar Mitzvah weekend. I checked into the hospital Sunday at 2am, CT, MRI, Ultrasound saw nothing, ERCP Monday, stricture in common bile duct, stent put in, scrapings were negative, and there was a small 1cm growth that they grabbed 2 samples of thru the bile duct wall and the pathology results on Wednesday were “atypical suspicious fibrous cells”. We were immediately on the phone to Sloan Kettering in NY (I live in Fla by the way, and inlaws live in Great Neck) and got an appointment Tuesday the 6th of September to see the head of Hepatibiliary Surgery, Dr. W. Jarnagin.I was resigned to the fact that no matter what if it was cancerous or not, I had to have something cut out of me to ‘fix’ the problem so I accepted that. Officially, we did not get the ‘cancer’ and ‘CC’ diagnosis until 5 days after my surgery (which was on 9/14/11, 8 days after my initial meeting) while I was in the hospital. Positive for you in this, since your DH (funny, my initials…) sound so extremely similar in symptoms, nothing spread on mine, it was literally only in the bile duct albeit my tumor was smaller than his. They did take 3/4 of the liver, gall bladder, bile duct, and used the small intestine to make a new bile duct for me though. I had completely clean margins and as I type this am in chemo for my 1st dose of my 4th cycle of Gemzar/Cisplatin which is also my last dose and then on to radiation. Preventative adjuvant therapy since there are really no protocols on what to do after a successful resection.
My suggestion, DO NOT WAIT, get in to see a surgeon ASAP, schedule the surgery, and get it cut out if at all possible!! It just seems that a lot of the stories on this site unfortunately involve those with tumors either too large to operate because of portal vein involvement or mets everywhere and they won’t operate because of them and lengthy chemo sessions to shrink everything are involved before the surgical option is ever discussed again. Please keep us posted, you can shoot me a direct note if you want to my email (derinhampton@gmaill.com), and all the best of luck on this new unfortunate journey…
Hopefully by now your sister is out of surgery and all is well with positive news. Best wishes with the recovery process. I was Stage II, but didn’t know until 5 days after the surgery and pathology was done, but still, officially stage II. All the best…
Well, 1 cycle of Gem done, 3 cycles of Gem/Cis done and this Friday is my official last cycle of Gem/Cis and then on to radiation/chemo! 2 more visits to the oncologist (Well, maybe 3, final one on the off Friday in 2 weeks), 2 more IV sticks, 2 more sessions with 10 bathroom visits, 2 more Friday nights without being able to get to sleep until 3am and that should be it!! Light at the end of the tunnel!!
Hey Tiff, my wife is on Ativan also, it helps her keep ‘even keeled’ and not worry as much. My doctors put me on Zoloft too, not sure what it’s doing, but I’m not stressed out and don’t really worry at all. Maybe it’s my positive attitude…
Tom/Ben,
Like Tiff says, Dr. Javle is great! He has answered many peoples emails when they send them out of the blue like he did with mine, he cares and really wants to help. If you do see him, mention our names, maybe he’ll remember us (Tiff has seen him personally and I’m ony an etherworldly contact with him). Wish you luck, you should be getting on a plane in a day or so to get there. If you’re in Ft. Lauderdale, Southwest I believe has direct flights into Hobby, I go Tampa to Hobby direct for work (have projects at Johnson Space Center) and they are rarely late, always on time!
