tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40517129634235227462024-08-28T21:49:26.410-05:00Dee's battle with adult rhabdomyosarcoma starting in 2006 until her death in 2009 (not from the cancer).Jen and (Dee in spirit)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10522481885630638215noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4051712963423522746.post-18916008380391116432010-07-13T18:39:00.000-05:002010-07-13T18:39:04.043-05:00

Life doesn't just go back to normal after chemotherapy is over. In Dee's case she still had weekly labs for the first month and she had monthly CT Scans for the first couple of months. The doctors were just waiting for the rhabdomyosarcoma to come back and since they couldn't find where it started, they were at least hoping to catch it when it first spread to the lymph nodes. Then there was

Jen and (Dee in spirit)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10522481885630638215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4051712963423522746.post-91100607012599699442010-07-06T12:36:00.002-05:002010-07-06T12:44:03.232-05:00

After spending most of June in the hospital Dee still had 5 months of chemotheraphy to look forward to. The weeks rotated depending on the cycle so that on some weeks she only had to go in for chemotheraphy on Monday. Then there were the hard weeks that she had to have chemo everyday but they were typically followed by a week where she only had to go in for blood tests. 

Jen and (Dee in spirit)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10522481885630638215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4051712963423522746.post-82711457297725612872009-09-09T12:50:00.005-05:002009-09-09T13:09:52.728-05:00

Dee's chemotherapy worked quickly. If you remember, I mentioned that she was in the hospital for a total of 23 days when she got her diagnoses. The first 7 days were spent figuring out what she had and then coming up with a plan once we got a hold of the great doctor that helped her. After two weeks of chemotherapy, she started losing her hair. She had very long, thick hair thanks to her Native

Jen and (Dee in spirit)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10522481885630638215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4051712963423522746.post-55098481622344471942009-07-09T22:12:00.002-05:002009-07-09T22:15:25.529-05:00

June 28th Dee unexpectedly passed away in her sleep. She just stopped breathing. I don't know what happened yet but I want to continue this blog journey on what her three battle with rhabdomyosarcoma was like. I'm having some problems writing right now but I hope to be able to continue this blog journey in hopes that it can help others who are battling rhabdomyosarcoma.

Jen and (Dee in spirit)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10522481885630638215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4051712963423522746.post-66762394633215563952009-05-11T11:43:00.004-05:002009-05-11T11:54:13.422-05:00

First I want to say that I am sorry that I haven't been on lately. I was trying to get the outdoors ready for summer and still take care of everything. When you get so busy, something has to be pushed off to the side.Second, we were able to cover our judgement. I forgot about this opportunity I had to get a loan but once I remembered, I was able to get the judgement covered. That crisis has been

Jen and (Dee in spirit)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10522481885630638215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4051712963423522746.post-34652863411720064442009-04-16T19:12:00.005-05:002009-04-16T19:46:08.597-05:00

When people would ask how do I feel or they would ask Dee how does she feel, we really couldn't answer. We were in shock. Dee was 28, we never thought about cancer. Even when we started researching her symptoms and saw cancer as a possibility, I was in denial. Dee knew something was seriously wrong but cancer wasn't foremost in her mind. The first cancer diagnosis was scary but we still thought

Jen and (Dee in spirit)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10522481885630638215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4051712963423522746.post-24316230521890059702009-04-13T17:45:00.003-05:002009-04-13T18:35:41.014-05:00

In all of Dee's CT and PET scans, they have never found a tumor so there wasn't anything to surgically remove. The lymph nodes had only been removed to biopsy and it just spreads to the lymph nodes not start there. The only course of action was chemotherapy (not counting the person in Mexico that had some miracle cure that her sister wanted to send her to). They started by cautioning us on the

Jen and (Dee in spirit)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10522481885630638215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4051712963423522746.post-71400128985160566342009-04-10T11:42:00.003-05:002009-04-10T11:53:36.833-05:00

Dee was 28 years old when we found out it was cancer. It didn't even matter what type of cancer, the fact that it was cancer stunned us. Following the news of cancer was the news that Dee only had 30 days to live so they would just keep her comfortable until then. Talk about shock after shock.Luckily for us the doctors changed rotations on the cancer floor right about that time. As the next

Jen and (Dee in spirit)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10522481885630638215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4051712963423522746.post-73622732756234259142009-04-09T19:53:00.003-05:002009-04-10T11:55:06.889-05:00

Once Dee was in the ER, they quickly admitted her into the hospital. The first team (her hospital is an university one so everything is accomplished by a group of people) that met with her was the blood doctor's. Due to her counts, they believed that she had leukemia. They did a bone marrow biopsy which was extremely hard for Dee to endure. They tried the procedure in her hospital room, stating

Jen and (Dee in spirit)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10522481885630638215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4051712963423522746.post-56994653338183615342009-04-07T17:30:00.002-05:002009-04-07T18:00:55.426-05:00

It is easy to see patterns and things when I look back on the year before we realized that Dee had cancer. She ended up going to Urgent Care more that year than past years. She had problems in the past with allergies every spring that sometimes caused a bit of swelling in the lymph nodes but it was like nothing like she had that year.The first time that she got unusually sick was on our trip back

Jen and (Dee in spirit)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10522481885630638215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4051712963423522746.post-70719467221076683602009-04-07T13:57:00.000-05:002009-04-07T14:14:29.551-05:00

Dee has just finished her third battle with rhabdomyosarcoma (her last chemotherapy treatment was on March 5th) and this third battle has really left her wiped out. Some days she seems to be getting better and we continue to have hope that she will make it.We are starting this blog to share the whole experience to date for other adults that are dealing with adult rhabdomyosarcoma.We will also be

Jen and (Dee in spirit)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10522481885630638215noreply@blogger.com0