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Back in the hospital...Post Surgery

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Victoria found herself back in the hospital roughly one week after being released from her reconstruction surgery. It was a Thursday morning when Victoria called me at work. She had just finished taking Brodie to the park and her only remaining drain was filling up with blood and filling up fast. The rate was alarming, roughly 50cc per 15 minutes. I immediately left work and sped home fearing that I would have to take Victoria to the Emergency room. In the meantime Victoria had called the plastic surgeon to notify him of the situation. He wanted her to come in immediately. After arriving home I took her to the doctor’s office. The surgeon walked in, examined Victoria, told her to sit tight and calmly walked out of the room. We could hear him through the door talking on the phone. “I need an anesthesiologist to meet me immediately at Arrowhead Hospital”. There was a pause as he dialed another number. “I need an operating room immediately, it’s an emergency”. The doctor cam
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Surgery Update

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Just a quick update to let everyone know that Victoria is out of surgery. She seems to be doing much better than the last surgery. Her pain is under control, she has good energy, is eating well, and is in good spirit.
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Final Chemo and Surgery

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Hi All, Victoria had her final chemo treatment last week. This was a very good day for the both of us. Prior to recieving her final chemo she had a bone scan and a CT scan. The doctor reviewed the results with us prior to going into chemo and confirmed that she is in complete remission and there was nothing suspect on either of the scans. He said Victoria could have her port removed and that he would see her in 6 months. This was quite the emotional experience as just over a year ago Victoria had been diagnosed. The doctor gave Victoria a big hug and told her it's time to put this behind you and live your life. Currently, I am sitting in the hospital waiting for Victoria to come out of surgery. She is having the tissue expanders taken out and having the permanent implants put in. I'm expecting an update any minute, and will post again later today after she has come out of recovery. Although, I do not like these surgeries and I do not like to see Victoria go t
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Happy New Year!

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Happy New Year! As you all know 2012 was an especially challenging year for Victoria and a year that we are happy to put behind us. If you saw or talked to Victoria today you wouldn’t even sense what she has been through. Her strength and positive attitude through every challenge along the way has been absolutely amazing! I’m proud to be the husband of somebody with such resiliency. The last time that I blogged Victoria was roughly two thirds the ways through her radiation treatment and we were preparing for the Race for the Cure. We had a wonderful turnout for the race for the cure and the team rose well over $2,000.00, which was donated to Susan G. Komen. The tail end of Victoria’s radiation was extremely brutal. Her skin was significantly burned, and turned a dark purple. She was in an incredible amount of pain due to the burns and there was little that could be done to help ease the pain. Victoria did see a wound doctor who was eventually able to manage the pain s
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Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure

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Hello All, Our wonderful friends have put together a team, in honor of Victoria, to participate in the 20th annual Phoenix Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure. The race will take part on 14 October 2012 here in Phoenix. Victoria has been an incredible inspiration to me and I'm sure to many others. She has faced this battle courageously and has never lost sight of the goal to win this war! Fortunately, Victoria has had access to excellent healthcare and an unwavering support system composed of a loving family and incredible friends. Unfortunately, breast cancer is not selective of it's victims and there are countless people that have and will continue to benefit from Susan G. Komen. So, how can you show your support for Victoria and Susan G. Komen? Visit the team page for Victoria at: http://phoenix.info-komen.org/site/TR/RacefortheCure/PHX_PhoenixAffiliate?team_id=233258&pg=team&fr_id=2646 -Sign up to join our team -If you can't join our team, but want to sho
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Radiation, What to do?

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It's been a busy summer for Victoria, Brodie and I. We finally moved back into our house and have had to travel out of state for a couple of weddings. Normalcy is beginning to finally settle in, well somewhat. Victoria is doing extremely well! Her attitude couldn't be better and she seems to be feeling great. Her hair is coming back, thick, beautiful and brown, yes brown! The medical and surgical oncologist both recommended that Victoria see a radiation oncologist to determine whether or not she need to receive radiation treatment. Prior to meeting with the radiation oncologist both Victoria and I agreed that the doctor would have to present a pretty strong case regarding Victoria's condition in order for her to go through radiation. We left the appointment not knowing what direction to take as the doctor had essentially described Victoria as being in a "grey" area and did not clearly provide any significant reason for Victoria going through radiation. Ho
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The Results Are In

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Victoria and I met with the surgical oncologist today and we couldn't have received better news. The pathology report came back from the lymph nodes and all of the breast tissue that was removed during Victoria's surgery and no cancer could be detected. The doctor told us that Victoria had a full pathological response and is in remission. This happens in about 15-20% of patients with Victoria's type of breast cancer. The chemotherapy did it's job and killed all of the cancer cells! As you can imagine this was very exciting news for us. Victoria and I are definitely ecstatic about the news and are looking forward to the road of recovery ahead of us. She will still finish out another 7 months of herceptin infusions, and will be on tamoxifen pills for the next 5 years. The herceptin is to prevent the type of breast cancer that she had from returning in what little amount of breast tissue she has remaining and the tamoxifen is to prevent cancer from showing up somew
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