Darren LeBlanc

Two new photo galleries. Click on the photos below to link to the galleries.

First, the Easter Egg Hunt with Livi and her best friend Violet.

And some pics from Easter lunch.

I have a couple great news clips for you:

In February, a court in Cardiff, Wales, once again released Thelma Dennis, 50, to get therapy for her addiction of making bogus emergency (”999″) telephone calls, even though she has been prosecuted about 60 times in 24 years on similar charges. In an earlier case, Dennis agreed to a therapy that sent painful shocks through her body every time she dialed 999, and she remained free of problems for four years but reoffended recently by making up a bomb threat against a store. [BBC News, 2-8-08]

And one more:

Toronto police announced in February that they had arrested the man who had stolen a backhoe with the intention of driving it to a car wash in order to break down a wall and get at the facility’s coin machine. The call to police came from a snow plow that was hot on the backhoe’s heels, with the driver having diverted from his route to chase the thief. [Toronto Star, 2-13-08]

On the slightly-less-funny front, Misty had a pretty rough day. The high dose of chemo that they gave her yesterday came with an equally heightened share of side effects. Today was marginally better…but no where near good. Our (now 15 months old!!) daughter gave us a few good chuckles today though…she’s always good for a few laughs :)

We met with Dr Raval today (Misty’s Neuro-Oncologist) and reviewed her MRI. Seems that the cancer grew a small bit from last months scan. Basically, if she weren’t on any treatment, the cancer would grow very significantly in a month (hence the “stage IV” moniker) – SO, the small amount of growth means that the drugs are kinda working…but not quite. In this game, “kinda” doesn’t really buy you much. So, starting tomorrow, we are increasing the dose on both of her drugs. Hopefully these new dosages will make nexts months results a little more encouraging.

I wish I had better news. But hey, this is where faith is grown, right?

Every once in a while, things just work out well. Today Misty was feeling pretty good and a friend (my dear Megan Z)  decided to take misty to Milagro Spa for a pedicure. As with just about every woman, pampering is always a treat. So this afternoon was nice. And Misty has pink toes.

Tonight also marked a joyous occasion as I laid the Treo 650 to is eternal resting place. Many of you have called me on my 908 number and received an annoying message about the phone being broken. Well…you know you are too busy when you pay for like 4 months of cell service when the phone is completely broken. Anyway…misty has that phone number now for her shiny new LG.

Tomorrow, will also be a good day. Misty has an MRI in the morning. We wont get the results for a couple days…but we are really hoping that this shows some forward motion. It seems all these things just bring bad news more than they bring good news.

Oh…and I got a haircut today. (thanks Gena)

I wish things were going better.  Misty had her chemo on friday and she has been pretty sick and quite discouraged.  Admittedly, with everything going on in life, its a bit difficult dealing with a 14 month old (and an energetic, fairly strong-willed one, at that…haha). But, without fail…this little girl brings a smile when we are down. We can’t help but be happy just watching her be a kid.

Click on the picture below to see some new pictures of Olivia. She is our joy.

The associated Press reports: A government study shows, 1 in 4 teenage girls nationwide, is currently infected by some sexually transmitted disease.

Full story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23574940

We really have to do a better job of teaching teens the truth about sex. 

Today was a great day.  This round of chemo has actually been much better for Misty. Today, I got home from work and she and her mom had cleaned and decorated the entire house for Easter. Now, I’m good with making dinner and many other domestic responsibilities, but I’m not the best with staying on top of home organization or especially…decoration. So it really made her happy to have a beautiful house today. Its the little things in life sometimes that bring smiles…

Well, with everything thats going on in life, a few bucks starts to count. So I’m pretty excited that I was able to get a promotion at work. I’m now the manager of a 17 person branch. I start on monday! Hope fully that will go well. We’ll see…

Misty and I just got home from the surgery. It went well. She is in a lot of pain, but doing ok.

The details:
We got to the hospital and went through the usual pre-surgery routine. Everyone was friendly. We ended up back in a hall outside of the operating room waiting to talk to the surgeon before the surgery. From the room two doors down, we could hear the doctor and the nurse discussing what sounded like Misty’s surgery. The bits and pieces that I could hear made it clear that they were concerned about something.

So, being the slightly over-anxious person that I am, I went in the office and asked if everything was ok. I was given the standard patronizing smile (extra large and overly fake) and was told that the doctor will be right out to discuss. So, here’s the deal. The doctor came out and told us that one of the medications that Misty is on (Avastin) has a warning from the manufacturer. A person taking the drug needs to be off it for 28 days before having surgery and cannot resume use untill 28 days after the surgery. So, the doctor obviously had some concerns. By the time he had gotten to us, he had already called our neuro-oncologist and discussed this. So, we had to weigh the pros and cons. Basically, this surgery would be significan’t higher risk for bleeding and clotting for misty than it would be for most people. However, declining the surgery would leave us in a place where Misty would have to have a series of temporary PICC lines put in her arm if she were going to get the chemo treatments (regular IV lines are not an option anymore, with her veins). A PICC line is very suseptible to infection and causes a significant amount of pain and discomfort while it is in. So (as you can tell by the subject line), we went through with the surgery.  There aren’t too many options and the risks of clotting or bleeding are lower than the risk of infection with a PICC.

Misty is in a good bit of pain, but the doctor said the surgery went well. He doesn’t expect any problems.  So that’s good news. Now, we will just be a little extra cautious for the next few days. Knowing us, we will inevitably be on google tonight trying to find every possible symptom of blood clotting and internal bleeding :)

As I mentioned a few days ago, we have had quite a bit of trouble getting an IV setup on Misty for Chemo and MRIs.  She has even had a lot of trouble getting her blood drawn at the lab each week (giving blood is easier than an IV because the needle is smaller). Our doctor wants Misty to have a fairly simple surgery tomorrow to implant a Mediport.

A Mediport is a device that is implanted under your skin below your collar bone so that medications may be delivered directly into your blood system. When the port is “accessed”, a special needle is placed through the skin into the reservoir through a plastic membrane called a septum. The raised “septum” is made from a self-sealing rubber, which allows repeated injections into the port so that you do not need to get injected directly into the skin or have an IV line inserted each time you require medication.

Anyway, we are having this done tomorrow. It will just be a day stay. This should make life easier…but Misty is not at all looking forward to it.