teamsam.com Blog

November 3, 2007

By Margot | November 3, 2007

We are back in The Show!  Apparently, we were never actually out, just mistakenly hopped on the wrong bus.  We met with the head of San Diego radiology yesterday, Dr. Harvey, very nice smart guy. He went over the MIBG and MRI scans with Neil (I was on my way – had to pick up Sam from school so missed the analysis), the scans from April, August and October.  He said Sam’s October scan is clean and that the MRI and MIBG don’t have anything that look like disease.  Thank goodness. We are so happy, we’re back up to cloud six.  Now, if we can get Sam’s ankles taken care of -Ortho appointment Monday morning, we’ll be in good shape.  I was talking to people about he MIBG results and several people said, “You sound so calm about it.”  I think because we saw the scan from so many different views and the static scan looked so perfectly clean to me, I wasn’t sure I actually believed the “increased uptake” in the report.  According to Dr. Harvey, there are legal reasons why the radiologists have to err on the side of caution.  Good thing we didn’t totally freak out and start Sam back on IV chemo. I’m very thankful that Dr. Willert got us in to see Dr. Harvey to go over the scans with us. Anyway, we are lucky and have even more to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.  Neil in his unstoppable fashion said to me this morning, “Honey, we’ve been given a gift and this means I’m going to rededicate myself (not that he’s ever undedicated himself) to stopping this disease and I’m not going to rest.”  He doesn’t rest much anyway.Please visit Give Thanks for A Cure this holiday season. I’m trying to get a link on our home page but it seems to be beyond my limited technical abilities to add a link to the banner.  That should happen soon though.
Margot

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November 1, 2007

By Margot | November 1, 2007

What are you thankful for this year?
 
Before I had kids, a friend and I volunteered in Father Joe’s Village in San Diego to feed the homeless on Thanksgiving Day.   As we chopped the rather dicey looking vegetables that had been donated and I served dinner to poor (mostly men) with long dirty fingernails and no family to eat Thanksgiving dinner with, I was thankful I was not them.  I was thankful that I was going to go back to have dinner with family and friends who I loved and who loved me.  I was thankful that I didn’t have to worry about where my next meal was coming from.  Two years ago as I was driving Sam back from The City of Hope Hospital to San Diego I was listening to the radio as he watched a movie.  The host of the radio show was telling her co-hosts about the previous day and how everything had gone wrong with the house that they were trying to buy (or something like that) and her kids were driving her crazy and she said she called up her best girlfriend to lament and her girlfriend said what they always said to each other to help gain perspective, “Laura, our kids don’t have cancer.”  There it was, two people who were thankful on regular basis that they weren’t me and that their kids didn’t have to go through what Sam has gone through.  They were thankful that their kid’s bad days would be healthy kid bad days and not the exponentially worse, cancer kid’s bad days; and that they could be relatively sure that their kids would be with them for many Thanksgivings to come. Read the rest of this entry »

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November 1, 2007

By Margot | November 1, 2007

What are you thankful for this year?
 
Before I had kids, a friend and I volunteered in Father Joe’s Village in San Diego to feed the homeless on Thanksgiving Day.   As we chopped the rather dicey looking vegetables that had been donated and I served dinner to poor (mostly men) with long dirty fingernails and no family to eat Thanksgiving dinner with, I was thankful I was not them.  I was thankful that I was going to go back to have dinner with family and friends who I loved and who loved me.  I was thankful that I didn’t have to worry about where my next meal was coming from.  Two years ago as I was driving Sam back from The City of Hope Hospital to San Diego I was listening to the radio as he watched a movie.  The host of the radio show was telling her co-hosts about the previous day and how everything had gone wrong with the house that they were trying to buy (or something like that) and her kids were driving her crazy and she said she called up her best girlfriend to lament and her girlfriend said what they always said to each other to help gain perspective, “Laura, our kids don’t have cancer.”  There it was, two people who were thankful on regular basis that they weren’t me and that their kids didn’t have to go through what Sam has gone through.  They were thankful that their kid’s bad days would be healthy kid bad days and not the exponentially worse, cancer kid’s bad days; and that they could be relatively sure that their kids would be with them for many Thanksgivings to come. Read the rest of this entry »

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November 1, 2007

By Margot | November 1, 2007

What are you thankful for this year?
 
Before I had kids, a friend and I volunteered in Father Joe’s Village in San Diego to feed the homeless on Thanksgiving Day.   As we chopped the rather dicey looking vegetables that had been donated and I served dinner to poor (mostly men) with long dirty fingernails and no family to eat Thanksgiving dinner with, I was thankful I was not them.  I was thankful that I was going to go back to have dinner with family and friends who I loved and who loved me.  I was thankful that I didn’t have to worry about where my next meal was coming from.  Two years ago as I was driving Sam back from The City of Hope Hospital to San Diego I was listening to the radio as he watched a movie.  The host of the radio show was telling her co-hosts about the previous day and how everything had gone wrong with the house that they were trying to buy (or something like that) and her kids were driving her crazy and she said she called up her best girlfriend to lament and her girlfriend said what they always said to each other to help gain perspective, “Laura, our kids don’t have cancer.”  There it was, two people who were thankful on regular basis that they weren’t me and that their kids didn’t have to go through what Sam has gone through.  They were thankful that their kid’s bad days would be healthy kid bad days and not the exponentially worse, cancer kid’s bad days; and that they could be relatively sure that their kids would be with them for many Thanksgivings to come. Read the rest of this entry »

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November 1, 2007

By Margot | November 1, 2007

What are you thankful for this year?
 
Before I had kids, a friend and I volunteered in Father Joe’s Village in San Diego to feed the homeless on Thanksgiving Day.   As we chopped the rather dicey looking vegetables that had been donated and I served dinner to poor (mostly men) with long dirty fingernails and no family to eat Thanksgiving dinner with, I was thankful I was not them.  I was thankful that I was going to go back to have dinner with family and friends who I loved and who loved me.  I was thankful that I didn’t have to worry about where my next meal was coming from.  Two years ago as I was driving Sam back from The City of Hope Hospital to San Diego I was listening to the radio as he watched a movie.  The host of the radio show was telling her co-hosts about the previous day and how everything had gone wrong with the house that they were trying to buy (or something like that) and her kids were driving her crazy and she said she called up her best girlfriend to lament and her girlfriend said what they always said to each other to help gain perspective, “Laura, our kids don’t have cancer.”  There it was, two people who were thankful on regular basis that they weren’t me and that their kids didn’t have to go through what Sam has gone through.  They were thankful that their kid’s bad days would be healthy kid bad days and not the exponentially worse, cancer kid’s bad days; and that they could be relatively sure that their kids would be with them for many Thanksgivings to come. Read the rest of this entry »

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October 31, 2007

By Margot | October 31, 2007

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
And a Happy one it will be in the Hutchison household.  We got a great MRI report!  The spots that were there in April are still there but they are ALL significantly smaller!  Yahoo!  Healing bone!  Nothing is progressing and since almost nothing is lighting up on MIBG the MRI spots are probably still from radiation and when we progressed last year but they are getting much better.   Thank God!
Neil called me in between a conference call and my driving to Sam’s Halloween Carnival dressed as female Dracula so I didn’t get many details but I’ll post more tomorrow. I was so excited that I slammed my cape in the car door and almost choked myself walking away.  Just call me grace. I have to go help The Increddible Hulk, whose hair is black and face is green get some food into him before Trick or Treating.  Andy’s parade yesterday was great. He makes a very funny dracula but you can’t tell him that because he is scary.   I can’t wait to post the pictuers of him and Sam – they both look fantastic!  Sam has fake blood running down his cheeck that looks very real.  We haven’t dressed up Charlie yet as he stayed with Elizabeth during Sam’s carnival so I could work the tatoo booth but we’ll post pics of him soon.
Yahoo! Thank you for all your support and prayers. 
Margot

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October 30, 2007

By Margot | October 30, 2007

Alert: long post today
Yesterday was the MRI and it was the day from hell.  Poor Sam.  We got up early and he had to be NPO because he was being put to sleep for the scan.  The first thing he said was “I’m hungry.” Usually, music to my ears but of course not yesterday.  He didn’t want any jello, which he could have had until 7:30 am.  Then just as we were about to leave at 8:30am, he wanted the jello which of course he couldn’t have (or so I thought) by then.  Ugh.  We got to the hospital at 9 for a special TGF beta blood draw that we drew from Sam and Max Mikulak and fed-exed both samples to Dr. Belanger’s lab.  Then we went to check in for the scan.  It took a long time for them to call us (we got through almost five chapters of the new Magic Treehouse book) and I was wondering why they were so lax about the timing w(hen the scan was at 11:00.   They checked us in at about 10:45, weighed Sam, did blood pressure and I filled out all the paperwork and then the nurse said, Ok.  Come back in about an hour and 15 minutes.  What!?  “Oh yes, says the nurse, the scan is at 12:30, check in time was at 11:00.  I still don’t how who screwed that one up -me or the nurse that called me about it but I could swear we had the scan down for 11.  Ugh another hour of no eating.  So Sam and I decided we’d better make a plan of exactly what he was going to have when he woke up and he said he wanted to go with me to Soup Plantation.  It was a date.  In the meantime, we zipped over to Toys R Us to kill some time and picked up a few new small transformers for the boys.  They were all out of the medium sized Bumblebee (Sam’s favorite guy) but we found a little guy. Tangent -  A quick Sam story about the Transformer movie:  Neil rented it for the boys who absolutely loved it  -   Funny that a literary agent who is currently trying to sell a book called The Sex Violence and Junk Food Diet: What the Media is Feeding Your Kids and What you Can Do About It is actually feeding the diet to her own children.   Anyway, age appropirateness aside,  I put Charlie to bed before the movie was over and then when Sam came upstairs I asked him what happened in the end to Sam, the main guy in the movie.  Sam said, “Uh, (sigh) he kissed.”  as if that ruined the whole movie.  It cracked me up.  Sam and Joe were watching the movie together a week later (Colleen’s feeding her kids the same diet ;-)) and they said “I like this movie but not the end.”  “Yeah, the end is the scary part.”  “Yeah, the scary part is the kissing.”  and then they cracked up. Read the rest of this entry »

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October 25, 2007

By Margot | October 25, 2007

The boys are home all week from school because of the fires.  We are fine, far enough out of the range of the fire that we didn’t have to evacuate.  Neil’s office is right in Rancho Bernardo, the spot most affected by the fires and today is the first day he’s been back to work.  He said the air quality is very bad and he’s only going to work until noon.  Several of the people he works with have lost their houses and Sam’s elementary principal lost her house as well. Our thoughts are with them.  The air around our house has been smokey and the kids have been inside all week. Good Times.Today and yesterday with the winds blowing in from the ocean, the air has cleared quite a bit.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Ocotber 18, 2007

By Margot | October 18, 2007

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October 17, 2007

By Margot | October 17, 2007

“Yeah, I was in the show.  I was in the show for 21 days once – the 21 greatest days of my life.  You know, you never handle your luggage in the show, somebody else carries your bags.  It was great. You hit white balls for batting practice, the ballparks are like cathedrals, the hotels all have room service, and the women all have long legs and brains.” -Crash Davis in Bull Durham
We were NED for exactly one month and nine days.  I drove to the hospital to physically pick up the scan this morning as neither Neil nor I had received a phone call.  Neil drove to the hospital to meet me when I read him the results “Increased uptake in the left distal femur.”  Neil has the actual report now but it says that the spot looks the exact same as it did in the April scan (it was vague then).  So, it was there, then gone and now it’s there again.  The radioligist recommends that we do an MRI.  Neil and I have an appointment with Dr. Roberts to tomorrow morning to talk about a plan.  We’d like to review the scans, compare, April/August/ September scans and ask about the fact that the static scan looked clean to us which seems counter-intuitive.  We are trying not panic but of course we are panicking some.  We’ve been off chemo for the Texas trial so we’ll add that back in -whether it’s IV or oral we’ll decide with Dr. Roberts.  Dr. Willert is at COG -part of the delay in getting our results.  Our HVA was 7.5 (down) and VMA was 3.2 up by .4 (not much).
I should have more information tomorrow after we meet with Dr. Roberts. Read the rest of this entry »

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