Friday, January 07, 2011

Family Health Updates

We have a dusting of snow on the ground, but Jimmy doesn't seem to think that it will last long and just melt away just as soon as the sun makes it appearance today.  We've had a pretty good week, Jimmy is feeling good and we've gone out to eat with Zac and his beautiful fiance Jen.  Zac took us to Papaleno's one of the town's more quaint Italian restaurants, and one of our personal favorites.  We also were treated to lunch at Ryan's by Ron earlier in the week and then yesterday we took Ron to one of our other favorite dining places, Golden Corral.  Jimmy & Ron love buffets and I have to admit that I love them too.

Reva is home from the hospital and is feeling better with each passing day.  She had a bad case of Pancreatitis and is working on finding out what caused it.  The doctors took her off some of her medications which were highly suspicious so it's now a wait and see game, plus a referral to a Gastroenterologist.

Ron, what can I say about Ron only that Kentucky seems to be THE BEST MEDICINE for what ails Ron.   He is extremely happy and this new found happiness that he's found is doing wonders for his health.  His blood tests came back great but we're all still waiting to hear about his CAT Scan results and hopefully he'll get good news there too!

Yesterday Jimmy got the results of his recent PET SCAN and is now referred to two different surgeons.  Jimmy has a nodule in his left lung and a polyp or some suspicious growth in his colon which are both going to be biopsied.  We're all hopeful that these will both be benign growths and nothing more.  As I said earlier, Jimmy is feeling fine and in no pain.  He just has good doctors who are always looking for something to cure by ordering tests, scans & x-rays and once again they found something and it's good that they find these things early.

Jimmy's heart is also being checked and he's currently wearing a state of the art heart monitor for 30 days.  It's so small and only has two leads so he doesn't mind it at all.  It's about the size of a cell phone and can be carried in his pocket or clipped to his belt and best of all removed for showering.  It's all automatic and he does nothing but wear it and the little cell phone/heart monitor combo sends the readings to the heart monitoring place all on it's own.

Jimmy has been extremely lucky and doesn't fear the word 'cancer,' when it comes to himself because of the care he's been given by his medical team and their proactive care.  Since his first cancer diagnosis, which turned out to be two separate and distinct cancers in two different organs, over 16 years ago, Jimmy has been checked frequently.  For the first 5 years he was seen every 3 months and then it was spread to every 6 months and on occasion he was told he didn't have to return for a year.  Although sometimes Jimmy gets frustrated with all the doctors he has to see, I am very pleased that they look out for him so well and find problems early while they are still small and can be treated easily and successfully.  Jimmy often laughs and says that he's running out of organs that he can give up but he still has two or three left.

We know that cancer is not a laughing matter, but what else can you do but laugh and go on living until the next cancer scare rears it's ugly head.

1 comment:

Motherkitty said...

You have to give Jimmy all the credit in the world for facing his health issues with good common sense and good humor. I have always loved his good attitude about life and not letting physical ailments get him down. I only wish he would re-acquire his ability to smell and taste. Then life would be A-1 for him.