Jaimee Makes The Paper

Logan, Utah's Herald Journal has an article about Jaimee's run with Team Tumor.

The first picture is just as she finished her very hard 1st leg. The 2nd is Jaimee and Sherri mid-run half way through the 1st leg.

These pictures Were printed in the paper. Let me say, we are all proud of her, as well as the other members of her team!

Marathon Woman

Jaimee started the marathon this morning. It's been a long road.

The iron transfusions have been tough. She had a PICC line placed a couple of days before the first infusion of June 9th. It's caused some problems but she's dealing. The infusions themselves have been hard. She was really sick, dizzy, everything in her body ached, stuff like that. The dr. said it is hard on her body and organs because they were so depleted. On the 9th he told her she shouldn't run the marathon and gave her a note to that effect.

She did her 2nd infusion on the 16th, two days ago. While it's been hard and she hasn't felt well, it hasn't been as hard as the first one. Hopefully the last one next week will be easier. AND she can get the PICC line out on Wed. This week, after she explained to the dr. how careful she would be at the marathon (walk instead of run if need be, stop if she feels too bad) he gave her a note that said she could participate. The note made it so the support van would stay close to her so if a problem arose she could stop immediately.

That being said......Sue drove her up early this morning so she could get a night's sleep in her own bed. She was in Logan by 8:30 am or so. She ran and walked her first leg which was 6.7 miles. It was really, really hard but she shed tears of joy after completing it. She said her teammates were awesome and so encouraging. And it was so hard she didn't think she could do it. But she made it! After her whole life of battling asthma, 2 rounds of chemo and all else, today our Jaim is a marathon runner. (The picture above was taken after her first must difficult run, meaning...she survived! :))

We know her health problems are not anywhere near as tough as some of those of her dear, dear friends. They have been such an inspriation for her and I'm sure she has been for some of them as well.

She runs her next leg at 9:30 pm tonight. It's only 3 miles long. The 3rd leg is 3.3 miles and I don't know how long the last one is. The marathon will end at 9:30 tomorrow night!

Go Jaimee Go!

Fred's Dead!

Good news everyone. Fred is Dead! Gone. Zip. Nada. Jaim will be on antibiotics for a couple of more weeks to make sure that bugger stays away, but right now he is history.

AND, the tumor didn't grow any more. We'll take that, although it does need to shrink.

Just one more hurdle in the foreseeable future and that is the iron transfusion. It ends up being a nightmare for Jaimee because of her veins, but she is going to request a PICC line (you know it's bad when Jaimee would rather have a PICC line than what happened the last time). The other possibility is (I think) a mid-line. It still needs an xray machine to use when putting it in, but it isn't as invasive as the PICC line. We also have to watch carefully for signs of her being allergic to the transfusion (as happened before). But let's keep our fingers crossed.

Dare we hope Jaimee can have a break on things medical for a minute?

A Bump in the Road

We guess things just can't go smooth. Anyone out there have a smooth-running life?

Jaimee's "non-smooth" life seems to keep on bumping along. She has started having some symptoms related to the tumor. As long as the tumor is asymptomatic there is nothing that needs to be done to get rid of the bugger. But when the symptoms come, then we need to look at options again. Options may be discussed after her next scan.

A problem unrelated to the tumor has cropped up this week. Long story short, after a really frightening episode this week the doctor told Jaimee she has a dangerously low level of iron in her blood. So she'll be getting an iron transfusion. This isn't the same for her as a problem-free blood transfusion, in fact it's going to be pretty yukky. But hopefully it will help the things that have been going on.

AND...two weeks until the marathon. Even if all she can do is walk, she's going to do it. What a test of will this is, not just for her but for all the participants who are helping to raise awareness and funds to aid the American Cancer Society in their fight against this deadly, crummy disease.

Run Jaimee Run

It's been a while, so I'll catch everyone up.

Jaimee had a scan Monday (the 10th) and it shows the abscess is almost gone. The dr. says he thinks in another month it'll be totally gone. Yahoo!

On a worse note, the tumor has grown a little bit. We don't like that one bit, but right now the dr. just wants to watch and see what it does. Jaim can wait a month for the next scan, so it's just watch and wait until then. She's been having some symptoms like she had when the tumor was first discovered, but not as many as before. Not good news but she's handling it.

AND, Jaimee has joined Team Tumor through the American Cancer Society. She has some wonderful friends from work who have and are battling cancer, and they invited her to participate. (Side note: These have been the most amazing friends and we are so grateful for them.) She's kind of nervous because the asthma makes running harder, but she's giving it a good shot. So far she's been training really well, has had some ups and downs, but she's doing it. We (I) figure she might get sick afterward, but it has been the most wonderful mental boost for her so we all support her. We are really proud of her. This marathon is a 24-hr. marathon and they run "legs," so she won't be running straight through but run 4-8 miles or so, then rest, maybe sleep some, and get ready for their next leg. This maraton is in June, so we'll let you know how it went.

Update

In the last 2 weeks Fred has not made any moves to leave. He isn't growing but he's not leaving. So Jaimee is now on 2 antibiotics (instead of just 1 that she's been on), an extra anti-seizure medicine to see if it helps (she had an event last weekend) and some other stuff. She is generally doing OK, just really tired of the time it takes to do what the doctor wants--not to mention the money.

Will this ever end?

Drop Dead Fred!

Well, the scan this week showed Fred is sitting there just as he always does. He isn't leaving but he hasn't decided to grow, either. Meanwhile, Jaimee and Raheem are getting a well-deserved two nights away. Just think, they can both sleep all night (unless they lay awake worrying about the kiddos back home). Next week, it's back to the doctor to see what he wants to do in the never-ending quest to get Fred to DROP DEAD!