RIP Casey

Sadly my cousin Casey passed away Nov 20th in Las Vegas after fighting leukemia for several years at many of the best medical institutions including Calgary, UCLA and the SCCA. After much more pain and hardship and with greater character and humor then anyone I’ve known, he lived past the doctors’ conceptions of what a leukemia patient can live through. Many called him the miracle patient and after the mutliple rounds of chemo and bone marrow transplants, some books on the subject will probably need to be rewritten about what leukemia can do to the body over time. A lot of it was unchartered territory due to what he’s been able to live through and experience as the cancer progressed.

Aside from being a great blogger he certainly inspired and set an amazing example for me and numerous others, he was a great patient’s advocate and he also taught all of us, including his doctors and nurses, that anything is possible and no one can be written off easily (in his case this may be due simply to being Canadian or praticing a Kimball tricks based life-philosophy?). He was a great tribute to our family and will be dearly missed by any who knew him and were subsuquently helped by him. Any honorary doctorate degrees in Oncology for teaching so many doctors can be directed to his family.

Melanoma Surgery

Dr. Ting at Swedish was my first surgeon for the Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy on March 18th. I’ve been very happy with the results from both surgeries at Swedish (and Melissa’s). The results came back that of the two most likely nodes to have the cancer spread to one had a very minor (smaller than) microscopic amount of Melanoma cells. With this cancer any amount is bad and they recommended removing all Nodes from my right hip to see if there was anything else, even though there was a good chance that by this point they had removed all cancer from my body. Annie and Vanessa were able to come out and help me recover over Easter Time. Having them here with Melissa helped a lot and it was great to spend time with happy little Vanessa.

Unfortunately on the day I got the test results back from the first surgery was the day that my father Ed passed away at 60 from a Pulmonary Embolism on March 26, 2008 while playing Softball. While the funeral was difficult and I miss him very much it was good to see so much of my supportive family at this time who came out to honor my father. My work and Melissa’s and our friends have also been very supportive during this time and have made us thankful for all those we know.

The second surgery was done by Surgical Oncologist Dr. Holder, who is one of only two doctors in the state who does this type of surgery. On Apr 17 they removed another 5 lymph nodes from the right inguinal region, a 10” incision. The results came back clear! But we were still recommended to see an Oncologist for further treatment. Leading up to the second surgery Melissa was also in a lot of pain from a hernia in her right hip (inguinal region) too. At first we thought she was having sympathy pain, but the pain for her quickly got worse and she was forced to stay in bed. After searching for an available surgeon, ironically she was finally directed to Dr. Holder to do the surgery a week after mine on Apr 23^rd. It was good to share doctor’s visits with her. We were both laid up in bed together (a new bed thanks to mom!) and we’re grateful to have my mom and Melissa’s dad out to help us for the two weeks we couldn’t help each other. What amazing help we’ve had from our families.

Both of us have slowly been recovering well to almost full activity. With Physical Therapy I am able to avoid a lot of the long term after effects of the surgery like leg swelling, numbness, nerve pain and decreased use.

Day of Melissa's surgery & week after E's Surgery

Brandon Happy in New Bed!