Share a Picture or Two

With everything going on, and the uncertainty of the future, I have been trying to gather photos of Dan to put in a book for Jack.  Great minds obviously think alike, because that same day two of Dan's buddies came up with the idea to sign up for a photo sharing website that will allow people to upload and share any special pictures they have of Dan.  Below you will find a link to Photobucket, along with the user name and password.  Please feel free to sign on, check out the photos, and upload any you might want to share.  A big thank you to Coby and Jason for setting this up!

Go to:
www.photobucket.com

user name: DanBarbeau
password: family

Sunshine in the Midst of Rain Clouds

I thought I would start every one's weekend off with some good news....Dan's therapy is going great, and we are only three days in to it!  The staff at Elks Rehab have been phenomenal.  Dan is receiving physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy.  The speech therapy is more of a precaution-he is totally fine in regards to speech and cognitive function, they just like to monitor it to make sure there are no regressions. His therapists are really encouraged by how much strength Dan has, his good health prior to surgery, and his attitude and determination. With some assistance in sitting up Dan is now able to hold himself steady in the sitting position.  They already have him working on standing, albeit assisted, but compared to where we were at the beginning of the week, it is amazing progress!  You can already tell that his movements are becoming more coordinated with each day, as his brain continues to repair itself.

We won't have a plan of discharge from Elks until Wednesday or Thursday.  The plan for discharge is just a target date that Dan and his team works towards to getting him home.  That target date could change of course, depending on his progress.  Right now, best estimate that we have been given is 4-6 weeks.  So, for the next few days we are going to rejoice in his amazing progress as we prepare ourselves for our first oncology appointment Monday.  Once again, thank you all for your love and support!

Pathology & Moving Day

This week has brought about two big steps for us in our journey: the final pathology came back and Dan got moved to Elks Rehab.  Unfortunately, one wasn't good news.   First things first-the pathology. Final pathology shows that Dan's cancer is indeed non-small cell lung cancer, stage IV.  (FYI-all lung cancers that have metastasized to other organs is automatically classified as a stage IV.)  So what does that mean in terms of treatment?  We have no idea at this point, aside from the overload of information you can read on the American Cancer Society website and about a thousand other sites.  We have our first oncology appointment next week, at which time we will have a better idea of what Dan's treatment will look like.

The more exciting news is that Dan got moved over to Elk's Rehab Hospital today!  Thanks to the ill-timed Thanksgiving holiday and an insurance company that took off Thursday and Friday, it took a little longer to get there than we hoped.  Dan will work with the physical therapists up to three hours a day, which is the most allowed.  This is a tribute to his strength and determination to get over this obstacle.  In the next few days, once they have completed their assessment, they will give us a target date to getting Dan home. This target date comes with the understanding that it could move, depending on the rate of progress.  As for visitors-at this point Dan is not ready for visitors.  His body has been through so much this past week and he is going to need some time to adjust to his more rigorous schedule of physical therapy.  We will keep you posted.

Finally, we wanted to thank everyone for their concern, support, and well wishes.  For those who have sent emails, I apologize if I haven't responded yet.  Please know that I will update the blog as soon as we have something worth reporting.  If you don't see a post for a couple of days it is simply because we are just moving forward with our daily tasks, not because something has happened.  We feel so blessed by you all!

Quiet Weekend

I wanted to give you a little update...things have been pretty quiet this weekend (praise God!).  It looks like Dan should get moved to Elks Rehab tomorrow, and we should have final pathology any day.  In the meantime, we have been keeping things pretty low key, watching football, and just looking forward to getting out of the hospital.

This upcoming week looks to be another big one for us, so I will keep you all updated.

A Little Set Back

If you read my prior post, then you know that Dan's tumor was malignant.  Turns out he also has a spot (3 cm) on his lung.  At this point, the natural assumption is that he has lung cancer which has metastasized to his brain.  Our neurosurgeon feels that is what indeed has happened, but until we get the final pathology report sometime next week, we won't know for sure.  I know what you are thinking, and no-there is no good reason why Dan should have lung cancer. He never smoked one cigarette, his work  environment was not an issue, as far as we know he had no radon exposure.  For his risk factors and age, Dan fits into the 1% category of people who have lung cancer.  We may never know why.

The more pressing issue we have been facing the past couple of days is the fact that Dan developed what is called Wallenberg Syndrome.  Essentially that means he had a mini-stroke.  We don't know when this occurred, there are several possibilities.  What has happened is he has no sense of balance.  He has some strength in his arms/legs, numbness in his hands/feet, and no ability to sit up or stand.  When the physical therapist gets him sitting up on the bed, he feels like he is floating in water and has trouble determining where his mid-point is.  He is also having trouble with his hand/eye coordination.   The good news is that the doctor feels that most or all of his function can be restored through heavy physical therapy.  So, that means they will be moving Dan to Elks Rehab Hospital (across the street from where he currently is).  They are going to start him on a heavy 3-hour a day rehab program with the hopes that he can become independent in the next few weeks and we can get him home.  This will be very important as we also need to begin his radiation/chemo treatments once we have final pathology.

The current plan is to get him transferred to Elks as soon as possible (there is a shot it could happen today, Saturday, but may not be until early next week).  Dan's mom is coming next week, and once he is settled, there will be some opportunity for limited visitation.  With so much happening, Dan has not felt up to receiving visitors, and he tires easily.  We know everyone is concerned, and is thinking of him and I hope this blog will be a good source to try and keep everyone updated.  Please feel free to leave a message for Dan on here and I will read them all to him.  We really appreciate all your love and support!

Surgery

Surgery........for this particular part of our journey we didn't prepare very well.  When we met with the Neurosurgeon, he said that Dan could be out of the hospital in 24-48 hours.  We both interpreted that to mean that the surgery was somehow less serious, or invasive than it was.  Let's face it, they were going to cut open his head and remove a huge tumor that had invaded a very sensitive area of the body.  In hindsight, none of that sounds like something that warrants being discharged from the hospital in 24 hours.  But away we went, and really, what choice did we have?

Our check in time at the hospital was 9:30am.  After prepping him in pre-op, they brought me back to wait, and wait, and wait some more.  The surgery prior to ours ran long, so Dan got in to surgery about the time we had expected him to come out.  So we waited.  And surgery ran a little long, so we waited yet again.  Finally, we got notice they were finishing up and the surgeon would be out shortly to talk to us (myself, my dad, and step-mom).  The good news:  the surgeon was able to remove all of the tumor, including the part that had just begun to grow into the brain stem. The tumor had been blocking the area that drains spinal fluid, and upon removal, it began to drain again on it's own.  This was great news, as plan B would have required a tube to be placed in Dan's head to re-route the drainage of the fluid.  The bad news: initial pathology showed that the tumor was malignant and did not originate in the brain, but had spread from somewhere else.

After recovery, they moved Dan into ICU (standard procedure) for 24 hours, then we were able to move to the neuro wing of the hospital.  Now it was just a matter of waiting for the final pathology report.

How it Began

The first question we have been getting is "Did you know this was coming?"  The answer is no.  At the beginning of October Dan was hunting up near New Meadows when he jumped out of the truck and had a moment of light headedness.  It passed and he never thought any more of it.  A few weeks later, while traveling for work, he woke up with a horrible case of dizziness and vomiting and went to an urgent care clinic.  Dan had noticed a little pressure in his ears, and with his prior history of having terrible allergies and sinus issues, it looked like he had a bad sinus infection.  The doctor prescribed and antibiotic and anti-inflammatory.  This is when the symptoms began to get masked....the anti-inflammatory reduced the inflammation around his tumor and gave him some relief.  When the medications ran out, the symptoms came back.  Dan followed up with an ENT PA in town, and based on the symptoms, determined that he likely had an inner ear infection.  He gave him a stronger and longer dose of antibiotics and another anti-inflammatory, again giving relief to the symptoms.  Once again, when the dosage was done, with symptoms came back.

Dan and Jack carving pumpkins this year

The light headedness upon standing became a more prominent issue.  As you can image, Dan was really frustrated.  The ENT PA told him he was fine.  He followed up with his GP which diagnosed him as having Positional Vertigo.  A couple of really rough days followed, and with Dan's mounting frustration, our Chiropractor referred him to a PT who specialized in Vertigo treatment.  His appointment was Monday, November 12. It was during that appointment the PT (our Angel, Connie at STARS), got to witness his lightheadedness first hand.  They noticed his pupils dilated to two different sizes.  She knew something was wrong and sent him immediately over to the emergency room.  After 8 gruelling hours of tests and waiting at the emergency room, Dan came home to tell me the results-there was a tumor in his brain.  My world stopped.

The emergency room had set up a referral for a Neurosurgeon, Dr. Montalbano, for Wednesday morning, November 14.  The next day and a half was filled with fear, sorrow, tears, and lots of questions as we waited to find out what we were dealing with.  At the doctors appointment we were told the tumor was about the size of an apricot, located in the back of the head in the cerebellum.  It had begun to block the channel of the brain stem where spinal fluid drains.  Dan needed to have it removed soon, as left in his brain, were were looking at no more than 3 weeks before it would become fatal.  What we didn't share with everyone was the fact that Dan had two additional lesions in his brain.  The other two were much smaller, but still a concern.  Until the tumor could be removed and biopsied, we weren't sure what we were dealing with.  We knew telling everyone about all 3 tumors would be really overwhelming, and at this point, we couldn't answer any questions.  So we opted to stick with the things we did know, and give ourselves time to process what we could be facing in our very near future.  Surgery was scheduled for Tuesday, November 20 at St. Luke's Boise.

Thanks to a heavy duty anti-inflammatory, Dan actually felt pretty good the week leading up to the surgery.  We were so thankful for the time to get some things in order, arrange leave from our employers, get my parents out here to stay with Jack, and have time as a family.  We took Jack swimming nearly everyday, managed to squeeze in a date night, and overall just hung out.   What we weren't prepared for was the next few days to come.....

Our Family

Just a little background information for those of you who may not know how our little family got started.....Dan and I met in 2003 with the help of a little website called Match.com.  Out of over a hundred profiles that supposedly matched my criteria, Dan was one of only 2 who I really had any interest in contacting...boy am I glad I did!  We hit it off immediately and found that he worked out everyday at the Downtown YMCA, which is where I worked at the time.  I truly believe that he was meant for me and we would have met one way or another.  We married in 2004 and set out building our lives together.  Dan indulged my wanderlust and we traveled to British Columbia, Cancun, Cabo, Costa Rica, France, and Spain.  I embraced my inner river rat and learned to kayak and raft. Dan also taught me the importance of having the correct gear and base layers to keep warm in the winter to enjoy the outdoor activities I would normally have avoided!  Things were pretty darn good....and then they became great.

Dan, Jack, and I at the Boise State vs. Fresno game in September

In February 2008 (Leap day to be exact, a bet that I lost with Dan!) we welcomed our beautiful little boy, Jack Thomas Barbeau.  Our would as we knew ceased to exist, and it was awesome.  The past four (almost five!) years have been filled with fun, excitement, learning, growing, and never a dull moment (don't let me kid you-we also had some exhaustion, tears, frustrations, fears and over all anxiety of being a parent, but they take a backseat to the good stuff).  We have been very fortunate to have some awesome adventures with Jack, and the amount of joy he gives back to us is immeasurable.  What a blessing!