In May 2009, less than a year after I returned for a deployment in Iraq and our little girl was not quite a year old, Jeannie was diagnosed with Melanoma. She has quietly fought to win the battle against the disease while maintaining her dignity, self esteem, and love for her family. We have been able to enjoy life during this time by enjoying time with the kids, small trips and vacations such as camping, etc. We were able to go to the bahamas for our 10th anniversary in 2010. Jeannie had numerous surgeries during this fight, chemotherapies, radiation, etc. but in late 2011, the cancer came back with a vengeance.
Cancer strikes hard
In late December we packed up the kids and drove out to Wyoming to visit with her family for the holidays.
Two days before Christmas, I (Jeannie's Husband) took her to the emergency room with severe headaches. They found that the melanoma had spread to her brain in the form of a large, golfball sized tumor. Jeanniewas amazing during this time. She was determined not to let this ruin our Christmas, and you never would have known anything was wrong. After Christmas, we worked hard to find a suitable hospital to remove the tumor, and with the help of family decided to try Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. I was able to contact the doctor that we identified, and setup an appointment for January 2nd (sort of).
Buying a house in the meantime
So we drove home (1500 miles), where we were scheduled to close on our new house by December 30th. We had to go through the whole house purchasing experience not knowing how our future would change in just a couple of days. Jeannie had amazing resolve and peace of mind during this experience. I cannot begin to express how she helped me through this difficult time. Buying a house is not so difficult, buying one when you don't know if your wife is going to be alive in a week is very difficult.
Tumor removed successfully
The trip to Baltimore was very emotional. I was far more nervous, I think than Jeannie was. Fortunately the surgery was a success, and the tumor was removed without any significant issues. Jeannie couldn't believe that she had just had brain surgery, and was pretty much the same as she was before with virtually no symptoms. We found we had lots of family and friends giving us support during this time. I also learned that I had a distant cousin living in Baltimore, and she put me up for a night or two, also we had a sister-in-law living about 30 miles from the hospital with a spare bedroom who put us up for the couple of weeks that we had to stay in the area to be sure that nothing went wrong. Friends and family gave us restaurant gift certificates, and paid for hotel rooms. It was absolutely incredible the amount of support we received. Also, my employer was very understanding and worked with us so that I didn't have to stress about my job. After a week or so back home, we had to drive back to Baltimore in the beginning of February for a "sterotactic surgery" on the site where the tumor was to make sure the tumor wouldn't come back.
Back to the New House
So during all this, our new house was sitting vacant... I hired a friend who was a painter to paint the majority of the inside of the house, and they also had the carpets cleaned for us as a gift. At this point, her parents drove from Wyoming to help us get into the new house. We had to build a new bedroom in the house to make room for all the children, and we had to move the laundry service into the basement. My buddy Brad, helped me to build the bedroom, and then Jeannie's father and my mother were instrumental in finishing the bedroom, and painting the other bedrooms. Jeannie painted Lucas's room with a "Brick wall" for an industrial look that he loved, and Ian's room got a grass bottom part of the wall with sky for the top part of the wall. Elaina's room was setup with her doll house, etc.
During this work, I had to leave for a week to perform my National Guard duty. Everyone loved me for leaving... *grin*
So on Saturday March 23rd I believe like 28 people came to help us move. Four very helpful ladies from work showed up Friday evening to help us pack, and then Saturday it was crazy. We moved everything we had into the new house. I couldn't believe how much stuff we had packed into our little house. I was truly amazed at the outpouring of help from everyone. My coworkers and friends were incredible. They brought food, drinks, trucks, trailers, dollies, etc. It was a very efficient operation. I work with some of the best people in the world.
New Chemo medicine
So after I returned from my week at the National Guard, we started another just released Chemo drug for Melanoma (Yervoy). We had high hopes for this drug as Jeannie had tumors growing again in her body. Unfortunately she really struggled with the drug. It started off OK, but by week 4 she was becoming very sick. By the time we were ready to have the 3rd infusion, we had to quit. It was too taxing on her system. It took her a month or two to recover from this drug.
More Tumors
In May, she had a PET Scan and an MRI, and another tumor was discovered. We scheduled with Johns Hopkins to get it removed. The week before we were supposed to leave, she had a seizure. This seizure was a complete surprise to us as she had never had one. She had been released to drive after the other tumor was removed, and this one was significantly smaller so we never gave it a second thought that she maybe shouldn't be driving? Anyhow, because of the seizure she had a terrible automobile accident, and broke her back. This is when things started to get really difficult. They did an emergency back surgery to fuse for vertabrae together. The next week she had stereotactic surgery to kill the tumor here in Muskegon.
The Stroke
We thought we were doing OK as she was recovering well from the back surgery and the stereotactic surgery. Unfortunately on July 21st, she had a seizure in the morning that she wasn't coming out of. I called the ambulance, and they brought her to the emergency room where they had to do an emergency surgery to stop bleeding in the brain. The tumor that had been killed off had started hemorrahging out of control.
She had been in the hospital since then recovering from the stroke effects. She is doing well in terms of stroke victim recoveries, and has recovered some speech. She is paralyzed on the right side of her body, but is showing some signs of recovery of her limbs.
