Lulu's feet hurt

Today I'm grateful for:
Motivational stories to guide me
Four inspiring children
Feeling better then I have aright too
A long, warm, sunny summer

I can't believe that it has been over a month since my last journal entry? Where has the month of July gone? The Wilkerson family has had a great summer and August promises to be even better. We have two birthdays to celebrate this month, both mommy, and Carter. It's beyond comprehension that I have raised a soon to be 10 year old boy. I look at Carter and see many attributes of not just myself, but of Lulu too. I'm really not sure where he got his voice though? Neither Lulu or I can sing, but Carter can carry a tune and he is interested in singing. Lulu will be celebrating her 42 birthday on August 15. I'm not sure how she feels about the big day, but I now from experience that she really enjoys the excitement of the birthday event (whether it's her own or others). I just feel lucky to be there to see her 42 birthday.

The family spent a few days in San Francisco while Lulu and her older sister, Doris, were seeing the doctors at UCSF cancer center. Doris just wanted the same doctors that are treating Lulu to follow her heath. She had them look at her mammograms, blood tests, and do an exam. Nothing can motivate you more then seeing a loved one go through preventable cancer treatment? Doris' heath was found to be excellent. Lulu's appointments were a little more eventful.

Lulu has been taking the bone marrow treatment medication Sutent for just over 40 days now, and one side effect has been plaguing her since the first few dosages. Her feet became pain full at the end of week one, and until she stopped the medications they weren't getting any better. Lulu and been dealing with the foot issue for two weeks, but was having a difficult time walking more then one hour a day, so when she just couldn't handle it any more she called the oncologist for advice. The doctors recommended that she stop the Sutent and see if her symptoms don't improve? I think they both her and I were surprised that she could stop the drug even for a day or two. Would this cause a decreased effectiveness for the trial? Luckily, lulu's feet issues cleared up within a day period and she was able to start back on e drug soon after. Three weeks later, she still having foot pain, but not enough to interrupt her taking the drug. The doctors did recommend that the original drug dosage to be reduced by half. At the last doctors appointment (July 27), Lulu had her blood tested, examination done, and consultation on mostly the side effects of the drug treatments. As of this date she was taking Sutent, oral chemotherapy drugs, Hypothyroid drug, Synthroid, and daily Ibuprofen. Besides the feet issues, Lulu has been having hip pain, and she was describing the symptoms (severity, length of time, and when it gets worse)? After hearing Lulu's explanation the oncologists was concerned enough to recommend that she has a full body scan. This took me by surprise, because I thought that the foot issues were the biggest problems that she was facing, but now I learned that her hips were equally painful?

Lulu's reconstructive surgery is just a month away. On September 2nd. Lulu and I will be traveling down to SF for the "put Lulu back together surgery". Though she's not as concerned about this surgery as she was about the cancer surgery in May, there's still some apprehension approaching September 2 date. The surgeons will be replacing the expansion appliances with breast implants during the 3 to 4 hour surgery. We will be staying there for 2 nights and most of 3 days for the whole thing. Coordination of the whole surgery date has been a big deal. Who cares for the kids, coverage of the office, where to stay for the surgery, the recovery period, and such have been the topic of discussions lately. One thing that I have really learn to do with all that Lulu and I have faced this last year is to allow my wife time to plan and the ability to change her mind without getting upset. She deserves a lot of support and understanding form me, and it's asking very little to give it to her. This next month (maybe more), will be just another step in the recovery process from breast cancer, and closer to being cancer free for life.

I have just finished another fun, inspirational, and motivational book on my iPhone. I just have to share with you. The author Tony Hsieh is one of the founders of Zappos.com an online shoe and merchandising company that Lulu and I have admired his ability to motivate and inspire his Zappos employees. We have been influenced to role parts of our dental practice to follow the culture, core values of a billion dollar company known more for the care for it's employees then for the shoes it sells. Delivering Happiness, is well written and a very interesting read even for people that are running a business. I learned that happiness is greatly varied among different people, but we all need to find our pursue and passion. I highly recommend you to read this (or download it you have a iPad, iPhone), you might just find your passion for life, or re-visit that purpose for being placed on the face of the earth?

Once again, I want to thank everyone for the seen and unseen support that you have all given our family. The prayers are helping Lulu improve daily and we can't imagine life without them.