Here's some pictures from when Dad was first submitted to the hospital. So what's up with the yellow gowns you ask? Nothing with the Becks is easy. At one time Dad had Mrsa - just a fancy name for a staph infection -so they made us wear protective gear before going into Dad's room and take it off when leaving. I should point out that Dad got the Mrsa from the hospital in the first place. But, whatever. We had a little fun with it. And Nurse Ratchet gave us an outlet to vent our anger a bit. I think Mom was about to kick her in her ass if she explained one more time how we are supposed to wear the gowns. And I am Sure she wouldn't approve of us putting the gloves on our heads just to get a laugh out of the room.
Quick update on Dad - He started the chemo on Friday and he's walking around with his chemo in a bag. He's doing well with it so far. Well enough to entertain a houseful of guests. Apparently one of the side effects of chemo is to be a bit controlling. We are taking this one in stride as we have had a little practice living with Dad over the past 30+ years. Only now, we cannot bitch about it. ;)
This weekend we were entertained by the 2/3 of MeJ* and AN's kids. Jack and Maria, and Suz and Carlee. Carlee was adorable dancing around like a princess to Fleetwood Mac. Mom and Aunt Irene were dancing around as well - but they were a little bit influenced by the wine - I love Drunk Mom. Hopefully I can get Greg to post some of those pictures soon. I am SO behind on posting pictures. And I still have to put up some pictures of my trip BC to Philly spending time with the Sullivans.
*We have taken to calling Uncle John UJ over the years. Tatum in her literal cute ways interpreted this as You J - which then became MeJ - Cute as hell - so he's stuck with that moniker from here on out. It's a shame Tot was sick this weekend - she would have had fun at the dance party.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
What's Up Pop?
So now that I am back to posting, we thought this site would be an easy way to keep everyone updated on how Dads doing. Trying to keep everyone informed has not been an easy task, our family is pretty large and Dad is a big chunk of the heart of it. Mom and Dad also have a huge circle of friends that very well could be family, and on top of that Dad has met a LOT of people over the years. Once you meet Dad, and are lucky enough to spend any amount of time with him, you are a fan. Friends, co-workers, neighbors all love the man and want to know how he is doing. You should have seen the nurses at Kaiser and the hospital fawning over him, even meetings with the Dr.’s end with a hug.
Mom’s doing her best to keep everyone informed, but as information trickles in, some people call at the right time and get that news, others are still working off older conversations, you forget who you said what to and when.
I haven’t been much help either; I have been pretty neglectful in reaching out to friends. Certain things are hard enough to think about, let alone say out loud or see the words on the screen. Partly because we do have so much hope and the reality of test results can chip away at that sometimes. But as my friend Alyssa said, you cannot see the power of hope and family on a test result.
So in an effort to keep everyone informed, and save my Mom from losing her voice, I will start from the beginning.
Mom and Dad left on Sat, April 26th for Myrtle Beach for a family vacation with Tim, Jenel and Tatum. Right before leaving, Dad had some pain in his lower stomach area. Kaiser thought it was Prosititus and gave him some antibiotics. Dad felt a bit worse each day as the vacation progressed, he was on the phone with Kaiser while in NC and continued the antibiotics. They came home on Saturday, May 3rd. Monday, May 5th Mom and Dad left for Florida for a conference where Dad was speaking. The pain was getting worse instead of better and on Tuesday he felt the pain near the bottom of his heart, this was enough to get him to the ER. That night we were told it was Pancreatitis and scheduled an ultrasound. Wednesday morning mom called to let us know Dad was admitted to the hospital in Florida, the ultrasound found some spots on the liver and a CT Scan was scheduled. The Hospital didn’t want to release Dad to come home, but Dr. Dave Deputron to the rescue (see above about friend as close as family). One call from Dr. Dave and Dad was able to make his 7:45pm flight home.
Thursday morning we took Dad to Kaiser so they could take a look at the CT Scan and arrange for a room at Inova Hospital. By 4pm he was in his room and Aunt Nancy, Uncle John and Uncle Gil had arrived. Since Dad had the CT Scan results on him from Florida, and because we can read, we knew we were facing cancer. There were multiple masses in the liver and the stomach, pancreas and lymph nodes were swollen. The word metastatic sticks out even mixed in with all the gibberish medical jargon of the results.
Friday, May 9th Dad had an endoscope and sent in samples for a biopsy, but from the endoscope, Dr. Swansinger sealed our fears with the words stomach cancer. Friday to Monday were tough, Dad looked bad, he was in so much pain the morphine he had to take was making him fall asleep within conversations. You go to terrible places in your head. Luckily we had the diversion of Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Sisters, Brothers, Nieces and Nephews to help get through it. Thank God for Tatum, because that little mixture of sweet and stubborn will make you smile no matter how terrible you feel.
By Monday it was all we could do not to pick fights with the hospital staff waiting on the biopsy results. Finally, Dr. Anita came into the room to go over the results – so when her first question was ‘so what brought you to the hospital’ we nearly went in for the kill. You could hear everyone release the breath that we didn’t even know we were holding when she said the liver was still good and a plan for chemo will help relieve Dad’s pain and slow down the aggression of the cancer. With that news, Dad was back to Dad, his color improved, he was up and about and by Wednesday, he was home.
The past week has seen some bad days and some great days, which is par for the course we are told. Yesterday was both. We thought the chemo was going to start yesterday, but Kaiser is run by idiots who cannot get their act together. Mom was about to throw down if someone didn’t get Dad scheduled for a port and chemo started this week. Da da da dummm - Cousin Suzanne to the rescue! One call from Dr. Suz and he has an 8:30am appt tomorrow to have a mediport put into his chest below the shoulder. It is through the port where his chemo will be injected – and that appt is all set for Friday at 11am. I believe Suz told mom she wasn’t mean, but she was assertive. Everyone should be lucky enough to have a Suzie on their side. Just having the chemo scheduled is a huge relieve for Dad, and Mom said his mood after finding out improved tremendously.
Many of you have asked for Dad’s chemo meds. They have to pay some extra attention to Dad because of his CMT and cannot use some medications. The have decided on 6 rounds of the following meds.
- Carboplatin – single injection, every 21 days.
- Epirubicin – single injection, every 21 days.
- 5FU – this will be a continuous drip 7 days a week 24 hours a day. The 5FU will be replaced each week.
Each week they will do a blood test to check his readings. Right now his platelet (white blood cell) count is fine – 367 on 5/20. If his platelet counts or CNT/ANC (Carbon Nanotubes)/ (Absolute Neutrophil Count) are too low, they will have to wait to give treatment.
The second question I get after, how’s your Dad is – how is your Mom doing. With good reason, Mom and Dad are that rare love story you read about but seldom see. High School sweethearts who just celebrated their 42 year anniversary in February and have always been in love - even when tested over the years **cough, Tim cough**. (just kiddin Bro – couldn't resist). Mom’s been surprisingly strong, while being scared shitless. But tonight she sounded the best she has sounded in weeks. They had a number of very good visits with Dr’s, Nutritionists, Nurses and Coordinators, all of whom know of Suzie now =). The more information we get give us more ammunition to fight, giving us more faith to beat this thing.
You must really love Dad to have read all the way through this post. Thank you all for the calls, emails, cards, and prayers. We will take all the positive thoughts, wishes and prayers we can get - as we have seen a couple times already, hope is one of the best things we can have to beat this.
Check back for updates and feel free to post a comment, Dad checks the site often. To post, click on the word comment below (you need a google email account to post) comments will show up in a popup window. Or you can send Dad an email directly.
Mom’s doing her best to keep everyone informed, but as information trickles in, some people call at the right time and get that news, others are still working off older conversations, you forget who you said what to and when.
I haven’t been much help either; I have been pretty neglectful in reaching out to friends. Certain things are hard enough to think about, let alone say out loud or see the words on the screen. Partly because we do have so much hope and the reality of test results can chip away at that sometimes. But as my friend Alyssa said, you cannot see the power of hope and family on a test result.
So in an effort to keep everyone informed, and save my Mom from losing her voice, I will start from the beginning.
Mom and Dad left on Sat, April 26th for Myrtle Beach for a family vacation with Tim, Jenel and Tatum. Right before leaving, Dad had some pain in his lower stomach area. Kaiser thought it was Prosititus and gave him some antibiotics. Dad felt a bit worse each day as the vacation progressed, he was on the phone with Kaiser while in NC and continued the antibiotics. They came home on Saturday, May 3rd. Monday, May 5th Mom and Dad left for Florida for a conference where Dad was speaking. The pain was getting worse instead of better and on Tuesday he felt the pain near the bottom of his heart, this was enough to get him to the ER. That night we were told it was Pancreatitis and scheduled an ultrasound. Wednesday morning mom called to let us know Dad was admitted to the hospital in Florida, the ultrasound found some spots on the liver and a CT Scan was scheduled. The Hospital didn’t want to release Dad to come home, but Dr. Dave Deputron to the rescue (see above about friend as close as family). One call from Dr. Dave and Dad was able to make his 7:45pm flight home.
Thursday morning we took Dad to Kaiser so they could take a look at the CT Scan and arrange for a room at Inova Hospital. By 4pm he was in his room and Aunt Nancy, Uncle John and Uncle Gil had arrived. Since Dad had the CT Scan results on him from Florida, and because we can read, we knew we were facing cancer. There were multiple masses in the liver and the stomach, pancreas and lymph nodes were swollen. The word metastatic sticks out even mixed in with all the gibberish medical jargon of the results.
Friday, May 9th Dad had an endoscope and sent in samples for a biopsy, but from the endoscope, Dr. Swansinger sealed our fears with the words stomach cancer. Friday to Monday were tough, Dad looked bad, he was in so much pain the morphine he had to take was making him fall asleep within conversations. You go to terrible places in your head. Luckily we had the diversion of Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Sisters, Brothers, Nieces and Nephews to help get through it. Thank God for Tatum, because that little mixture of sweet and stubborn will make you smile no matter how terrible you feel.
By Monday it was all we could do not to pick fights with the hospital staff waiting on the biopsy results. Finally, Dr. Anita came into the room to go over the results – so when her first question was ‘so what brought you to the hospital’ we nearly went in for the kill. You could hear everyone release the breath that we didn’t even know we were holding when she said the liver was still good and a plan for chemo will help relieve Dad’s pain and slow down the aggression of the cancer. With that news, Dad was back to Dad, his color improved, he was up and about and by Wednesday, he was home.
The past week has seen some bad days and some great days, which is par for the course we are told. Yesterday was both. We thought the chemo was going to start yesterday, but Kaiser is run by idiots who cannot get their act together. Mom was about to throw down if someone didn’t get Dad scheduled for a port and chemo started this week. Da da da dummm - Cousin Suzanne to the rescue! One call from Dr. Suz and he has an 8:30am appt tomorrow to have a mediport put into his chest below the shoulder. It is through the port where his chemo will be injected – and that appt is all set for Friday at 11am. I believe Suz told mom she wasn’t mean, but she was assertive. Everyone should be lucky enough to have a Suzie on their side. Just having the chemo scheduled is a huge relieve for Dad, and Mom said his mood after finding out improved tremendously.
Many of you have asked for Dad’s chemo meds. They have to pay some extra attention to Dad because of his CMT and cannot use some medications. The have decided on 6 rounds of the following meds.
- Carboplatin – single injection, every 21 days.
- Epirubicin – single injection, every 21 days.
- 5FU – this will be a continuous drip 7 days a week 24 hours a day. The 5FU will be replaced each week.
Each week they will do a blood test to check his readings. Right now his platelet (white blood cell) count is fine – 367 on 5/20. If his platelet counts or CNT/ANC (Carbon Nanotubes)/ (Absolute Neutrophil Count) are too low, they will have to wait to give treatment.
The second question I get after, how’s your Dad is – how is your Mom doing. With good reason, Mom and Dad are that rare love story you read about but seldom see. High School sweethearts who just celebrated their 42 year anniversary in February and have always been in love - even when tested over the years **cough, Tim cough**. (just kiddin Bro – couldn't resist). Mom’s been surprisingly strong, while being scared shitless. But tonight she sounded the best she has sounded in weeks. They had a number of very good visits with Dr’s, Nutritionists, Nurses and Coordinators, all of whom know of Suzie now =). The more information we get give us more ammunition to fight, giving us more faith to beat this thing.
You must really love Dad to have read all the way through this post. Thank you all for the calls, emails, cards, and prayers. We will take all the positive thoughts, wishes and prayers we can get - as we have seen a couple times already, hope is one of the best things we can have to beat this.
Check back for updates and feel free to post a comment, Dad checks the site often. To post, click on the word comment below (you need a google email account to post) comments will show up in a popup window. Or you can send Dad an email directly.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting
Don't mess with the Clausson's! Cause they have not one, not two, but THREE members of the family with a Black Belt in Goju-Ryu karate! On Saturday Michael suffered through a 6 hour test - he must really love karate to go through that for a belt.
Here are the very tall, very talented Clausson men. I would like to point out - Wade is 6'4". Ten bucks says the nephews will end up taller than their dad. What? Dang!
Here are the very tall, very talented Clausson men. I would like to point out - Wade is 6'4". Ten bucks says the nephews will end up taller than their dad. What? Dang!
The day of the testing was a mixture of emotions because after 15 years, Sensi Carbone and his family made a very difficult decision to close the dojo. It is a loss felt by many families. Keith, Michele, me, and even Kathryn Sliwa have been members of the dojo over the years. I was lucky to be a small part of a wonderful group of people and Steve and Naomi have been a part of my sister's family for close to 12 years. Plus, if it wasn't for Steve and I dojo, I would not have my certificate from my testing stating how I am a ninth Kyu-ho. And the joke that I am a certified ho will never grow old in my eyes. We will all miss the dojo - and now we have to find some other way to keep Mike and Chris out of trouble =)
I scanned this picture of us back in the day from my testing with Kath. 
Look at how small and cute Mike and Chris were - this was how old they were when they started karate and look at them now!
The handsome two muggin for their Aunt.
Shell - attached is a slide show of the many pictures from the testing. If you click on the slideshow it will open up the Picasa site to see all the pictures and you can download the ones you want.
LTSOOY
Last week I told Greg I wouldn't be posting any more to the blog and that it would be up to him to post - I had some doubt on if we should even keep it going. A little over dramatic maybe - but that's how I roll.
I come by my drama earnestly - the Beck household has seen it's fair shares of ups and downs. One of my friends favorite Beck story - of which there are many - was when my Mom had a little meltdown watching Oprah one day. They were running an episode and the topic was dysfunctional families. I guess she took some offense, because the next thing I know, Mom is upset, teared up, and was saying something along the lines of 'you show me a family with nothing in their history to overcome and that is the dysfunctional family'. Trying to bring a little levity to the situation, and make Mom feel better Tim, says 'it's OK Mom - we put the fun in dysfunctional'. Not wanting to be outdone, I chime in with 'actually Mom, we put the F.U. in dysfunctional. It did the trick and Mom was laughing and shaking her head - as people tend to do when Tim and I join forces for a common goal.
This is one of my favorite things about my family, when one person is down, two step up to try to make one feel better. Usually there is a mixture of laughter and tears, always, there is love.
When we heard Dad was in the hospital, we were upset, then came the words spots on the liver and we were scared. The next day, when we saw the words on the CT Scan - multiple masses in the liver appearing to be metastatic, we were panicked. But that was nothing to when the Dr. said the word cancer, hearing that, we were paralyzed.
I think I even cried in my dreams. Everyone thinks they have the best father in the world - I know I do. Pretty soon we had 15 members of the family taking over the hospital and somewhere in the middle of the tears were moments of laughter then, amazingly hope. The liver is still good, and the Dr.'s have a plan of attack, and I have more time with the greatest man in the world.
Dad is home from the hospital and yesterday we went out to eat dinner at Rustico, it could have been any Saturday with the Becks - which brings me to this post and why I changed my mind.
My Dad has always been the biggest fan of this blog, partly because he supports me unconditionally, but mostly because it contains pictures and stories of his favorite thing - his family. Plus, even though he knows how much I love him, its nice to be able to tell him.
This post is for you Dad.
I Love You
~YPK
Somehow with all the musical chairs at dinner, we didn't end up with a picture of Mom and Dad - but we got a good shot of them at the hospital.
I love you too Mom - Shell, Tim and I are lucky kids.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
sophia
Our beautiful, funny, stubborn and charming Sophie is 4 today! We would love to be there to give her a big hug and celebrate her birthday.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Lunch with the nephews
Greg has been a bit behind in uploading the pictures to post on the blog - I still have to post pictures of my weekend in Philly with the Sullivans and then to see TGSOE at the old FU Spectrum with Aunt Irene & Cuz Sharon. Heck, we still have pictures of the wedding and the Tot to post. So imagine my surprise to see Greg finally posted some pics. Actually, I am not that surprised since the joke was on me and that seems to motivate the hubby. I am also not surprised that Greg only posted the pictures and didn't comment. I guess that is my job.
So here's the story. Michael decided to play a prank on his Aunt who loves him so much that she would never expect he would unscrew the cap off the hot pepper jar. As you can see, I took it well - even though they ruined my awesome salad. I still ate most the pizza - cause I do like the hot pepper - and I do like Mac & Cheese pizza! Yuummm.
So here's the story. Michael decided to play a prank on his Aunt who loves him so much that she would never expect he would unscrew the cap off the hot pepper jar. As you can see, I took it well - even though they ruined my awesome salad. I still ate most the pizza - cause I do like the hot pepper - and I do like Mac & Cheese pizza! Yuummm.
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