Second day at St. Judes.

This morning we were up bright and early we left the grizzlies house at 6:30am and walked over to the Clinic were I had to get a PET scan man is it different from Nationwide Children's Hospital the PET scan only took 1:30 Min's and that was only because the tech. messed up on one part of my body. But everything was good then we traveled to the pharmacy and they explained things to me and how it works there. Then we had a break were we ate lunch and hung out went to the gift shop and back to the hotel for a while then we had a meeting with the surgeon where we would find out if I made the trial and if the tumor was removable we arrived at 2pm and waited waited and waited around 3:30pm we went to the desk and a James the nurse came out and explained the surgeon was in surgery still and was sorry he was just backed up. All of our hearts were beating because we all were nervous in the first place and then we had to wait longer. Holly was a nervous wreak. So finally we got in to the room and the surgeon came in and talked with us with about 6 other people. This is the news we received the tumor is removable that amazing news now we are waiting again for information on if the tumor is Osteoscarma we know it is but here at St. Jude's they don't have all the test still from Children's so were waiting on Children's. So right now I am in the trial and we are waiting for the test to be completed. St. Jude's does nothing on weekends or holidays so I might be coming home then back down next week. We don't know anything else, tomorrow we meet with the Social Worker and then I might have a biopsy or I might now its still up in the air. I will blog tomorrow on more information as I receive it. Today was a good day tho with good news thank GOD!

First Day At St. Jude's

Today was the my first day at St. Jude's man is it so different then Nationwide Children's Hospital. Everyone is so nice and they help you out so much I had my own nurse that took me around the hospital to all the places I needed to go they pay for everything housing food its truly amazing here. We got news that I am not totally accepted into the trial but they did an MRI today and tomorrow we will find out and I know I am in the trial we just need the final say from the surgeon. It was a full day of Test and registration. We meet my doctor she seems very nice and so did my nurse. Everything seem to be going well but still miss children's and all the kids there. Tomorrow we have another day of test that start at 7am not really looking forward to that but I gotta do what I gotta do. Please pray we get in the trial and chemo starts on wed!!!!!

Joe
Will blog again tomorrow night!

IN memphis

We are here in Memphis Tennessee. We went to Church in the morning and left right after around 11:30 I slept the whole way so the ride went fast. We arrived around 8 and looked at the hospital totally different then Nationwide Children's Hospital. Our hotel is nice and it faces St. Jude's. Tomorrow we will be getting up early to go there and get register and I am scheduled for an MRI and a hospital tour. We are about to order pizza and watch TV and get a good night sleep. Wish me luck for tomorrow and hope that everything goes as planed.

Joe.

Ps. We are an hour behind Columbus.

Off to ST. JUDE'S

Tomorrow I will be heading down to St. Jude's in Memphis Tennessee. I am excited and scared at the same time I'm excited to start getting chemo again and I am closer to getting the tumor removed and then I am scared because I don't know anything or anyone in the hospital its not like children's hospital where I know where I'm going and I know everyone. But I have to do what I have to do to survive. I went to the leg doctor again yesterday and things went well I will have two more appointments the week I get back from St. Jude's and then I should have my leg. So the plans are St. Jude's this week and then in the next couple weeks I should have surgery and then back to St. Jude's for chemo and I believe I will be doing chemo for 1 year. I will be updating my blog hopefully every night to keep everyone updated on our day. I also hope it wont be all hospital stuff and we can go see some places there in Memphis. So please pray that everything goes as planned and we make it down and back safe. Thanks so much for the support.

Joe.

Please continue to pray for the kids on J5.

Monday

I got news today about St. Jude's but don't know full details about everything yet. St. Jude's will be calling me here in the next couple of days but what information we do have is that I will be leaving on Sunday morning and then come Monday morning I will be going to St. Jude's Monday will be more test and meeting with the doctors. Tuesday hopefully I will be doing chemo doctor Yeager said they will be discussing if they want to do surgery down there but since really they don't do surgery above the age of 18. I do hope I come back to Columbus to do the surgery but we will talk about it down there. That really is all the information I have is we will be there Monday and that's all I wanted to hear! I'm happy things are finally going its the hardest part is waiting. Please continue to pray for me and hope that everything goes as plan. I want to say thank you again for all the support!! Thanks!

Joe

Please continue to pray for the kids on J5!

Thank you!!

Well first of all I want to thank everyone that came out to the car wash and those that helped! It was an amazing day I met some really great people and had a great time it was great to be there with my whole family and friends! We worked non stop for 5 hours it was a beautiful day I just couldn't ask for more with the money we raised it was unbelievable the kind of support I have in my life I know saying this is weird but I do consider my self a lucky guy and this weekend really showed it. Friday I went for my fitting for my leg it was great it fit good there will be a couple other appointments for the fitting before I get my leg and this wouldn't be possible without everyone support THANK YOU. I cant wait to actually walk and not be in pain this new leg is going to be great! No news yet on St. Jude's the doctors didn't have everything there last wed. so they were not able to get all the information for me together they have another meeting on this wed. where we should be getting information on going down there and getting this all started. After the car wash on Saturday Holly and I came home and crashed we were both so tried and so was everyone else. Sunday was good we had a family picnic on Holly's side Sunday morning and then in the afternoon we had a get together at my aunt Cheryl's then went and seen a movie with my wife it was a great weekend. This week will be busy too as I wait to hear information on St. Jude's if everything goes as planned we will be headed down there this coming weekend. Please pray I get some information because I really wanna be doing something about this tumor!

Again thank you thank you thank you I cant say it enough for all the support and help on this past Saturdays car wash!!!!!

Joe.

Please continue to pray for the kids on J5!

No real new yet

Since my last blog not much has changed I did a bone and PET scan and both were good excepted that one spot on my back. We found out I was accepted into the St. Jude's trial which is great news but we really have not got any information on this yet what we do know is I will go down for a 3 to 5 day stay the first time were I will get more test done and talk to the doctor if everything goes good I will then have the trial osteoscarma chemo which is for an hour but a 24 hour observation. Then come home and around July 14th have the tumor removed then 3 to 4 weeks after surgery will be flying back and forth to Tennessee every 2 weeks for a 1 day stay for I believe up to one year. I will still have my doctors here which is great and that's what I wanted so I get the best of both worlds right now and I pray that everything goes okay and stays good. Right now I call Stacy everyday to find out any information because waiting is the hardest part. Stacy told me that they are having a meeting with St. Jude's this week and we should know more information by the end of this week. This weekend was great Friday and Saturday we had a garage sale and I wanna thank everyone who came out and help and donated. Thank you!! Friday I had my second appointment with Hanger my leg doctor and it went great I got measured and then my next appointment will be a fitting. I cant wait to be able to walk without having so much pain. Sunday I went to church with my whole family and Holly's parents and our Pastor had us out to his house for a cookout we had a great time we also planted a tree that was for me in his yard that was so nice. I will keep you updated as news comes in. Please continue to pray for me and my family and also the kids on J5!!

And don't forget about the car wash this Saturday!!!

No good news

Just to update some people that might not know what is going on with me. I went in for my 5 day chemo treatment last Thursday. I have been having some discomfort in my throat so I order a scan turns out my throat is clear but the seen a shadow on my back I and my family was not ever expecting this they were 90 percent sure it was cancer again but it could have been a hemotobin. I was sent home Friday after my biopsy that went fine they figured if it is cancer again that there is no reason to keep doing the chemo treatments at this time. We were told that they would not know anything until Monday and that we would have a family and doctor meeting on Tuesday. This weekend was about spending time with my family and friends also with my church family. We talked about a lot but at the same time we don't know whats going on at all so we really couldn't decide anything until we find out the information. Today is Tuesday and we found out the news we were expecting but didn't want to hear it is a cancer tumor on my upper back it is not on my lungs its on the wall by my ribs on the right side. We did some other scans and now we are waiting to see if this spot is the only spot and then we have two options from there I am still unsure what I want to do but I know that I am going to fight just as hard as the first time and I'm not done fighting my battle and I am going 100 percent head first into this and beat the odds that are against me. Please continue to pray for me and my family as we need all we can get at this moment. I don't know when the next update will be as me and my family face this difficult time.