The summer has been going well! Bennie is feeling great, and he is officially off of disability and working full time. Every year Bennie's family has a family reunion in Tennessee that we were hoping to attend, but unfortunately his Grandfather fell and broke his hip while visiting there. Bennie's mom, Judy, and Grandparents (Pop and Granny) went up a week before we were due to be there. The day we were supposed to leave is when we found out that he would have to have surgery the next morning. Since we were only planning on traveling there for a couple of days, we figured we would be better off here instead of in everyone's way while they were trying to care for Pop. That happened July 2nd.... and currently Pop is still in the hospital very sick with an infection that happened after surgery, and his organs are failing because of all of this. Judy is still up in Tennessee caring for her father a month and a half later.... and she was only planning on being there for two weeks. WE miss them all very much, and hope to have them home as quickly as possible. His parents are such a big support system helping with the kids through all of this and we truly appreciate having family close-by.
Since airfare is so expensive in the summer, Bennie's parents were gone, and Bennie was feeling great we decided to let him go by himself to Tampa for the next couple of infusions. I'm not going to lie it was tough for me. Bennie did awesome. He felt great, and came back home in less than 24 hours but its hard letting go of that role even for those two visits. As his wife and caregiver I really feel that the only control that I have in this whole cancer mess is being with him for appointments, taking in all the medical information, and just taking all of that off of Bennie since he is already doing so much. I can't sit in the chair for him and do the infusions, I cant do his bloodwork for him, and I can't take away his fatigue but I know at least I can help it out with being there for him emotionally and deal with the medical information side of it. So it was tough. I did enjoy the break of traveling, and just getting to spending time with the kids during the summer!!
Bennie's bloodwork looks great, and his liver levels that were elevated have all returned back to their normal levels. His infusions were quick and simple, and we hope it keeps going like this for the next 2 years. We go August 8th for his next infusion, and then we go August 20th for all of his scans/MRIs to see how everything is working. If there are still no tumors he will get his next infusion that day, and then we keep chugging along for another 12 weeks!!! Scanxiety is starting to set in as we close in on scan day.
A couple of weeks ago we also attended the funeral of Matt Lobaugh, who fought with stage 4 melanoma alongside Bennie as they were both diagnosed at the same time. We were friends back in High school youth group at church before reuniting at MD Anderson over 10 years later to go through this rough time together. Unfortunately a year into his stage 4 diagnosis the melanoma was too rampant to get into the trial that Bennie is in... and it sucks that not everyone is offered treatments that aren't approved by FDA. Hopefully, more and more research and trials to treat and CURE melanoma keep advancing. WE, the melanoma community, really need it!!!
