Jody’s journey – fighting cancer
Monthly Updates
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January 2023 | December | October/November
The March 16th Fundraiser at OCC Road House
(Bert’s Harley-Davidson – Clearwater)
THANK YOU page
GoFundMe page setup by our daughter Ashlee
Jody has passed away – 9-4-23 at 2:47PM
Added 9/18/23 – Jody’s Tribute Page
1-31 – #10 treatment – 1/3 of the way through the treatments!!
1-30 MO #9 treatment. We meet with the doctor every Monday during treatments and he (and I) are seeing improvements. She’s doing good taking the chemo pills and other meds. No headaches or dizziness.
1-27 FR #8 treatment done. Good to see Jody improving. Staying up, alert, good memory. Pretty amazing considering where she was a 1-2 and 3 months ago. Still only working about 10 hours a week, and we still have a LONG ways to go with the treatments and chemo pills.
1-26 TH #7 treatment done. Our daughter Ashlee went with us.
1-25 WED – #6 treatment done
1-24 – TUES – #5 treatment – Good day for Jody. Probably the best day she’s had in 3+ months.
I took her to work. She got some year end paperwork done.
Busy on the phones. Stayed awake all day. We were there from 8:15 until 2. I packed 2 jobs. She got the address labels done. Took the shipments to UPS.
1-23 – MO – #4 treatment went well today. The doctor did say she will start losing her hair due to both the radiation treatments and the chemo pills. 1 chemo pill every day AND 5 day a week radiation for 6 weeks.
Proud of her. She can do this!!
1-21 – SA – No side effects from treatment #3. She’s doing good.
1-20 – FR – #3 treatment today (went well) Jody will be taking chemo pills starting today. They’re due to arrive today.
Had a last minute oncologist meeting yesterday. The raced over to do the radiation treatment.
Jody is showing no side effects which is a good thing. I’d rather not see her get back on steroids.
Third treatment went well. Took the first chemo pill.
She did go in the shop today for about 5 hours.
1-19 – TH Jody’s first treatment yesterday went great. No side effects. Another treatment this afternoon.
5 days a week for 6 1/2 weeks.
Most likely I will be closing everyday around 2.
A last minute appoint with the oncologist at 2:15 today. She may want Jody to go to Moffit Cancer Center
#2 treatment at 3:50. Jody did great on the second treatment. No side effects so far. Great to see.
1-18 – WED – First radiation treatment today for Jody.
Prayers that these treatments will go smoothly with little side effects and prolong Jody’s life much longer
Exactly 2 months to the day since we found out Jody was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The image below was November 18th.
Dr Tralins at Bardmoor is the radiation oncologist
I do not know if the ‘final-finals’ of the biopsy surgery are in. We are going off based what Dr Tralin’s saw on the MRI.
All that time wasted for the pathologist to check the biopsy, then sending it up to Michigan State. Pretty much just over a month. It would be great to find out that it’s a low grade tumor like Dr Kamath mentioned. She is basing this on just talking to Jody and hearing her talk. She actually still has good memory. A little fade hear and there, but for being on no meds now, she’s doing good’. She does tire out very easily.
For right now, her work days are pretty much over 🙁
She last worked last Tuesday of last week.
I also sent an email with all info to Dr. Harry van Loveren which I heard is one of the top neurosurgeons in the country. Works in Tampa.
I’d love to hear that it is in fact a low grade tumor.
I’ll be closing at 2 today
1-13 – FR CT Scan this morning.
Mask is also getting made. First radiation treatment is WED.
1-11 – WED – Appoint with a radiologist was originally FR at 1PM. They called up late yesterday and mentioned they have an opening today at 10AM, so we took that. So ACP will be closed until approx noon today.
I’m sure they’ll compare the original set of MRIs and the new set and see if the tumor has grown.
We talked to radiologist and he took a look at the new MRI images and though he does not have the final results of the biopsy from Michigan State, he feels that this is in fact an aggressive glioblastoma tumor. I also took in the original MRIs so he could compare, and it has grown significantly since 11/16. So Jody will most likely undergo a 6 week period of radiation and chemo pills. 5 days a week.
Considered aggressive treatment. He said since she’s in good health, they decide this will be the treatment they use.
He mentioned that it is too intertwined to remove all of it, but they feel they can lessen the size.
Again, they will wait until the final results are in, but he’s confident that they will find that it is in fact glioblastoma.
He’s had a patient with the same type of tumor and they lived 5 years. But he said that is very rare.
1-10 – TU – Another set of MRI’s done.
Jody mentioned she would be into work to do some paperwork at 9 but never made it in.
1-9-23 – MO – Went to the oncologist and Dr Kamath mentioned that they still can’t determine if it’s a high or low grade tumor.
She mentioned that the cancer team up in Michigan were having a meeting this week. Dr Kamath wants to get another MRI done and send those to the meeting up in Michigan so they can consider these along with the other MRI and the biopsy.
I was told the reason for the length of determination is they want to make absolutely sure that they use the correct method of getting rid of the tumor. Chemo and radiation also kills brain cells, so if they are more aggressive than the need to be, the will not only rid of the tumor, they will also kill brain cells.
1-6-23 FR – The oncologist called the night before right before they closed. I called back 10 minutes after, and the answering service was already answering.
So I called FR AM. They said they have some more of the final results, but it’s still not complete. So POSSIBLY Monday. Once they do get ALL the final reports in, we’ll set up an appointment and go in and hear the results.
Jody is in decent spirits. Memory good. Gets tired very easily. Down to working maybe 10 hours a week and that’s mainly doing bills along with payroll and invoicing using QB online which I’m slowly learning all.
So, we’re still waiting to hear what the next step will be.
Jody has had recent episodes where she would feel nauseous and then lose her memory temporarily.
we got her set up to see a doctor early October 3, 2022
This is a been an extremely trying and drawn out process the past months (since 8/22).
Please keep Jody in your thoughts and prayers
Jody’s (and mine) worst fear is that it’s GBM (Glioblastoma). Let’s hope it’s not this, or at least it is caught early enough they can take care of it through surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy. Her father passed away in 2005 with this at the age of 63. Jody is 56. This does not mean Jody has it, Her father’s cancer progressed very quickly as it only took about 2 1/2 months. We’re past that timeframe with Jody when the tumor was first diagnosed.
EDIT – We we’re told that Jody does have GBM. They are going with an aggressive treatment
2/27/ –I knew our daughter and son-in-law was getting together a 50/50 for Jody, but didn’t realize, she was also doing a silent auction fundraiser (well over 20 contributors) along with a GoFundMe page.
The Charity Event will be held at OCC (Bert’s Harley-Davidson) March, 16th, 2023
Our neighbor Kirsten has started a neighborhood fundraiser and started gathering items for a ‘beach themed’ silent auction item for OCC. She has done So much for us. She’s an incredible person. She started a ‘meal train’ which I had never hear of and so much other help since the beginning. A LOT and I mean a LOT of neighbors are pitching in, in
either donations, meal drive, or some super nice comments on FB.
Next store neighbors Derek and Heidi and absolutely awesome on helping me along all this. We went camping together at Fort DeSoto back when this all started and I mentioned seeing some signs.
It’s just been a super LONG grueling process/journey. It’s so nice to have family, friends (both new and old), neighbors, and our “Woods at Lake Seminole” community pitch in.
I won’t lie, it’s been extremely overwhelming to be the “receiver” of all this generosity, but I want everyone know, that it is greatly appreciated
We were told that brain cells are stronger than cancer. The radiation / chemo pills will kill off the cancer cells before the brain cells.
As of 1-21-23, Jody is doing good.
As of 2-23-23 Jody is getting weak. No appetite. The doctors said this is pretty normal for this type of aggressive treatment of radiation and chemo pills
3-10 Jody was taken by ambulance 3-8 and still in the hospital
She can get through this though. She’s a fighter. Young and in good health.
You can do this babe – 37 years strong – #jodyfstrong
Feel free to leave encouraging comments down at the lower part of this page
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