10 Weeks

Yesterday our little pup,Penny Layne turned 10 weeks old. Yes, HER name is Penny Layne.  :)  When we picked up the puppy, we were told it was a boy.  I thought the puppy had "parts" similar to Daisy's and asked Dan, but he agreed that the puppy was a boy.  What do I know?  Well, we took the pup (who we still couldn't get a name to stick) home to meet my family.  There, my SIL, Beth, who works at a pet store, informed us that he was a she!  Well, then it was really easy to name HER!  Haha.  Dan's blonde.  What can I say?   

Well, we got Daisy when she was 10 weeks old, so now we can start to really compare the two. Penny has a lot to live up to.

At 10 weeks Daisy was pretty much potty trained, knew the word no, and hated her leash. We hadn’t started teaching her tricks yet, but she loved her Daddy from day 1 and was a snuggler. She had sooo much extra skin it made her look like an old man. She also hated car rides and would get very car sick.

Penny at 10 weeks, after living with us for a month, is almost potty trained. We occasionally have a few accidents when we aren’t paying attention, but she does ask to go outside. She walks on a leash, but mostly she just follows Daisy. She has learned sit and up only when you put your hand up.

We are still working on verbal commands. She’ll come to you when there isn’t a cat around (her favorite toys besides Daisy), and preferably when you have a treat in your hand. She is very good at the stairs already.  You can find her chasing the cats up and down them.  Now there is no where you can hide!  It took Daisy a looong time to learn how to use the stairs. Penny is great in the car with me. She is afraid of water, but hopefully Daisy will have her swimming in a month or two.

Penny has doubled in size since we first got her. She is taller than Daisy was, but not as stocky. She also seems to listen to me a little more than Dan.  Her bad habits include trying to bring in the dead things the cats kill up to the house, and she’s very loud, but she's getting better.

Extreme Couponing – New Hobby

I have a new hobby. This month, in attempts to save some money on bills, I started extreme couponing.

I’ve always clipped coupons, and used them whenever I bought something, and would save between $20-$30 each trip with the store deals. Then, a family friend told me about this “Extreme Couponing.” At first, I was skeptical. We don’t eat foods from boxes, rarely from cans, and mostly meat, dairy and produce. I didn’t think we would save very much for the time I felt I had to put into prep work for the trip. But, I’ll try anything once.

August was the 1st month that I participated. I went to southern savers and followed Kroger and learned about CVSing. The 1st ½ of the month I only went to Kroger, and the 2nd half, I took the time to look at the Marsh and Meijer ads on my own to come up with my own deals. I avoided Target because I can’t go into the store without spending way too much money. Also, with the new laptop, we don’t have a printer with ink that we can hook up. So, next month, I’ll start printing coupons as well.

With store deals, coupons, and CVS deals, I cut my grocery bill by 23%! Yes, I cut out almost a quarter of my grocery bill. Not to mention I had already be using coupons! And, I only did 2 major grocery shopping trips. So, I ended up saving time spent meal planning and at the dreaded grocery store. Plus, we are still on our diet, and eat fruits and veges with almost every meal.

How? I only bought meats if they were less than $1.50/lb. No, they aren’t the cuts of meat we are used to, but we work with it. Chicken drumsticks for $1/lb. Cook, take the skin off, and shred. Easy chicken for almost any dish. Chicken breasts with ribs. My new favorite cut. We even buy the no hormones, cage free chicken for $1.19/lb! I was able to get 2 huge steaks for $5 that lasted us 2 meals. We are eating a lot more chicken and turkey, and a lot less pork and beef, which is actually what the Dr. suggested for Dan. I bought fruit and veges only if they were on special, plus I compared sales for each store, and not trusting their ad for it to be on sale. Ex: Kroger blueberries were $4/2 pints where Meijer was 3 pints/$5. Meijer wins hands down.

For cleaning/hygiene/can products, I only buy if they are on sale and I have a coupon, and then I stock up as much as I can. I’ve never been one to stock, but if taco kits are on sale, with coupons, buy as many as you can, because they keep. Plus, tacos are such an easy meal when you just don’t feel like being creative.  This also cuts down on those stops at the grocery store to get one item, where you leave spending $20.

CVS was a whole exciting deal. I never thought much of the extra care bucks or their in-store coupons. I’m very skeptical and felt like they were just trying to get me to buy extras. Not true! By combining coupons with CVS deals, using extra care bucks, and in-store coupons I was able to get:

For $22! Plus, I got $4 back in Extra Care Bucks for my next trip! I saved over $40 with the extra care bucks.

I am very excited to go grocery shopping and can’t wait for my Sunday coupons. I look forward to my shopping trips every 2 weeks, and I can’t wait for next Tuesday when I get to see how much I can save! I’m just going to save more once I start printing coupons (and take advantage of the copier at work so I can really stock up!)

Hair Ideas

I am ready for a new haircut/style.  I feel like I've had the same or a similar hair style for 5 years now.

The shorter styles would most likely let me donate to locks of love.  Pretty scary to go that short.  The other two aren't too much of a change, but still something different.

Decisions, Decisions…

Yesterday Dan and I met with Dr. Helft, an oncologist at IUSCC. We were referred to him by a good friend who worked in the pathology department. We both were really nervous about what the oncologist would say. With Dan recovering so well, and back to his old self, it would be crushing to hear he would have to go through rounds of chemo and radiation.

Dr. H first wanted to make sure Dan was feeling ok. They checked his pulse, heart rate, weight, listened to his heart and lungs, looked at his incision, and palpated his abdomen. Everything looked great. They reviewed with Dan his initial symptoms and what was done and discussed at his previous Dr. appts. They also checked his and his family's history of all diseases.

He started from zero and went through Dan’s diagnosis. He indeed had Stage IIa colon cancer. His cancer was a mucinous adenocarcinoma which means the tumor was in a gland and the cells produced a lot of mucin, or mucous. This type of cancer occurs in 10-15% of adenocarcinomas and these tumors are typically more aggressive and harder to treat. The good news, all of his LNs biopsied were clear as well as his liver as seen in the CT scan. If the cancer was going to spread, it would most likely be to the lymph nodes, liver, or lungs. Dr. H would like Dan to have a CT of his lungs just to be sure they are also clear.

Next we went through Dan’s prognosis. Dan has a 20-25% chance of having a recurrence of cancer in the next 5 years (+/- 5%, but the doctor said he would lean towards the 25% because of the mucinous tumor). This was a little higher than Dan and I originally thought. The good news, after 5 years, his risk dramatically drops, and after 10 years he’s considered cured. The scary news, if Dan does have a recurrence, there is a 95% chance of it being incurable. It would most likely be treatable, but therapy goals would shift from curing the cancer to shrinking the tumor and preventing further metastasis (spread). Also, recurrence wouldn’t be in the colon. He could have a local recurrence (risk reduces after a year) on the outer membranes of the colon most likely caused by cancer cells being knocked loose during the surgery, or a recurrence in the liver, lungs, lymph system, or bone marrow. Dr. H did say that if we are planning on having children and we want to be sure Dan will be around, it would be worth waiting the 5 years.

So, with that, we moved to therapy options. There are three arms of chemotherapy options for Dan’s type of cancer.

The 1st is an oral medicine, Xeloda. This was approved by the FDA in 2000 and is typically used in Stage III colon cancers and breast cancer. Unfortunately, the dose approved by the FDA has horrible side effects, so the Dr. would have to give Dan a lower dose to help with the side effects, but there aren’t studies showing this lower dose would be as effective of a treatment. That and Dan’s was Stage II.

The 2nd and 3rd arms are treatment with a drug commonly called 5-FU or Fluorouracil. This is given as injections either in a port (2nd arm) or through IV in the arm (3rd arm). The port option is out because the risk of infection and overall discomfort is too great for us. The IV treatment is a cycle of 3 weeks on, 1 week off the chemo, for 8 months. As the side effects go, the Dr. said it's pretty minimal compared to some chemo drugs. He has had some patients with no side effects and the worse were functioning around 90%.  It’s very rare for hair loss, but it’s common to have fatigue, diarrhea, eye problems, temporary changes in eye and skin color, and mouth sores. Loss of appetite are seen with the mouth sores as well as developing a metallic taste. There are no lasting side effects, and the chemo would not affect his fertility, but we wouldn’t be able to get pregnant for 18 months after starting therapy, or else we would have an increased risk for a genetic mutation in the child. Treatment with this arm would reduce his risk of recurrence 3-5%.

Now, there is a genetic test that is being done on Dan’s tumor to look at the Microsatellite DNA in Dan’s tumor (different from Dan’s DNA). Basically, there is instability in the microsatellite DNA, then the 5-FU treatment is not effective at all, and can make his prognosis worse. The good news is, these tumors have a better prognosis than those lacking the instability. Only 22% of Stage 2 tumors are positive for this instability.

So, we go back to see Dr. H in 2 weeks and we will have the DNA test back, and the goal is to make a decision about whether or not to do chemo, and if we do, which type. We definitely have some tough decisions to make and I can argue either side. It’s a scary thing to think that we might be going through this again in the next 5 years, but we need to do what’s right for Dan and our family.  Hopefully we can make and stick to a decision by the 17th.  Or maybe Dan's tumor will be positive and we won't have to decide!