Past 2 months in 2 minutes

I haven't updated since May, mostly because not much had happened, then life became a clusterfuck. Eric went through 5 rounds of Xeloda before being hospitalized for chemo toxicity. Well that's what they think it was, because they really had no idea. We were stuck at Abington for 6 damn days. I was down the shore for the Fallen Heroes M/C Ride. Eric was supposed to participate, but felt so sick he went home. The next day my Dad took him to the ER, and I rushed home from North Wildwood. It was a long 6 days filled with fever, lost of some bodily functions and horrible blistering skin. And then 8 days later he was hospitalized again.

 The 2nd round of hospitalization this month was kind of weird. We went for a routine visit on monday and Eric felt fine. He had an abscess on his face that had started as a blind pimple. But if you know E personally, this is nothing new with his eczema and history of staph. But when the bloodwork came in the the numbers were not good. His WBC had jumped to 34,000 and Kemeny insisted he be admitted. He had brought Logan to this appointment with us, so needless to say we were not prepared for a stay in NY. Eric was pretty upset they admitted him, especially considering the fact that he had just gotten out of the hospital. Plus it was somewhat of a deja vu feeling, as Eric was hospitalized for 4 weeks right before the 4th of July.

Logan and I stayed at a hotel room that night, and my dad saved the day by coming up to NYC, meeting me on the train platform, and taking Logan home. During this stay Eric felt ok up until he was about to released, thus causing his stay to be extended. He ended up having a staph infection, a rare skull bone infection called mastoidosis (effects 0.004% of the population in developed nations)and ended up with c-diff. (if you look up c-diff it super sucks and is highly contagious). But we were able to get the meds for him to come home, where he will spend 4 weeks on antibiotics. Man can't catch a break.

CEA level had more then doubled in 2 weeks, which concerns me greatly. Eric is not on any chemo right now, and his surgery to remove the lung tumors has been pushed back twice because of infection. His numbers have not been this high since pre liver resection last year. If you scroll down below you can see the CEA level trends since he was diagnosed. Hoping that the reason behind this was the brewing infection, and not more disease growing elsewhere in the body. I do know that the neck/head/brain are good. He had multiple CTs of that area during his stay last week. We have an appointment in new york tomorrow, so I guess we will find out what the next plans look like. Surgery to remove the tumors from the one lung is scheduled for july 20th, with the following lung to be at a date after that. In the meantime we continue to pray. I will probably write more later, but I figure this is the quick update.

 These are pics of Eric when he was up at Sloan.

We passed the time talking about our Respite trip in January care of For Pete's Sake Cancer Respite Foundation

For Pete's Sake, We took a break from Cancer...

As many of you may already know, our family was blessed to be the recipients of a respite vacation to Florida, thanks to the For Pete's Sake Cancer Respite Foundation. For a few days we got to be a regular family. This quickly became a vacation that will always be closest to my heart. Word's cannot even describe what FPS has done to raise our family up. We are so lucky, and hope to pay it forward by participating in the For Pete's Sake, Walk fun walk at Citizen's Bank Park in April.Click here to directly join or donate to our team, "Phightin' for Officer Dial.

Eric and the boys were shocked the day we left for our respite to open the front door to several area news outlets, a limo, Marci the founder of FPS, and several of his fellows Officers in the Philadelphia Police Department there to send us off. One of the longer pieces was done by CBS Philadelphia...click for the report. Logan was a hoot when they interviewed him, I think I looked like a dork.

One of the things they ask you to do as part of the respite is to write an entry in the journal at the FPS home in Davenport, FL (yea they bought it for cancer patients and their families...soooo cool). The first day we arrived I read through the journal and read the other entries from Sailors and there families. It was really touching. FPS have touched the lives of so many people. FPS paid for our flight, lodged us in the organizations home (a beautiful 3 bedroom with a heated pool right outside Disney) tickets to Disney/Universal/Sea World, a rental car, and a stipend for food and other expenses. WOW. Anyone who can donate to this group, we would be so thankful. They are good people. I blogged about FPS before here. Please take a moment to read that post, as it will explain FPS even more.

I'm still trying to figure out how to share with you the magic of this experience. I think the best way is to share with you what I wrote in the journal at the home, and to share with you a picture I took right before we watched the sunset into the Gulf of Mexico....

Happy New Year! May this year bring us all good health, amazing memories, and much LOVE. Thanks to FPS, our memories have already become beyond amazing. Since Eric's diagnosis in Oct of 2010 (Stage IV Colon mets to liver), our entire family transformed from "normal dysfunctional" (lol) to "battle mode". The Dial's declared WAR ON CANCER!

Every step of this process was an easy one. Peg and Mariann went out of their way to make this the most amazing respite possible. And Marci even showed up at our house the day we left with a limo and 3 news stations! Imagine my husbands surprise when he opened the door to see over 20 of his fellow Philly Police Officers, along with Marci and the limo driver (as well as the cameras all around). Our boys were in just as much shock as well! Until we boarded the plane, the youngest had no idea where we were headed.

15 months afo my husband was told he had 8 months to live. Yet this week he laughed and smiled as if those words had never been said to him. He was once again the man I fell in love with. Even though he felt sick in the beginning of our trip, he pushed on, determined to enjoy every minute of his break from cancer.

One of the magical parts of this trip was watching Eric reconnect with his 16 year old son. This was something they truly needed. Cancer had really reeked some havoc on relationships. Now I have captured special moments, and they will have memories stored up that will help them get through the tough times ahead. See in November, after 6 months of being in remission after his liver resection, and sending 21 days in the ICU from post surgical infection , Eric was told his cancer was back. Tumors were found in the remaining "healthy" part of his liver. That sad news made this trip mean that much more.

Tomorrow we leave and go back to reality; the kids go to school, I go back to my job as a teacher, and Eric back to being a Philly police officer. And the day after that we go back to cancer, and another CT scan at Sloan-Kettering in NYC. But for 1 glorious trip, cancer did not define us, we DEFIED it!

Much Love,
Eric, Jeaneane, Mark & Logan

2 VERY special Events

Hello all! I will be sending out an update soon about our amazing respite. But in the mean time, I wanted you to all mark your calendars for 2 upcoming events that are very important to us, and that we will be participating in, the "Get Your Rear in Gear" and "For Pete's Sake, Walk". We have created teams for both, and below I will give you more information.



Philadelphia Get Your Rear in Gear-
5K and 10K Run, 2 Mile Walk and Kids Fun Run
Sunday March 18, 2012

This is our 2nd year participating in this event, which benefits the colon cancer coalition. The event is held at the Art Museum. Non runners can easily participate. Last year we had a nice turnout for our team and raised over $1000.

you can register for this event here:
http://www.getyourrearingear.com/events/list/2012/philadelphia-pa-2012/

click on "JOIN A TEAM" we are DIAL'S POOPER TROOPERS



THIS IS AN AWESOME FAMILY EVENT!!!!! AND THE KIDS WILL LOVE BEING ABLE TO GET ACCESS TO THE PLAYING FIELD AT CBP (AND ADULTS TOO)

Enjoy VIP access to Citizens Bank Park - without the lines! For Pete's Sake, Walk! is a 3 mile fun walk. Following the 3 mile route, walkers will be allowed to round the bases and take a photo in the dugout!

You can walk as an individual, register your family, join an existing team of walkers or form a team of your own!

You can register the entire family here:
http://takeabreakfromcancer.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=997534&lis=1&kntae997534=BA5CB0666D674FB0BBA9F3B7643E3756

and please join our team: Phightin' for Officer Dial

FPS has a very special place in our hearts and we would really love for all of our friends and family to join us for this very special event. FPS sent us on our amazing respite to Florida last week. We would love to help other families be able to enjoy this amazing experience.

For Pete's Sake, Take a Break from Cancer

Through an amazing organization called For Pete's Sake (FPS) our family is being given the opportunity for a respite. This grassroots local non-profit is pretty amazing. I highly suggest you visit the page to learn more. Basically this young woman Marci lost her husband to cancer when he was just 30 years old. After his death she dedicated her life to helping others going thru the same thing. It's truly inspirational. Anyway, I had called to ask a few follow up questions and ended up talking to this girl Amber. This was all before we found out Eric's cancer was back. I was so giddy and happy that Amber asked me to write about my experiences. We ended up being the feature family for the month of November. I was really touched. I started to write Amber then got sidetracked. I finally finished that letter today and wanted to share it. I am very touched by this organization, and hope that you support them in any way. They really make such a difference in the lives of others.

Amber,
When I spoken with you a few weeks ago, after chewing your ear off forever, you had asked me to write down my experiences and email them to you. I sat down to begin writing this, and then got sidetracked with the million things going on with life. But I knew I would get back to it. FPS has blessed us with the opportunity to go on a respite, and the least I could do was share my personal joy with this experience, and how touched I was by the kindness of others. I was feeling such happiness and joy as I talked to you. And I couldn't wait to share my experiences. And then my world was altered, and I was left in a state of disillusion.

On Monday November 7th we were told my husband's cancer was back. After all the surgeries, and treatment, and almost losing him to infection over the summer, he was feeling great and technically 6 months "cancer free". After telling us those horrible words, the next thing they said, was "You will still be able to go on your respite. We will schedule treatments around it." And with a few words, this respite became so much more then just a break after months and months of fighting, it became a break in his next battle we now face. And you cannot even imagine how much more this opportunity means to us then before (Not that it wasn't already AMAZING). In some ways I am still in a state of shock. I knew there was a chance this could come back, I kept watching the lab reports and the CEA levels slowly rising, but I just hoped and prayed he wouldn't have to go through this again. But here we are, ready to fight. A little battered, somewhat broken, very tired, but not yet ready to give up.

I had mentioned to you on the phone that a little while after we had started the nomination process, I actually read Marci's story. I can't really tell you why I hadn't before, but I just hadn't. I researched and read every other page of the site, but her story was the one thing I just couldn't yet read. Eventually I got a box of tissues ready, went in my classroom all alone, and read it. I am glad I was alone and had the tissues ready. I felt like I was reading my own story. I was newly married to the love of my life. I was just turning 30 years old. I was trying to move upward in my career in the field of education. I had become a cancer spouse. And Cancer has invaded and threatened all that I loved so much, and worked so hard for. My husband, my big strong 35 year old Philly cop, was fighting the toughest criminal he ever had encountered. A horrible thing that wanted to kill him, colon cancer. Colon cancer that had been traveling and growing inside his body for years, with no indication it was there. Colon cancer that was Stage 4 when they finally found it. I just recently found out that when I wasn't in the room with him a doc had told him he had about 8 months to live. Who were they to put a time stamp on life? I didn't realize my husband had an expiration date.

But he fought so hard. From Oct 2010, they day of diagnosis to this next round in the ring. But all the time, Eric has just wanted to be "normal" he is sick of being the guy with cancer. He is tired of us being the cancer family. We just want to finally have happy memories. And that is what you are giving us the chance to make. you are enabling us to take a break from cancer, and be a family. Your enabling us to have an opportunity for our sons to have memories that don't involve hospital rooms and oxygen, and sickness that chemo causes. you are helping us to live.

Thank you so much for all that you do. Thank you for making this hell just a little bit easier. Thank you for helping me, feel like a mother and wife, and not a caregiver. And thank you to Marci, for taking the worst experience of her life, and turning it into such a beautiful thing for others. Through her strength and dedication, Pete lives on.


Sincerely yours,

Jeaneane