In Remembrance of Bryan Maine
1968-2008
In deference to his wishes, Bryan wanted a gathering of his friends and relatives to celebrate the many memories that have enriched all of our lives.
A celebration of life memorial gathering will be held.
Date: January 10, 2008
Time: 1:00pm to 4:00pm
Place: Sheraton Hotel, Garden Terrace Room
Address: 12725 Center Court Drive, Cerritos, CA 90703
website: www.sheraton.com/cerritos
RSVP by Jan 7, 2008
Phone: Robert Maine 562-865-1857
or email: robertmaine@gmail.com
In lieu of flowers please make donations in his memory to the American Cancer Society.
Thank you for all the wonderful and caring comments. The comfort you bring cannot be expressed.
We are still making arrangements and gathering details for the memorial service and will be sure to post that information when it’s ready.
MEANWHILE…………………
We are going to put together a slide show and as you know Bryan was usually BEHIND the camera so we are requesting that if anyone has photos of Bryan they would like to share to be included please send them to email address: digitalvideocompany@gmail.com. The photos should be jpg type - 200kb minimum, but less than 2mb. THANk YOU !!!
Family, Friends and Loved Ones: Bryan passed away this morning at 6:30am mountain time. He passed in his sleep and was in no pain. Bryan cared deeply about all of you and we thank you for your caring and support.
Funeral services will be held in Cerritos, California on a date to be determined. Details will be posted as soon as possible.
Update to let you know that Bryan is in the hospital again. We are doing everything possible to keep him as comfortable as possible.
Connie
Update. We went for Bryan’s check up on Thursday. The Xray shows that not much progess has been made in the past three weeks with the new chemo pill (Tarceva) so we decided to go back to a drug he was taking before (Alimta) but this time it will be taken alone without the other two drugs (carboplatin and avastin). The doctor does not want to be too rough on Bryan’s system right now so we’ll see if this works. If after three weeks there is still not much improvement we will again need to discuss options. We have home health nurse coming again twice a week to keep an eye on things, take vitals and anything else that Bryan may need. Today we had a visit from a physical therapist. She will try to help Bryan get some strenth back. He only weighed 117 on Thursday so he has lost quite a bit more wieght. He’s still having the pain in his lower back, hip and leg so we’ve rescheduled the MRI with anasthesia for Jan 8th. They;ll put him under so he can stand to lie down for the 1 hr and 10 minutes it takes to do the scan. I can’t believe the Holidays are almost upon us. Looks like I’m not going to get the Christmas cards out on time. Hope this update finds everyone well. Have a safe and happy holiday. Love Connie and Bryan
It’s been a while since Bryan has posted an update and lately he’s just not feeling up to it so I thought I’d post for him. He seems to be sloooowly recovering from the VATS pleurodesis surgery. We’re not sure what’s going on with him right now. We went to ER yesterday about 3pm to get checked out on why he has so much shortness of breath as well as increased heart rate. He can’t move (I mean literally just move) without being totally drained and heart rate sky high. So we had a CT scan to rule out blood clot in the lung and effusion around the heart. No blood clot and only a small amount of fluid around the heart - they said not enough to cause this problem. So he had the option of being admitted to hospital if he didn’t feel comfortable going home (with a hint that no hospital beds were available) - so we opted to go home. Got home at 3:30am. Today he’s not feeling any better. We have an oncologist appointment next Tuesday for follow up on new drug and maybe at that time we can figure out what else to do. Our daughter and grandson (and baby to be) are here visiting….3 year olds are so much fun (especially when they wear a spiderman costume 24/7). Stephanee has been a great help and Mason is so concerned and respectful of how Papa Bryan feels. We had 7 inches of snow on Tuesday and Mason loves playing in the snow. They will be here until Monday and it will be sad to see them leave. Bryan hasn’t been able to take any photos but as soon as he’s feeling better he’ll take some to post. Thanks AGAIN for your caring and support.
Connie
We just got back from the hospital a little while ago. Connie and I decided to change our meals around as you know and have the fully Thanksgiving meal next week when our daughter and grandson come to visit. Steff is actually pregnant again so we’ll have both grandkids here!
So tonight, we’ve got some King Crab Legs sitting in the fridge waiting for us to boil some steam.
I’m going to snuggle up with my sweetheart and wait for the baked potatoes to finish. Here’s a couple shots from this morning’s sunrise. Hope you appreciate them as I felt like dyng when I was running around with the camera getting these two….
Again, click on the image to see a larger, clearer version.
I’m thankful for waking up to spectacular mornings like this. I’m thankful for my wife being this spectacular in real life for ME. She’s awesome. Many of my friends are just as spectacular with their support. And thankful for family and for them to be there is priceless.
Bryan
I gotta say, I think this is the worst day that I can remember throughout all of this so far. I passed out not long after we got home last night around 8pm. So, I’d say it was about 8:30 when I passed out. I woke up about 3am. 3:06am to be exact. That’s the only thing I can remember is seeing 3:06am and the pain that I was in. My leg, my side and the horrible nasty cough that was irritating all of it at the same time. I rolled around to fine the most comfortable position and after hacking at some of the junk in my lungs for a few minutes, I decided it wasn’t going to come up. So, I waited a minute or two and found a lull in the coughing and somehow managed to get back to sleep until 6:30am!
I hurt even more if that could happen. I had even more to hack up now as well. We had to leave here by 8:30am to get to the hospital on time. I was thinking all last night why Connie was so happy to go home. I mean, I would have been happy enough to stay another night and done the check out procedures the next morning to save on the few hour round trip drive instead. We wouldn’t have been as rushed either. Here nor there now, it’s done.
So we made it to the hospital at 10:30am. Got my port accessed and blood drawn. Considering we were an hour late, I was pleasently surprised the wait for that was only about 10-15 minutes. Then back to the waiting room so the Docs could get the results and go over them. So, another 10 minutes and we were called back to get my vitals and stuff. All the numbers looked perfect. 100% o2 saturation, BP was like 128 over 84, a little high, but still good. Heart rate was 84 and my weight, cool stuff. I figured with all the liquid drain off, I would have lost 15-20 pounds, but I lost ONE pound through all of this and I’m at 131 pounds!
Got put in a room after that and the Doc saw us and immediately came in to see us. We talked about how things were going and decided to use his computer instead of my laptop to go over the CT and xrays since he has a dual monitor setup and well, I don’t usually pack my 50″ plasma on the road everywhere I go, so he wins this time. But we got the initial CT done and it looks pretty good so when we go back in 3 weeks to have another one done, we have some clearer imagary to use to see how progress is going.
So, all of that and we had a discussion on whether or not to continue Chemo or go with this other Pill option. The Chemo is once every 3 weeks, has all kinds of side effects that you’ve all experienced through me and kills off my bone marrow really bad. The other option was a pill solution that I’d take a pill called Tarceva every day and it will fight the cancer and I’d still go in every 3 weeks. About the only side effects that people worry about is Diariah, which is a good luck thing becuase of all the Oxy drugs I’m taking backing me up in the first place and the second effect is rashes. These are BAD rashes that dry out your skin and look like the stereotypical nerdy pizza face kid. Sometimes these two effects can be prevented after getting them by stopping the pill for a few days and restarting. If that doesn’t help, reducing the dosage per day could also help and is a common solution. However, if the effects can’t be stopped and are not tollerable, then the only thing left is to completely stop and go back to other methods (Chemo for me I guess).
So, we head out to make the next sets of appointments. One for an MRI next Tuesday that I don’t want to do to take a look at my Siatic Nerve but I hate the MRI. It’s a smaller diameter tube that’s also deeper than a CT Scan tube and the MRI takes a looooong time, took 29 minutes to scan my brain the last time I was in one. And the the though of if I move, they’ll have to start all over, really sucks too. Now I also have 3 plates, 23 screws and a rod in my arm and leg. They said no problem and I said bully on that. They were vibrating almost time they were taking pictures and they started to even get a little warm. I don’t want to even go there. There’s nothing you can do to “Fix that” after it’s started. So if you stuck a hot spoon in your mouth and it was burning it? You take it out, drink a cold drink and you’re set. This situation? Nothing you can do but grin and bare it. Not that it got THAT hot but still, they’ll be scanning longer portion of my body this time so what if it does get that hot? Yup. Nothing. So we left with our appointments and our prescription refills and additions (yes! More new ones!!!). Drop off the scripts to be filled and had 20 minutes to kill so left there and tried to figure out something to do from there.
Wanted to stop by the infusion center to say goodbye to everyone in there and let them know what I was going to do, so that took a while. They were happy to see me and I them. They’ve been a great bunch of people to work with, always caring and always easy on you. Then went down and picked up the prescriptions and headed for the car.
Got home, OxyCotton really kickin in on the way home so I was dropping my head up and down passing out. Connie picked up a Philly Cheese steak sandwich and we headed the rest of the way home. Is today some sort of drive like an idiot day day? Everyone on the road was driving total idiots. Connie was driving and even she was cursing at everyone. It was ridiculous. Anyway, finally made it home and first things first, limped out of the car and headed towards my couch. I was ready for it. Me and my travelling slippers. Get to the step with some supplies in both hands, I grab my walker on the lower step with one hand and step down. Slipped and almost fell, but almost as bad, I yanked on a lot of already hurting muscles. I knew I wasn’t going down, but Connie caught it from the side of her vision and heard the thump of me pulling my other leg out in front and slamming it to the floor and just about had a stroke. I’m ok besides the additional pain on those particular muscles, but oh well. Now you know why they call them slippers. You wear them so you can slip and fall.
Ok, finally on the couch and ready to relax. Jeff has no concept of hot or cold I don’t think. So he had no windows open today. It was 82 degrees here by the couch. I was wearing clothes for quick 40 degree jumps out to the car and being comfortable at 65 degrees in the hospital. So, I’m sweating. Connie is about to leave for the grocery and gets me a lighter shirt and toodles off to the grocery. I sit for a while trying to relax and finally get the energy to get up and change shirts. I get my current shirt unbuttoned and as soon as I go to flip it off, I feel something I shouldn’t be feeling. A tube hanging loosely on my chest. SH@#$@!#$. I forgot to stop off and get the accessed port “de-accessed”. Now, this is something I Can actually do, but I don’t have the things to do it and there’s no way to really obtain it at the pharmacy either. So, that means we gotta drive all the way back and have it removed in the morning. This sucks. What else can go on today?
More as it comes, I think I overloaded a lot of you already…
Thank you all for your messages here and in email. They’re appreciated. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow. Mine will be spent with Connie probably just sleeping the day away. Hope into chat, maybe I’ll be around there tomorrow more often.
Bryan
The bad thing with keeping up and bringing it all to you as I find out while I’m in the hospital is either I’m dead tired or there’s an interruption every 15 minutes. Or something stupid (like me) not spelling a word right and just expecting the software to know what I’m thinking at that time and spell the correct word out for me. Well, the spell checker that comes with this blog kinda sucks. I’ve gotten pretty used to my Word Processor and email programs knowing what I’m trying to spell and will correctly quickly and even put a space after the work it’s corrected so I’m ready to keep going. I mis-spell it and as my eye catches it, it see’s it triggers my brain to make a corrective action and before I can hit the backspace or any other key to begin to correct it, it does it anyway. Corrects spelling, corrects any upper/lowercase problems, just does it all. Just wanted to gripe about something not really cancer related. (My applications are (Barf - Microsoft Word and Outlook, both 2003 flavors, not 2007 which I can not STAND!)
So as I get it eh? Well, sorry, Took the slow boat over the internet to get to you this time for sure.
Yesterday, that was pretty blurry, had a lot of breathing issues. There was a (we now know it’s the Siatic Nerve) nerve that was causing some really bad pain in my right thigh that was finally corrected in it’s own way, but not a permanent fix unfortunately. We’ll work on that one later. The actual procedure, as mentioned the day previous had done it’s job at a higher success rate than the previous one. It did drain a lot more than the previous one, but that’s good, get as much out so I don’t have to use other means to do it.
Finally, someone comes in this morning to tell us the tube is coming out. He started getting comfortable, taking his jacket off and tossing it on the chair. He’d be right back with a nurse to pull the tube out right there and then. I laughed since it was still at the end of Nurse swap out times so he wasn’t going to get anyone for another 10 minutes or so. Sure enough, 10 minutes plus later, he’s back and a nurse follows him in with a bag of Morphine. She hits me up with the whole thing and he gets started peeling off the dressings. Pretty soon, you finally see the tube going into the side of my chest and he’s almost ready to go.
I guess they tie the tube in there and around the skin to keep it in place, then tape and gauze all around the tube then they wrap a whole bunch of that stitching string around the tube so they can use it sorta like the old string around a loose tooth and yank type of removal. He must have memorized the angles and entry points because when he pulled the tube, it was like he was starting is lawn mower for the first time of the season. He yanked, I felt the tube sliding out quickly and it popped out of my chest and onto the floor. I think this should be a two person procedure since he had to fling the tube down on the floor and let go leaving the whole thing down there. Then he has to grab the stitching string really quick and pull on it like a shoelace to get it REAL tight so it doesn’t leak (hopefully). Then tie it off and cover it with a nice bag bandage.
If this is not done right and they don’t read the liquid levels correctly during the healing process, this could be very dangerous for everyone around me. haha Last year they didn’t do it quite right and let’s just say I blew out about 1/2 a liter all over the floor in the Cancer center. Wasn’t pretty, then it wasn’t pretty watching more of it come out from coughing, no bandages restricting anything. No one had seen this before. Anyway, I’m done with this part of it, if you want more description, try and catch me in chat. 
Anyway, we just had a visitor. One of the docs. He said we’re going home right now, so I gotta help Connie somehow get packed and get all this junk to the car…
More [later].
Bryan
So, the doc showed up at around 10am this morning. Felt me up in all the wrong places. Well, actually, for his gender and job, they were the right places after all I guess. Checked my drain tank and came up with a plan.
Everything looked good. They drained a liter and a half off during the procedure, then after the procedure as of right now, another 1/2 liter has drained into the tank. So, think about tossing a 2 liter bottle of soda between your inside ribs and one of your lungs and that’s how I felt the past week.
I can definitely breath easier now, however, I still have a lot of Flem built up inside my lungs from not being able to breath. What else? I’m on this plastic breathing exercise apparatus that appears to help me clear some of this Flem out of the lungs. I worked on some Flem for about 2 1/2 hours way early in the morning and couldn’t get it going. Usually I could get it worked up in 20 minutes of hacking. But not this one. Then I used that apparatus and sure enough, a few blows on that and that Flem came right up. What a relief.
Took the tank off the vacuum this morning and they’re going to see if if flows freely still. Then next step is to do another chest x-ray and see what’s going on in the morning. Not sure if they’ll remove the tank and send me home on the same day or not though, so, like I’ve been planning all along is to stay here until Tuesday lunch time.
Other than that, everything is looking great. I just have to figure out what new med they have me on that’s dehydrating my mouth so bad. This is worse than cottonmouth. A few breaths out of my mouth and the inside of it is so dry, I touch my tongue to the roof of my my mouth and it sticks to it like it was glued. Sucks.
Anyway, more as I get it.
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