Last Pre Op Physical

Mary Jo had a pre op physical today at 3pm at the Farmington Fairview Clinic.  We were fortunate that the clinic staff was able to squeeze us in at the last moment.  Mary Jo woke up this morning and told me that she had completely forgot to schedule an  appointment for the physical, which is required prior to her scheduled surgery tomorrow morning.  The attending physician at the clinic said everything "looked good" and Mary Jo is cleared for the reconstruction surgery.  The reconstruction surgery will be performed Mary Jo's plastic surgeon, Dr. Jacquline Luong from Midwest Plastic Surgery tomorrow morning at the Fairview Ridges Hospital in Burnsville.  The surgery is expected to take less than two hours and we are anticipating that Mary Jo will spend an hour or so in post op before being released from the hospital.  Mary Jo is resting this evening and excited to be entering this final phase of surgical procedures. 

Delta's Pink 767 and the Survivors in 2010

The Big Pink Plane

Mary Jo, along with about one hundred ten fellow Delta employees, all of whom are breast cancer survivors, were honored by Delta Airlines with a very special and emotional event held yesterday (September 30th).  The multi city event honored these special ladies and also helped mark the kick off October, which is officially breast cancer awareness month.  Delta is a huge supporter of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and has a lofty goal of raising one million dollars for this cause in the month of October through donations, sales of special merchandise and on board sales of special items.  The breast cancer survivors were all hand selected and flown to Atlanta from around the system on Wednesday.  Thursday morning the ladies started the day with a special ceremony held in Atlanta.  The ladies along with CEO Richard Anderson and many of the top brass then boarded a specially painted pink Boeing 767 and were flown to Detroit for a second ceremony.  The ladies were treated like royalty and wined & dinned on board the aircraft.  After the Detroit ceremony, they all boarded the same pink plane and flew on to MSP.  Mary Jo's friend, Jamie Page used her Delta connections to get me into the secure hanger so I could see Mary Jo's pink plane pull into the huge hanger and cheer for all the ladies as they deplaned the big "pink plane".   



Delta breast cancer survivors



It was a very emotional experience seeing all the survivors in pink standing on the airstairs of the pink 767.  A special final reception was held in the hanger before the ladies boarded buses and were shuttled downtown to the Raddisson for a cocktail reception happy hour and hotel rooms for every survivor.  To top off the special day, the ladies were all given Twins tickets to Target Field to attend a Twin-Blue Jays game.  Mary Jo and I had an incredible evening experiencing Target Field on a beautiful fall evening. 




MJ and Kevin at Target Field

 

Rock The Pink

Yesterday, Mary Jo and three of her fellow Northwest-Delta flight attendants, Mollie Riley, Lisa Speer and Kimberly Hoffer were honored at the “Rock The Pink” fundraiser event. It was an amazing event sponsored by three very special Northwest-Delta flight attendants for their friends battling with breast and lung cancer.



Silent auction tables

 Richard Moody, Lou Reynolds and Jodi Zueger produced and hosted the event at the Uptown Drink in Minneapolis. I am so grateful to them for all their hard work, creativity and caring compassion that they put into this beautiful event.

A silent auction was held from 2:00pm – 6:30pm and the winners were announced at 7:00pm. 100% of silent auction proceeds will then be divided equally between the four women battling cancer; Mary Jo, Mollie Riley, Lisa Speer, Kimberly Hoffer.

Richard wrote on his website IamMoody.com

On Sept 19, 2010 IamMoody and Uptown Drink bring you Rock the Pink; a fundraising event that is open to the public. Cancer treatments are painful and expensive, this is your chance to dig deep and open your hearts and help those who need it. Go to Uptown Drink in Minneapolis, MN from 2:00pm – 7:00pm. There is no cover charge to attend and there is a $10 all you can eat buffet with food provided by Uptown Drink and Fusion. 20% of all food and beverage sales will go directly to these four wonderful women.

Mary Jo and I would also like to thank the good people that came out to this incredible event to show their support for their friends and also thank all those who generously contributed the items that were auctioned off. It was a very touching and emotional evening. Lots of laughs and a few tears.

Kevin, Richard Moody and MJ

Last Surgery Scheduled

Mary Jo met this morning with her plastic surgeon, Dr Jacqueline Luong in the doctors new Burnsville office of Midwest Plastic Surgery.  Dr Luong examined Mary Jo and explained the breast reconstruction surgery procedure to Mary Jo and I.  Mary Jo is excited to be planning this final surgical step in what has become, more than a year now, battle with breast cancer.  Mary Jo had been expecting to have to en dour a separate planned surgery to remove the surgically implanted power port, which was vital during her chemo therapy treatments, but Dr Luong will also be removing the device during the breast reconstruction surgery.  Mary Jo is pleased that her plastic surgeon will also be performing this device removal surgery because plastic surgeons typically are perceived to be more concerned with aesthetic look of the scars.  This final surgery has been scheduled for October 12th at the Burnsville Ridges Hospital. 

MJ standing in front of Dr Luong's office

Breast reconstruction surgery is considered day surgery and Mary Jo is expected to be going home the same day.  We were told that procedure is not terribly uncomfortable for patients and Mary Jo's recovery should take only a few weeks following the surgery.

MJ having fun in the plastic surgeons office

Milestone Day

September 2nd 2010 was another milestone day for Mary Jo in her treatment of stage three B breast cancer.  Yesterday was last day of her scheduled cancer treatments, although Mary Jo will continue to take Arimidex (estrogen receptor therapy) for four more years as her cancer was estrogen positive.  Mary Jo has gone from initial diagnosis back in July of 2009,  followed by more than a year of intense and aggressive treatments which included a surgical double mastectomy, six sessions over 18 weeks of Taxotere and Carboplatian chemotherapy along with weekly sessions of Herceptin, 35 daily sessions of radiation, a prophylactic complete DaVinci hysterectomy and daily estrogen therapy (Tomoxifin and now Arimidex).  Yesterday, Mary Jo received her very last (30th session) dose of the biologic chemo therapy drug Herceptin, marking the end of a 52 week regiment of this powerful cancer fighting drug. 

Michelle, MJ, Diane at the last chemo session

Mary Jo's mom, Diane and her youngest sister, Michelle came to this last chemo appointment to celebrate the big day with us with cake and flowers.  Dr Gall and all his wonderful oncology nurses congratulated Mary Jo at the end of the session. 

MJ and some of her favorite nurses at MOPA

Last MUGA Scan

drawing blood from MJ for the MUGA scan

Mary Jo is doing well today.  She had her final quarterly scheduled MUGA scan by the very pleasant radiology staff at Burnsville Fairview Ridges Hospital yesterday afternoon.  A MUGA scan is performed by drawing a small vile of blood from Mary Jo, attaching a radioactive substance, Technetium 99, to her red blood cells, then injecting the red blood cells back into Mary Jo's bloodstream. Mary Jo is then placed under a special camera (a gamma camera), which is able to detect the low-level radiation being given off by the Technetium-labelled red cells. Since the red blood cells (including those that are radio-labelled) fill the cardiac chambers, the image produced by the gamma camera is essentially an outline of those chambers. With some high tech computer manipulation, the the final product is a movie of the heart beating. Since the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) is an excellent, and the most commonly used, measure of overall cardiac function. The ejection fraction is simply the proportion of blood that is expelled from the ventricle with each heart beat. So, for instance, if the left ventricle ejects 60% of its blood volume with each beat, the LVEF is 0.6. (A normal LVEF is 0.5 or greater.)   Mary Jo had a recorded 70% ejection fraction, which is very good.  Mary Jo's oncologist, Dr Gall also order a full chest x-ray for Mary Jo along with the MUGA scan yesterday.  We expect Dr Gall to give us the results of the chest x-ray during the examination and consultation tomorrow prior to Mary Jo's last and final scheduled Herceptin treatment at Minnesota Oncology.  Quarterly MUGA scan have been performed throughout Mary Jo's chemo therapy (Herceptin) treatments to closely monitor Mary Jo's heart function as Herceptin can cause serious, life threatening damage to a patients heart.  Mary Jo has tolerated the last 52 weeks of Herceptin treatments without any noticeable damage to her heart and is very excited to be getting her last and final treatment of Herceptin tomorrow.

MJ getting her last MUGA scan