Compliations-Day 2

Well today was another day full of surprises! First we arrived at the hospital thinking great today he will get the tube out and breathe on his own. Then the lung Dr. came in and said no such luck Eric has pneumonia!!!! Great just what he needed. So they gave him some medication and will do another x-ray in the morning. Well Eric is doing much better in all other areas! Yea! He can respond to yes and no questions, move his left side with no problems and can move his right leg and foot and squeeze his right hand with a little grip. Although he can move his right arm if he gets upset with something they are doing to him. I know he is ready to be back to normal so hopefully tomorrow will be a better x-ray day for him. He shook his head no when we said he only needed to have the tube for 1 more day and he shook his head no that he was not going to be a good patient anymore. So hopefully Monday he will get the tube out or I think it may be a long day! Finally in regards to Eric he has very little pain and has not needed any pain medicine so this is also a good sign that things are going well in regards to the brain surgery.

I also wanted to thank Chaplin Steve and his wife for stopping by to pray with Eric and the family. It was very moving and it was after the prayer that he started to move his right side. As we all know prayer can be very powerful! So please keep us in your prayers.

Thank you all for all your support and God Bless,

Hallie

Complications-Update Day 1

Dear Family & Friends,

I wanted to give you the current info on Eric. As of now he is moving his left side with no problems, the right side still needs some work but it looks like it will be fine. The tube will be coming out tomorrow and he will be awake if all goes as planed tonight. He was responsive to myself and his family squeezing our hands, he even waved goodbye tonight. The CAT scan came back looking fine and I am not sure if they will be doing it again. I know not on Sunday but maybe on Monday the Dr will order another CAT scan. So things are looking good right now and we will just keep praying!

Thank you for all your support we are lucky to have such a wonderful support group.
Hallie

Update About Complications

Dear Friends and Family,

I wanted to let everyone know about Eric's current situation. Unfortunately yesterday was a tough day for him and he was in a lot of pain. So the Dr's made sure that he was medicated and not feeling any pain, this made him very sleepy and not very responsive. Around 8pm last night the nurse came to check on him and his right side was not moving and he was not talking. The rushed him into the CAT scan and saw blood. He had a small leak from something and there was a clot. So at 10pm they took him back to surgery and removed the blood and clot. They are not sure what caused the leak but the surgeon said he was cautiously optimistic that everything would be fine. So far today his has movement in his left foot and hand, his right foot reacts to touch and his right hand is still not working. He is sedated and has a tube for breathing to keep his blood pressure down and his the CAT scan comes back ok today they will ween him from the tube and wake him up. I know this is a surprise for everyone but Eric is a fighter and I know he will pull out of this just fine. Please continue the prayers and I will try to update as often as possible I know he has a lot of people who care about him and we both want everyone to know whats going on with his current fight.

Thank you for all your prayers,

Hallie

Official Update

Family and Friends,

Thank you for being with us today and keeping us in your prayers, all the prayers helped as Eric is recovering well, talking and seems as he will continue to be the Eric we all know and love. The surgery took 5 hours and was intense as the Dr. put it. They had to go a bit deeper than before and remove a tumor that was bigger than the 1st one. The Dr. said that he thinks that he was able to get about 90-95% of the tumor. Even though this is not as exciting as 100% we are happy just the same. Eric will get another MRI by Friday and we will know more than. As for now he will be at the City of Hope recovering and I sure by the end of tomorrow making jokes and giving the nurses a hard time. I will try and update a little each day so that everyone can stay informed.

Again thank you all for everything! Prayers, support, offers of help we are so thankful to know such wonderful people. Everyone should be as blessed as we are!

Love and God Bless,
The Botkn's

Update

Hello everyone,

Just a quick update.....Eric is in ICU recovering and doing well. He is in a bit of pain and resting. I will give a complete update later this evening. Thank you for all your prayers and please keep praying!

God Bless,
Hallie

Third Times a Charm!

Whew! Life is funny. I wanted to take a moment and bring everyone up to speed. Almost exactly one year ago I was having headaches, pretty funny how that could occur again one year later. Anyway, over this month I was starting to have some things occur that were new to my current health. We all get headaches through our regular busy lives it was hard to beleive that it was happening again. I have also had amazing sinus problems over my life so that must be the challenge for me, not my brain cancer. Now forward to the night before the trip to Florida, I started having dizziness and loss of balance which kind of concerned me but hey, I'm traveling over the US, that must be my anxiety creator. Well my sinus problems increased over the amazing family moments and on Monday, two days into our vacation, I spend the day with the Emergency Room Staff due to my incredible head pain. While they were awsome individuals, all of us know that they are unbelievable for immediate action and decisions for patients, exactly opposite of brain cancer which was myself. The project ended with some exceptional communication between my current doctors and the staff in Florida to determine that another look should be done immediately. So as soon as we returned it as back to the City of Hope. I spoke at length today with my neurosurgeon who I really respect and the decision to do another surgery is the best answer. Having another surgery in a similar location could have a few more challenges for me, but I really believe that this is God's plan. While I don't know my future, all I know how to do is to work to overcome challenges. I know that Hallie will post an update for everyone as my surgery is scheduled for very early on Wednesday morning. The neurosurgeon believes that this second attempt it will take about seven hours to due because it is a more intense procedure.

Lastly after spending a day at the hospital (in Florida) and then being overwhelmed by all this new stress and unknowns we went to another Disney park to have some great family time and while standing in the park a plane posted these words. "God Loves U". There I was standing crying in the park. How stupid I felt to cry. What are the odds that after all my issues, challenges and stresses that someone I will never know or even be able to thank posted something so important. Well I just wanted to share with everyone a thanks for taking care of me and my family. Also a great thanks to all that have taken a moment and asked God to help me. You never know what you are going to accomplish in life and who you might affect, but to have people that you have never met asking God to give me and my family help is just something I can't even describe.

Specific surgery information:

City of Hope (Duarte, CA)

Wednesday, 29th- 6am or so

6 hour surgery or so

2-5 days in hospital based on Eric and his recovery

Thanks again to everyone and God Bless you all.

Well How About This!

Well good morning everyone. I just wanted to take a moment and tell everyone a wonderful and fantastic hello. I am taking a little moment and having a great little vacation in Florida at the Disney parks. The most important part of this unbelievable trip is that I have had able to spend some time with my mom, my sister and my amazing neice having no vacations before as well as my own awsome Hallie and Hunter. A pretty awsome level of fun that was great for us all to spend some time together and get to see what everyone is really about, in addition to us almost being mostly free. It has been really nice for me to spend many moments holding, hugging and kissing everyone.

Well I just wanted to take a moment and give my big news. After meeting with possibly two great doctors who have been keeping me at my best, we discussed what I am going to do about returning to work. The short answer is that after 10.462 years of serving the City of Riverside Fire Department the time has come for me to retire. It's a pretty amazing story how I got hired with the City and became part of another family, after all it only took about 5 years to get onto any fire department. I started at about 25 years old and went every where that I was able to get my car or by airplane to try to get my opportunity. California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, and Colorado and took many trips. I mostly didnt know how this application process worked and how it was totally different than getting other jobs and having just one meeting. There was a mental test, a physical test, an oral and then if you did fantastic you got to another oral with the Chief. Most often you were number 57 out of 4,500 which was awsome, but they were hiring number 1 -12. Yea! Nothing but money on the airline flights got to be your memory of that department. And then it was my local Riverside City who offered me an amazing opportunity. Well, The doctors and I discussed many things as I thought this was totally silly to leave that place that I really enjoy, my dream and taking moments helping people I thought why quit I just got to be a certified driver. The doctors found my concern funny and shared some things about my type of brain cancer. I have to share what was the thing that was going to be the toughest thing for me. The biggest fun dream for most of us is to be the one holding the nozzle at a great fire and since I have never pushed myself to that 110% since going off on the workers comp. no one knew how my brain would handle that system. Now knowing that if in this most amazing fun time God would have called me home , which is alright with me even though strange for others, I would have been alright, but knowing how my fire department would send people to help and rescue me which could be harmful or dangerous to them and that would be something that I could never allow to happen. So I believed that this was the best thing for me. On October 30th, 2008 will be my offical ast day. My last day with my best brothers and sisters, the well decisive captains in charge of us all, and the whole City of Riverside who has made this overwhelming thing run so completely smoothly to you I say thank you. I know that if all of these people were somewhere else as retail, mechanics are just parents would be those that are the ones who as knows as leaders, yet instead we all joined together and to the things that are important. While I feel silly after seeing all the others who placed a wonderful statement about how they have reached a time to leave and allow their moments to come to the others they are leaving behind, I still don't feel ready to go. I still wanted to be the one who laughed with my family, helped the families and pulled the nozzle off first. While I know that my situation is different than all those previous retirements I know that this is the best place for me. I know that God has something to do or complete so I won't get that moment to write that same wonderful statement of all those I would be priveledged to follow.

Life is Funny

Hello Everyone! I first want to tell all of you who have been checking for that new and hopefully interesting post, I am totally sorry. This post is totally overdue! Well there is a funny little story called "Life is Funny."

To remind everyone what is currently going on, let's start with the basics. My chemo pills are started on a Monday and taken for 5 days. They get taken at night so most of the immediate challenges are able to occur while I am asleep which has been working pretty great. The pills taken on Thursday and Friday night are usually the ones that start to make the days feel like crud. I loose energy, food interest, a various set of internal problems, and a whole lot of general nausea. Then, the pills are completed and following Saturday and Sunday are the worst days of the month. Those move up from cruddy to worse than cruddy. Life keeps on moving and Wednesday and Thursday my body starts shifting back to normal. This keeps up until about Saturday or Sunday of that following week, giving me two great weeks before we start it all over.

Well this delay from the blog just happened to be the start of my two great weeks and Hallie's onset of horrible flu. She is able to keep most of her kids sickness away but this one totally kicked her butt! For a week she was useless and I was both the Dad and the Mom. Whewwwwwwww. So many things to get completed and done that was totally wearing me out. I was taking care of the totally sick dream woman and completing both parents jobs, assistance and practices. Whew again I thought. Well, another issue hit Hallie and after a visit with her awsome "woman only" doctor and the emergency room doctor, I have had a few more days of being the one who was in great health to do, help and complete MANY different items. She has almost returned to normality and I just got started thinking about this whole series of events had been dealt with by me, the "sick guy".

It is a pretty wonderful and unique situation that after so many months of ups and downs, I got to be the one that was given the honor of being the caretaker. We in the fire service as either a paramedic or firefighter love to be in a position to give some needed help to a stranger, but to be the one who gets to deliver that joy and love to a close family member is amazing. She has worked so hard in many different areas to assist me since this all started and I finally got to spend a little time and be her helper and caregiver. I believe that she is one her way to being normal again and I am sure that as life goes on I will be the patient who needs more help and support but I just want everyone to know how I am very happy to have given a great woman a few moments of special love.

Finally Summer ENDS!

Whew! What an unbelievable summer that has been truly enjoyed by the entire Botkin family this year. Now it is finally over! Thank goodness we can get back to normal! We spent the whole summer focusing on having complete family moments through unbelievable events and escapades. I am so happy to have had so many special memories with Hallie and Hunter. We got to enjoy things that we had never enjoyed before. The result was great laughs, awesome pictures and simply unbelievable memories. I also wanted to take a little moment and give a wonderful thank you to those specific individuals who helped our dream of family memories become a reality, and to know that they too became a part of those fantastic memories that will forever be a part of our lives. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Next, today was another one of those continuing MRI assessment of that little thing located in the safety of my skull. My doctor was busy consulting with several other people to try and get the true meaning of that little growing white spot and the official conclusion is we don't know yet. Brilliant! I'm, sorry for my silliness, but I seem to believe even more than before, that every moment of my time left here on the planet is totally controlled by God. I am here to complete that thing and will enjoy life for five minutes of fifty years. Only God has this strange thing totally under control. I am happy to wake each day and enjoy that I have been given another wonderful breath of loving and fantastic life.

As this unknown thing still continues over every thirty day window I have taken a moment to think about many things. I was having a conversation with a girl starting her new classes. She was telling me all about the new changes with having to change classrooms, having many different teachers and difficult class locations. Interesting, I thought to myself. She had stated that there were many different problems that she had never before had to fix or avoid. As we sat I was thinking that so many people of all ages can see their difficult moment as either a problem or a challenge. It is very simple that every one of the unwanted and unforeseen events can be a problem to some and a challenge to others. Many look at their problems as that moment which forever negativly changes their future and creates a new outlook for them, while others see that as a challenge which is simple a bump in the road. The challenge is nothing more than that thing which makes the individual concentrate, focus and create a new way of thinking and feeling. Such hard work helps you to realize that there is truly nothing waiting to stop you in your tracks, just something to allow yourself to adapt. Funny how such a simple thing can be so difficult.

This Just In........

Well can you believe that it has been a month since Eric's last Dr's appointment! He went to see the Dr. on Friday and he had another MRI. He has had so many he thinks he may have broken some kind of record. Anyhow the MRI basically showed the same things as last month. The area they are watching has had a little growth but nothing to be alarmed with. He also had a PET scan in July which showed no cancer. With this information they want to continue watching Eric on a monthly basis but they are feeling that it might just be the dead cells. So you are asking what does this mean? Well it means we live another 30 days knowing that everything is all right and we redo this again next month. Some of you are probably wondering how we live in 30 day increments, well it is easier when we keep busy and enjoy family time. This summer has been a very busy one for us and I know that Eric is looking forward to school starting so that we can slow down from all the activities. I guess I forgot to tell him it just means that fall ball, soccer and Cub Scouts are ready to begin! Oh yeah and Hunter starts 4th grade so the homework will be more interesting and time consuming. Well I guess it is just another way for us to keep busy and live life to the fullest. We hope that you all have enjoyed your summer and are living life to the fullest.

Love to all,
Hallie