Back To Mayo For Check Up

Sorry About the "Lost Month"!

Time flies when you are trying to get the kids in a routine for school and with after-school activities, trying to hold a full time job down and oh yes, helping a husband recover and battle metastatic prostate cancer.  That is all in a day at the Estelle/Vinecki home.  No news is good new they always say and is pretty much where we are at right now.

Michael has spent the last month training himself to void all over again, so yes we have potty training going on in our house once again (I thought we were done with that after Ruger). Michael did not like the idea of cathing himself 6 times a day, so he has managed to get his bladder working again.  This is an amazing feat if you consider how much damage was done to the area around his bladder.  It may take him ten minutes to  empty his bladder, but hey it beats the alternative way of emptying the bladder.

The last several weeks have been the best weeks for Michael since before surgery.  He is finally able to get off the couch and move around and do small tasks around the house.  The hair started growing back in since he is off chemo right now but he got too many comments about his hair looking like goose dander so he shaved it off again.  Michael was able to get some much needed R&R in Las Vegas last week for a few days.  He managed to survive being dragged up and down the strip numerous times.  The highlight was seeing Elton John live in concert.

Michael is back out at Mayo this week getting more follow-up CT Scans done to look for recurrence of tumor.  They were able to pull his drain from his liver this morning so he no longer has any drains.  He only has his colostomy and a PICC line (for medications when needed) left.  We stopped his daily antibiotics last week since his liver infection and blood infection seem to be resolved. 

Winter has managed to round up some of the best researchers in the world for prostate cancer after her recent trip to Lake Tahoe.  She was a special guest at the 15th Annual Prostate Cancer Foundation Scientific Retreat.  She presented them with a check for prostate cancer research and gave a brief speech to all of them after they all watched her video from the Florida triathlon.  It was a very powerful day for prostate cancer research.  A video of this event is available at www.vimeo.com/2020098  These researchers are committed to trying to help Winter's Dad anyway possible.  We will be looking into clinic trials and newer up and coming treatments depending on the results of his CT scans.

Michael will be starting to put some entries on the blog.  It will be good to start hearing things from his prospective.  Much of the activities of Team Winter can be tracked thru www.teamwinter.org 

Winter can also be found on facebook and under "groups",  Team Winter can be found and you can join as a "fan" to view what is up and coming for Team Winter.

We thank all of you for your continued thoughts and prayers,

Dawn & Kids