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sunday, december 28, 2008
Mele (Belated) Kalikimaka!I apologize to all of Stody's supporters that there haven't been any
updates on the SSB website for awhile. (I moved a couple days before Christmas and have been without Internet, save
for my handheld, for over a week - maddening!).
Anyway, I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that
perhaps this year held some extra, deeper meaning, at least it did for me. Hopefully we'll keep our loved ones on the
forefront of our minds and in our thoughts and prayers as we move into the New Year.
And here's a little recap
from Mel that we received yesterday:
"Merry Christmas everybody from the Stodelle household! Christmas was great and we all had a great day! Lots of good food (thanks to Sean's wonderful
cooking)and great company! My brother Jess is out visiting and we had a great Christmas Eve Polish
dinner night followed by Karaoke! Today Santa paid a visit to the Stodelle house and we had a great Christmas feast-Prime
Rib and Ham and all the trimmings! Yummy! Sean is still feeling the effects of treatment and has been tired alot. But his
love to cook has kept him in the kitchen alot, despite his fatigue. He had a great time helping Jordyn put together toys after
Christmas and playing with them too, just like a kid! Sean has been flying around his toy helicopter around the house and
terrorizing the pets with it! Boys and their toys! We really want to thank everyone for making this christmas special for
us even though we have been going through the challenges of our lives. We are still adjusting to our new normal life and just
keeping handling new challenges day by day. We are so glad to have such generous caring family and friends to support and
care for us. We love you all so much and are so thankful we have you in our lives. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Here's to next year being better than
the last! Cheers!"
7:20 am | link
tuesday, december 16, 2008
Stody goes "au naturale"
So
I apologize for the delay in reporting, but it seems Stody is sans hair (well, at least on his head!) as of Sunday. Here's
the report from Isolde in Sean's own words:
Don't worry
folks - that ain't nose hair clippings you're seeing!
"This is what I was waking to every
morning. We knew something had to be done soon since the dog and cat were starting to complain to me about "MY SHEDDING"
on their beds and toys! Actually, when the radiation techs finally start telling you, "Dude, you should just go ahead
and shave it," you realize it's beyond help. Even my super barber Alex who I have been seeing for the entire time
since we moved to Maui agreed that some things were beyond help. So Jordyn was more than willing to volunteer to shave me
down. This was all done with a electric razor as used by barbers. The bare skin areas you
see are just the front of the head where the hair came completely out. The back was even worse. So we are going to leave it
as a close BUZZ as I do not want to actually shave it lower especially given the sensitivity around the incision site.
The new anti-nausea meds seem to be
working better than the last so we will continue monitoring that. I am approaching a 10 pound weight
loss since being off the steroids and the nausea. Not that that is so much a prblem, but it is really wreaking hell
on me since I hate vomitting and upset stomachs. It may not be so miserable if I had a good 'Tequilla or Brewery"
story to go along with it, but to say, "Yeah, I was drinkin' Green Tea and then ate some yogurt..........Definitely
nothing you'd hear rock legends like Bob Dylan, or Keith Richards say!!!!!"
- Sean
 "I'm too sexy for my hair, too sexy for my hair, too sexy..."
thursday, december 11, 2008
Stodelle's Christmas LightsReceived this email from Melany last night:
"As you all know we have been busy this
Christmas season, so getting our lights
on the house was a challenge! Check out the picture." - Mel 
Is it just me or does that look like a brain and a tangle
of neurons???
8:00 pm | link
Sean's "Mahalo" to SBCSD & all who attended golf tourneyI apologize for the delay in posting, as Sean actually sent this out earlier
this week:
"Sorry for not coming on earlier to
say Mahalo (Thank you) for all you did for the tournament. The last few days have been especially hard as the type of chemo
they have me on apparently has a 'Cumulative' Effect in that it builds up and then you get all the usual chemo symptoms
at once. I think I've slept for 18 hours in the past 24 and think I may have only eaten 2 Saltine crackers as well. For
those that know me, the lack of appetite is the biggest shocker!
Thank you all again for all you have done. It means so much to know that so many
are pushing/praying for us. Besides, I haven't seen that many people
come together to chase balls since we used to run the 'operations' out at the Rest Stop."
- Sean
7:39 pm | link
sunday, december 7, 2008
Saca-Stodelle Golf Tournament
Received this wonderful email from Isolde recapping the golf tournament
to jointly benefit Lanette Saca and Sean Stodelle at the Calimesa Country Club this past Friday:
"Hello Family and Friends!
Friday was the Stodelle/Saca benefit golf tournament at Calimesa Country
Club. What an awesome, overwhelming and unbelievable showing of love and support for Sean, Lanette and families. We
just don't know how we can thank everyone enough for all the hard work that went into this to make it happen!
To Mike Howell, Bill Cates, Kari Tesselaar, Bob Fonzi, you did an amazing job organizing this event. To
the Braswells, without your beautiful facility and your generosity, none of this would have been possible. To
Kari and Jerry Tesselaar, Ross Dvorak, Nancy Penrod, Tom and Sandi Denham, Mindy Paranik, Christine Miller, Karen Cates,
Amy Baumstark, Tiffany and Jeff Hewitt, Bob and Nancy Simendich, you worked so hard registering
golfers, selling raffle tickets, taking pictures, selling drinks, and doing whatever was needed; you are all awesome! To
Isaac, Mike and Linda Hewitt, Mike Sterner with Oakley, those were great raffle prizes you donated!
We had 150
golfers and many, many tee sponsors...thank you, thank you, thank you! We will be sending Sean and Lanette a list
of the golfers/sponsors and also the tee sponsors. Words can't begin to express our gratitude. Bill Coker won
the 32-inch flat-screen TV and donated it back to be auctioned off. Nancy Penrod donated her skills at driving
golf balls on the 17th tee and raised additional cash.
In
case I forgot to specifically mention anyone else that helped, please know that we thank you from the bottom of
our hearts as well, plus just being there was a huge contribution. Oh, and Mike Huntsman, I appreciated you helping me
with the audio/video.
There were many
tears shed as Luis and Lanette spoke about their journey, and as Sean's Journey video was played. It is your encouragement,
prayers and positive thoughts that will get us through this!
The
video I did for Sean is now on youtube.com, so if you'd like to view it, just go to youtube and type in isoldestodelle, and it should come up. It's titled "Sean's Journey 2008". I'm
attaching a few pictures, and I'll have many more later."
- Isolde
Special Hawaiian Chant for the Stodelle Family
Received
from Sean yesterday:
Chris, my good friend who most of you met and who was my old Banquet
Manager, called me to tell me that the Maui Ocean Center's Cultural Advisor, Uncle Charlie, performed a special
chant at the Xmas party specifically for us as "Sean and his family go through this intense battle and Sean fights for
his life."
I sent
him a Thank You and here is his response to my Mahalo email. Uncle Charlie is Maui's top and most Sought after Kapuna
(Hawaiian Elder) and is known as the Kahu of Maui (Caretaker/elder/leader for
Maui's Hawaiian culture and Rights) so it means alot. I've known Uncle Charlie, and his late wife Auntie Nina, for
many years so it means alot that he included me in this chant, especially since it is a rare/special chant and not commonly
carried out for 'malahini' (outsiders). It again just shows how we accepted the culture/island and it and its people
in turn accepted us.
http://www.moolelo.com/
Sean
Aloha Sean, I am so happy that you got the message of the special chant which I did for you. I
do not do the chant except for special circumstances and I was looking for something that I could do as a gift from all
of us. Its a chant that is called Hemuoia, which invokes protection from the top of your head to the bottom of your
feet.
Call me at --------- night or day if you want me to pray for you. Mahalo a nui loa (thank you very
much) for your e-mail.
Uncle Charlie
----- Original Message
----- Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2008 6:53 AM Subject: Mahalo Uncle Charlie
Aloha Uncle Charlie,
My old staff
member from Maui Ocean Center Food and Beverage Deaprtment told me about how your chant for
me and my family moved them to tears. Thank you for taking the time to keep me in your thoughts and in a positive way. I truly
appreciate what you did. This has been a hard fight so far with much more to come but knowing that there are people using
their gifts and positivity to help makes me fight even harder.
Sean Stodelle
saturday, december 6, 2008
Sean's in the paper AGAINSo Sean informs us last night that he's in the paper yet again. I knew that
brain of his would make him famous one day; just didn't know it literally would! ;-)
Here's the
link to the article featured in the Maui News:
http://www.mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/511986.html?nav=10
Seems Sean ran into the Mayor, Charmaine Tavares, the other night when picking Pamela and Kris up from the airport
and was lucky enough to be able to introduce them to her. This also gave Sean the opportunity to personally thank her, as
she had a scheduling conflict the day of and was unable to attend the Roi Round-up.
Happy
holidays to both our land and sea dwellers!
8:09 am | link
tuesday, december 2, 2008
sean resumes treatment! woo-hoo!
Here's today's
update just sent by Melany:
"Hi Guys,
I wanted to let you know that Dr. Coty called and let us know that Sean’s liver
tests came back much better and “almost normal”. Since Sean will never be “almost normal” in
many ways, so why stop at the blood tests right?!?
He said to
continue his chemotherapy regimen and include the antibiotic for the “possible” infection. He had radiation today
and already the crew at the radiation treatment center were missing his jokes. Why? I will never know. J
They are going to
decrease his steroids gradually, as long as he can tolerate the headaches, and cut back his Anti- Seizure since he hasn’t
had any anyways. Less medicine = happy liver! I ran this scenario
by Dr. Donovan’s office and he seems to think it’s just inflammation and not infection. He said he would
be willing to look at the CT to see if it looks otherwise. I thought the same thing, it’s just good to hear it
from a good dr. like Donovan. I am waiting to hear from Peak’s office in Redwood as far as their opinion,
but so far everything looks back on track!
Sean is still tired,
but seems in good spirits. Knowing he can fight rather than idly standing by, makes him a happy cancer patient. We
had a busy day. We took Jordy to school, radiation, back home and had to take Sean’s car into the shop for repair.
For those that haven’t heard, Melissa borrowed Sean’s car for the tournament and someone hit it. Don’t
feel bad Melissa, there are worse things in life…. WE KNOW! So this is small considering the big picture.
I have been trying to get in 4 hours of work everyday, just so I don’t exhaust my sick and vacation completely. Picked
up prescriptions and took Sean to get a haircut. A very short haircut. For those of you that are familiar
with a “high and tight”, that is what it resembles. If you don’t than look at any Marine haircut and
that is what it’s like. If you thought Sean was a drill sergeant before, you should see him now! J Even with the almost shaved head, you can see the visible bald spots on the scalp which sort of
resembles a large amoeba on his head. The scar is more pronounced, but all girls think that scars are sexy, right ladies??
I told the barber that we might be in more frequent because the radiology keeps messing up his hair cut. I think they
are okay with that. Sean picked up a few fleece beanies in the meantime, anticipating more bad hair days in the future.
Tomorrow is an eye exam so maybe Sean can get some better vision and some
better glasses. Dr. Glasser is a great and very experienced optometrist who has been treating him for his kerataconus
(Sp?) so I am confident that he can work with Seans vision to tune it in good enough to drive one day and day-today-stuff.
Happy December everyone! Hoping to get the X-mas stuff out
of the attic somehow and get a X-mas tree! Jordyn wants a flocked tree this year so it looks “snowy”.
I figure this would be the perfect year to do something “different”. Maybe this weekend, we can brave the
attic to find the boxes of xmas stuff to decorate and get in the spirit of things. We are all going low-key with
the gifts, with the economy and brain tumor
issues, and sort of emphasizing the thankfulness that we have for life and family during this season. We hope you all
join us in this Christmas spirit and if you must give, give from the heart and not the pocketbook.
We have a whole new outlook on life and seeing you guys all come together for Sean is the best give we could ever receive.
We love you guys!"
-
Sean and Mel
Melissa's note: It really adds insult to injury when you know your bro is suffering from cancer
AND you get into a fender bender while borrowing his car. Doh! :( Sorry, guys...put it on my tab!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From earlier today:
Sorry for
the lag in posting. Here's an update I received from Melany last night:
"Hi guys,
We returned from Dr. Cody’s appointment today with little answers.
1) The liver test results were not back yet 2) The pain and swelling only showed slight improvement with antibiotics
So, with that in hand he consulted with
Dr. Mishiki from the radiology who encouraged him to continue with treatment, with a 3 week
course of antibiotics. That all depends on how Sean’s liver test comes back, which we should see results tomorrow
morning. In the meantime he can start radiation tomorrow morning. However, the radiation is more effective if he
can take the Temodar in conjunction with it. So, if all goes well, the liver tests will come back okay so that he can
get back on the full track of chemo and radiation that he needs, with a dose of antibiotics to clear up anything that might
be associated with infection. They are also considering the other medications that he is on to see if weaning him off of those
will improve his liver function.
I expressed to Dr. Cody that
it was Sean’s desire to go forward with the treatments, weighing the benefit to risk scenario. Sean feels good enough
to proceed with whatever is necessary to beat this cancer! I am going to drop a line to Dr. Peak, the Neuro-oncologist
at Kaiser Redwood City and also Dr. Donovan to see what their opinion is on Sean’s care. I will include pictures
of Sean’s swelling and his liver results to see what their opinion could be.
I asked Dr. Cody about the possibility of a salivary gland infection or inflammation, which is located
by the ear, and he said it was a little higher than that gland. I also asked about the
possibility of having a tear in the dura, the sac that surrounds the brain, maybe it was leaking spinal fluid under the skin.
He said that they ruled that out with the CT scan. So I definitely am doing my homework and following up with any lead! Being
proactive in Sean’s health care is my job and I feel confident that we are working at every angle to get some answers.
Sean is still very tired, even without the treatments. I think
the Thanksgiving weekend is catching up with him. Daily naps are becoming a necessity. He rests and sleeps while Jordy
and I are gone at school and work. I hope to take him to the barber shop to get his head
shaved tomorrow since he has a really funny haircut. Sean calls it his “NASCAR
mullet” due to the hair loss on his right side of his head. I will get a picture to
send.
Sean models his "NASCAR mullet"
Hmm...I wonder
what Sean's head is trying to tell him??
"I'm too sexy for my hair, too sexy for my hair...too sexy..."
Sean's swelling
on the side receiving the radiation.
Or he's storing nuts for the winter! ;-)
Since Sean needs his rest, I just wanted
to send out his updates. Please keep in mind there are several family members and friends that all want updates after
the appointments, so please be patient since we usually run our errands while we are out at doctors appointments. We will
update you as soon as we can. Also keep in mind the 2 hour time difference, so text messages
and emails might go unanswered later in the day due to the high volume of messages, Sean’s fatigue, and my work schedule. We
will continue to do our best keeping everyone informed, and as soon as we can. Keep all the good wishes coming. We
love you all and will keep in touch! P.S. I also included a picture of Dr.
Jones and his flabby belly hanging through his cat tree!"
Love, Mel
Sorry for the lag
in posting. Here's an update I received from Melany last night:
"Hi guys,
We returned from Dr. Cody’s appointment today with little answers.
1) The liver test results were not back yet 2) The pain and swelling only showed slight improvement with antibiotics
So, with that in hand he consulted with
Dr. Mishiki from the radiology who encouraged him to continue with treatment, with a 3 week
course of antibiotics. That all depends on how Sean’s liver test comes back, which we should see results tomorrow
morning. In the meantime he can start radiation tomorrow morning. However, the radiation is more effective if he
can take the Temodar in conjunction with it. So, if all goes well, the liver tests will come back okay so that he can
get back on the full track of chemo and radiation that he needs, with a dose of antibiotics to clear up anything that might
be associated with infection. They are also considering the other medications that he is on to see if weaning him off of those
will improve his liver function.
I expressed to Dr. Cody that
it was Sean’s desire to go forward with the treatments, weighing the benefit to risk scenario. Sean feels good enough
to proceed with whatever is necessary to beat this cancer! I am going to drop a line to Dr. Peak, the Neuro-oncologist
at Kaiser Redwood City and also Dr. Donovan to see what their opinion is on Sean’s care. I will include pictures
of Sean’s swelling and his liver results to see what their opinion could be.
I asked Dr. Cody about the possibility of a salivary gland infection or inflammation, which is located
by the ear, and he said it was a little higher than that gland. I also asked about the
possibility of having a tear in the dura, the sac that surrounds the brain, maybe it was leaking spinal fluid under the skin.
He said that they ruled that out with the CT scan. So I definitely am doing my homework and following up with any lead! Being
proactive in Sean’s health care is my job and I feel confident that we are working at every angle to get some answers.
Sean is still very tired, even without the treatments. I think
the Thanksgiving weekend is catching up with him. Daily naps are becoming a necessity. He rests and sleeps while Jordy
and I are gone at school and work. I hope to take him to the barber shop to get his head
shaved tomorrow since he has a really funny haircut. Sean calls it his “NASCAR
mullet” due to the hair loss on his right side of his head. I will get a picture to
send.
Sean models his "NASCAR mullet"
Hmm...I wonder
what Sean's head is trying to tell him??
"I'm too sexy for my hair, too sexy for my hair...too sexy..."
Sean's swelling
on the side receiving the radiation.
Or he's storing nuts for the winter! ;-)
Since Sean needs his rest, I just wanted
to send out his updates. Please keep in mind there are several family members and friends that all want updates after
the appointments, so please be patient since we usually run our errands while we are out at doctors appointments. We will
update you as soon as we can. Also keep in mind the 2 hour time difference, so text messages
and emails might go unanswered later in the day due to the high volume of messages, Sean’s fatigue, and my work schedule. We
will continue to do our best keeping everyone informed, and as soon as we can. Keep all the good wishes coming. We
love you all and will keep in touch! P.S. I also included a picture of Dr.
Jones and his flabby belly hanging through his cat tree!"
Love, Mel
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