My TV news debut

Some of you know of our 68 Camaro convertible that I have been restoring at a snails pace over the last two to three years. Bev will argue that it's been longer.

We had a lot of fun in the car but it came time to give the car the TLC that it deserved, that's when my portion of the restoration started. This is the car just after I started tearing it down.
Note the rusted inner fender and the drum brakes.

I decided that during the restoration I would make the car more drivable for Bev by adding power disc brakes and power steering. This picture is with the motor setting in and the disc brakes half done.

In this lower picture you can see the brakes are on and the power steering is in place.




During this whole thing I was mistaken that the body was in pretty good condition still. But upon pulling back the carpet I found rust through the floors.




You can even see the rust holes from this satellite view.


Once I came across this body and paint problem, I contacted Chris Purdum, a friend I have known for years that owns a restoration shop. I asked him to evaluate the body and paint of the car to see what was involved. This is also about the same time I got the news of my cancer. When I told Chris about the Cancer, I guess he came up with some ideas of his own.

I was contacted by Terry Wood of channel 4 news who said he would like to do a story about me and the car. Apparently Chris had contacted him about the project.

Terry came out to our house and asked some questions about the car, my Police career and meth lab exposure.

Terry did what I thought was a great broadcast that reminded the public about the Officers out there sick and suffering from job related exposures.

Here are the links to the original broadcast which aired on Tuesday and the followup on Wednesday.

http://www.abc4.com/content/news/slc/story.aspx?content_id=f676521b-8e16-4bdb-beec-8b424fd9bb57

http://www.abc4.com/content/news/slc/story.aspx?content_id=d5a429e7-ae97-4915-86f8-95f1bfe8c725

At the same time Chris and his wife Kelly added a page about me on their web site www.customsandclassics.com explaining my career, the cancer and the car project.

I just wanted to show off our grandson Braden. He's 10 months old now, VERY mobile and extremely smart...of course lol!
Yes we are proud Grandparents and think he is THE CUTEST BABY IN THE WORLD!!!!!!

Cancer update / Cyber Knife?

On Friday morning I had an appointment with the Cancer Doc and his news wasn't the best. My blood test results showed my Bilirubin was high and Tumor markers were off the chart. I have had two Doctors say they have never seen tumor markers this high. Normal range is 0-35, my number is 687,333. I really don't know what that means but it sounds really nasty. He has suspended my chemotherapy for now believing I'm not responding to the treatment. Today, Monday, I had an appointment with a Doctor regarding a Cyber Knife. This is focused radiation where they place "Gold Seeds" on the edges of the tumor and the Cyber Knife will track it and localize the radiation just to that spot within the Seeds. Prior to this, the Doctor wanted an additional PET scan to see what the progression of the cancer was before he made a final decision on the knife. I'm scheduled for the scan on Wednesday. With any luck I'll start that process soon.

CASINO NIGHT!!!!

First of all I want to thank everyone one who attended Casino Night last night. I also want to thank those who made it happen. And a special thanks to those ladies who prepared and served the food all evening.

I think it was alot of fun for everyone and I can't say enough how I Love you all for your support. The whole thing was overwhelming to me and I had a great time and was glad I was able to be there as long as I was. Although I have been dealt some pretty crappy cards lately (just a little casino night pun), I think I am the most fortunate man alive in the friend and family department and last night was just another example.

I also wanted to thank Jake Huggard for conducting the raffle and Keith Lowry for conducting the auction which appeared to be a real success.

Bev has been missing a great deal of work to be with me during my office visits and procedures and the co-pays and prescriptions seem to get more costly out of pocket. The money raised last night will be used specifically for those purposes.

Special thanks to Sheri, Carla, Toni and Shae.

Family Pics

What a Cutie!!!

Shortly after Rick's cancer diagnosis, one of the first things he decided we needed to do was to spend the weekend with all the kids at our condo timeshare up at Snowbird.

Even though we'd recently spent a very nice week-long vacation there in July, suddenly it seemed necessary again.

Here are a few family pictures taken in October at Snowbird. Boy, is it hard to get all the kids together in the same place, at the same time, with combed hair, and not overly grumpy! Luckily we managed to get it done with very little grumpiness, lots of good smiles and unlimited patience from Linda, our photographer.




Jared 13, Danny 20, Breanna 12, Rick 46, Bev 29, Brandon 17, Derrick 21

The Whole Clan-including the newest DuKatz, Braden 8 months old

Rick and his favorite girls

Rick and his favorite men

Bev and her FAVORITE SWEETIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cancer update BARD port

Well today I got my BARD Power port installed. They certainly take their time in the hospital to do it. We were there six hours and the procedure took a half hour. They made two incisions. One at the shoulder chest area to put the port in and the other to tuck the other end into my Jugular in my neck. As much as they have been poking me with needles, this may be a welcome doo-datter for that. We asked the Doc if Bev could watch the procedure being they were using the BARD port. He hesitantly agreed and she had to scrub up and watched the whole procedure from inside the O.R. And she didn't even faint. All seemed to go well and I suspect Bev is making a commission on this because she reassures me that it was the thing to do and says it will be worth it.

Cancer update Cont.

I just got word that on Wednesday I'm to get a Port to make IV Chemo and Blood draws easier. I guess this is a devise that just goes under the skin in the chest/shoulder area and the needles are stuck into that instead of me. They said plan on spending 5-6 hours at the hospital for this procedure. These ports are exactly what Bev deals with at her work so you can believe that if I made any mistakes in it's description, my next entry will contain corrections if needed. I will make another entry about how this goes tomorrow or the next day.

Great Friends!!

I have to say that Rick has the BEST FRIENDS EVER!
There are just TOO MANY to even count, but I'd like to tell you about a couple of them.

This is Rick's friend Jim's 2008 C6 corvette.
The other day Jim just brought it over and told Rick to "Put some miles on it."
WOW!!!
Now that is one great friend to have! And you can be sure that anytime Rick feels ok, he is ALL ABOUT driving the sweet vette!! We took it to the Oncologist on Friday lol.
We're planning a little cruise to Park City just as soon as Rick feels up to it, but it's getting low on gas... if we can just figure out how to get Jim to put some more gas in it......

Brian is another ABSOLUTELY GREAT friend of Ricks.
He was the coordinator of the cement project, with alot of help from Jake too. Brian and Jake brought together all those wonderful guys at Murray PD to get the cement project done...and it even looks good...lol!
BIG Shout Out to Murray PD! Wierd...I usually don't much like cops.......jk

As if the cement project wasn't enough, Murray PD, coordinated once again by Brian, is having a get-together this Friday night in Rick's honor.

The theme is "Casino Night" with dinner, drinks, prizes and an auction. It will be held Friday, November 21st at St Josephs Church located at 7405 South Redwood Road, from 6 pm to midnight.

$20 Donation at the door includes dinner, a drink and $5 in chips.

I have to admit that I felt a little wierd when I first heard about it, but a friend of ours said "Don't freak out about it...it'll be fun...like a party with a purpose." Okay, it was T who said that...another great friend :)

So....after stressing a little bit about it....I'm down with it.
It will give Rick a chance to see everyone who has been wishing him well and wanting to say hi to him, but just hasn't known when would be a good time.

We have LOTS of great friends and we'd love to see them all Friday night :)

Rick's cancer update cont.

Today, 11-14-2008, For the first time we received good news from my Doctor about this cancer. Last week during my visit it was discussed that I may not be responding to the chemo as hoped. However today after looking at my blood work he appeared more optimistic and felt I was responding slowly. This means instead of discontinuing the chemo and having the cyber knife localized radiation to reduce the pain and start palliative care, I am to continue the chemo on Friday the 21st. Of course this means more of the same nausea stuff but I guess that's better than the alternative. Until then I have a week to try to recover from the last three weeks of that crap. I'll keep you all up to date as we go along. Thanks friends, Rick

Our Anniversary

Sunday November 9th was our 23rd Anniversary! I know, we don't look old enough to be married for 23 years...but I did the math...not Rick hehe :)

Rick and I had a pretty enjoyable day just spending time together, but I gotta tell ya...it wasn't quite as good as our 20th anniversary when we celebrated in Beautiful Fiji!

With any luck, we're going to celebrate our 25th anniversary in Fiji again. Please keep your fingers crossed that Rick will be up for some world travel in two years :)

Here's our most current picture, which was taken by Linda (from Rick's work) who did an excellent job taking pictures of our whole family a few weeks ago...Thanks Linda!

I'll post some of the whole family soon.

Also a few pics from our Fiji vacation below.

Rick's cancer Update

So much has happened so fast that our heads are spinning. There are countless emotions about us as you can imagine.

The Cancer part of my life started as me having some back pain and seeking help for it.

In 1993 I was involved in a traffic accident that herniated and bulged two discs in my center back between my shoulder blades. They said that surgery was not a matter of if, just when. The procedure at the time involved going through the chest so I opted to put off the surgery and treat the pain through chiropractic and physical therapy means.

Lately my back pain had been growing more severe and along with it was a slight stomach ache accompanied with slight nausea. This didn't concern me either because I had some of what I thought was food poisoning and I thought it was a lingering affect of that.

In the first week of October 2008, I went to the doctor because the back pain was so severe I was willing to do surgery or whatever it took for relief. I made an appointment and the standard care was muscle relaxers and physical therapy to alleviate the pain. Ant-acids where given for the stomach. After a week I went back to the Doctor and let them know I was feeling no relief.

On Monday October 13th, I went for an endoscopy to see if the stomach pain may be related to the throat or esophagus. The scope showed normal with only minor acid-reflux.

During my visit the following day, My Doctor sent me to a neighboring office that had an ultra sound on site. They did a quick scope thinking that the gallbladder my be acting up because of a rise in the enzymes put out by the liver. The scope showed the gallbladder was fine but they say something suspicious with the liver.

My Doctor immediately scheduled me a CT scan for the next day (Tuesday) and we went to the old Cottonwood Hospital TOSH for this. I was called in the Doctors office that afternoon where the Doctor told me it looked like I had Cancer in the pancreas, liver and lungs. The CT report read, "An ill-defined 2.7 cm X 4.4 cm lesion within the body of the pancreas. Innumerable hypodense masses of varying sizes scattered throughout the liver which are concerning for metastatic disease. Two small lung nodules, as described above. These are also concerning for metastatic disease."

An appointment was made for the following day at the new IMC hospital for a biopsy of the suspected area within the liver.

On Friday October, 17th 2008, I was informed that the biopsy was indeed cancerous and an appointment for treatment mas made for the following Monday.

On Monday I went to the Utah cancer Specialists where they looked over my CT scans and devised a program for treatment. This consisted of Chemotherapy involving an IV chemo called Gemcitabine. In addition with that I opted to take part in a study which included a pill four times a day for four days. I guess pancreatic cancer has a reputation for resisting chemo and this Gemcitabine was developed specifically for pancreatic cancer. The pill is called RP101 and I think it's to assist the chemo with fighting the cancer cells. Not exactly sure, but I do know that they both make me miserable sick. During this visit they also scheduled me for a PET scan and another CT scan for higher in the lung area.

Bev and I tried to go to Vegas the weekend of the 31st, to attend the NHRA races which I've had tickets for four months to attend. Due to the chemo, I was too sick to even leave the hotel room and never even made it to races.

On our next visit to the caner Doc, he gave me the results of the PET scan saying that the cancer is spread throughout my body and he's questioning how well I'm responding to the chemotherapy. They plan on another CT to determine the response of the chemo to see if it's doing what it is supposed to be doing.

In the event that the chemo is not battling back the cancer, they will stop the chemo and try a procedure called a "Cyber knife". During this they would use localized radiation and target the pancreas in an attempt to reduce the size of the lesion and reduce some of the pain caused by it.

The concrete job

After telling some friends that I had to put all my projects on hold due to my recent cancer diagnosis, this is how they responded.

I was told that there were some people coming out to pour cement for a project I had started, but I had no idea it would be this.

Then again, I know the character of these people and should not be be a bit suprised that the reponse was what it turned out to be.

I had an appointment the morning of the pour but upon arriving back home found an impressively well done slab with a few still working the finish. They stayed as late as they could and even came back the following morning to finish the cuts.

I can't even begin to express what I felt that day and still do everytime I walk outside and see the new concrete.






The crew exsisted of approximately 30 people and all of which I can call friends.

Here are a few pics from that day

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The blog begins

This is the first blog of many to come...