491. My husband Wayne D Eckman, twin with Blaine, has esophageal cancer, dialysis, and 9 lives!

Wayne D Eckman, and his 9 lives!  He will be 85 this September 18th, and on September 24th we will have been married 60 years.  I want to record our latest adventure with my husband Wayne D Eckman, and add updates often.  He started radiation for esophageal cancer just yesterday, and had a treatment again today, and also today will have a dialysis treatment.  This entry below was only the 3rd entry I put in my new blog, which I started Nov. 14, 2013.  Then I will add some recent history.

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Wayne and Blaine were born  identical twins on September 18, 1930 in Murray, Utah.  I was born October 6, 1934, in St. George, Utah.  The twins were not expected to live the night and so were given a name and a special Priesthood blessing that night.  They were blessed then to live a mature life, and fulfill their missions on this earth.  Blaine fulfilled his and has passed on to a better place.  Wayne has had open heart surgery, a hip replacement, cancer, and a 12 day stay in intensive care with respiratory failure.  But at 83, he still does two Temple shifts each week in the St. George Temple, and we both do a lot of indexing.  We'll tell more about that later.  It is late on November 14, 2013, and I want to start blogging.  I'm not sure how to do this, so we'll experiment!

    This was in their high school yearbook, Blaine on the left, Wayne on the right, in 1949.
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That is all I wrote that day!   I'll reprint next an e mail that I wrote to many family and friends just 2 days ago.  But we have friends all over the world, as all who read my blog are my friends, even though we don't personally know each other.  I always will welcome comments, and encourage you to e mail me if you'd like at:  paralee.eckman@gmail.com     I promise I will write back if you do!  I'd like to get to know you and your challenges in life.  This is the e mail yesterday:

Tonight Anita planned a "Radio Active" party, (the night before Wayne starts radiation) in which she, David, Delsy, and Wayne and I had a dinner with food Wayne can eat -- mashed potatoes, with Cream of Mushroom soup for gravy, hard boiled eggs, applesauce, yogurt, broccoli,  and pudding -- soft stuff he can eat.  He had to have his broccoli liquified in the blender!  We played 5 Crowns for a while.  The family is trying to plan fun things to keep Wayne's spirits up.

 Tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. he will have a feeding tube put in, but he can still eat as much as he can.  Then at 3 p.m. he will get his first radiation.  It will be 28 sessions, with 5 each week, Monday through Friday.  But the dr. wanted to get a head start so he will have both Friday and Saturday this week, and miss 3 days next weekend for the holiday.

I'm going to give a very brief beginning, for some that may not have read my e mail before.  Wayne has been on dialysis about 4 months, and been feeling good.  About 3 weeks ago it became hard for him to swallow.  We had an apt. with Dr. Perino, a gastroenteroligis and he ordered an endoscopy on his throat a week ago Monday, and they told us he had esophageal cancer, malignant.  He has continued to feel okay, but has had a harder time swallowing, so smoothies, and very soft food is what he can get down, and has to crush all his pills, (medicine).  This morning he had a PET scan, which showed the cancer has not spread anywhere else, which is good.  So because it hasn't spread, Dr. Ray Richards, a radiation oncologist, has felt we need to immediately start radiation, so his throat doesn't completely close off, which it would if we didn't do something.  

He is on dialysis Tues. Thurs. and Sat. mornings, but he will change to afternoons, as he will start radiation on this Friday and Saturday.  Then he will have radiation 5 days next week in the mornings about 8 a.m., and go to dialysis around noon -- for 4 hours.  The radiation will make him very tired, and hopefully he will be able to sleep during dialysis some.  Dr. Richards is really on the ball, and today before we left his office, he had called Dr. Mercado -- the kidney specialist, and he said "go for it" -- on the radiation.  He also called Dr. Perino, and he will put in a feeding tube directly into Wayne's stomach on Friday morning, before he has his first radiation that afternoon.  He is really a fine dr. also, and wanted to do it as soon as possible.   

     Our daughters Anita and Delsy went with us, and asked a lot of questions.  Here are some of the answers -- The radiation will most likely keep his throat from closing, (he may need the feeding tube during radiation -- which will last for 28 days -- 5 days a week -- done the first part of October if all goes well.)  After that he should be able to eat almost normally.  Of course, it really isn't normal as his diet for dialysis has to exclude foods high in potassium and phosphorus, such as bananas, tomatoes, and potatoes.  They will check him every few days, during radiation, and analyze how difficult it is on him.  Dr. Richards said sometimes when your immune system is down with radiation, (and also dialysis) people can pass away from pneumonia, heart problems, etc. etc.  When Anita asked what time period we are thinking of, even with radiation, Dr. R. said from 6 to 18 months.  He was hesitant to even say that, but said that radiation will most likely buy him some time, and ability to eat.  That is about it.  

 For the time being, we have to put almost everything he eats in the blender.  He can't swallow his pills, and we got a pill crusher, and it is a job to crush all he needs to take each meal.  He has certain pills for heart, blood pressure, and 2 large pills each meal for dialysis which bind potassium and phosphorus so they don't harm him, as dialysis doesn't take that out of his body.  He isn't in any pain these days.  We hope that doesn't change.  He doesn't have a lot of energy, and can't walk long distances, and doesn't drive much at all.  I do the driving.  I try to think of foods that are healthy, but it's hard to try and make them taste good.  He can't eat meat at this time -- can't chew it, and I haven't really tried trying to puree it.  

This next part was blog # 233, and also #109.   It gives a brief history and lots of pictures of Wayne and Blaine, the twins above.  

 

233. WAYNE AND BLAINE ECKMAN'S 84TH BIRTHDAYS! # 109 REVISITED.

TODAY IS WAYNE'S AND BLAINE'S 84TH BIRTHDAY.  I'M RE-POSTING ENTRY # 109, AS I WILL BE GOING TO THE HOSPITAL SOON TO BE WITH HIM.  BUT HE IS SCHEDULED TO COME HOME THIS AFTERNOON.  HE WILL HAVE SEVERAL PROBLEMS WHICH WILL HAVE TO BE FOLLOWED UP WITH DOCTORS.  BUT WE ARE VERY GRATEFUL HE HAS RECOVERED AS MUCH AS HE HAS.  THIS WAS FIRST POSTED ON MARCH 1, 2014.

These are pictures through the years of the identical twins, Blaine D and Wayne D Eckman.  Blaine was about 15 minutes older than Wayne, and born at home.  Read of them first in blog # 3.  Then their father Roy Waldamer Eckman's story is in blog # 93.  Their mother Gladys Dayton Eckman is told about in blogs #106 and #107.  More of their lives will come in the future.  This is a record of photos through the ages! 

Some of them have been in previous blogs, but it is nice to get them together here, chronologically.  They were born on September 18, 1930, and Blaine passed away suddenly at age 68, on March 19, 1999, and Wayne is now 83 years old, March 2014.  Joyce is still living, in St. David, Arizona, near their daughter Janise Wooten.

Some are copied from our book, and I will rewrite the captions, as they are hard to read.  Above it says "The twins about the age of the Turkey incident, and Ronald about age 1.  They had been to the barber!  When they were 4 they let   lot of neighbor's turkeys out of their pen, and they went all over the neighborhood, causing quite a bit of havoc!

Wayne and Blaine out stomping in the hills, about age 7.

From left to right, front row, Wayne, Ronald, Blaine, and Shirlene.  Back row: Ruby and a neighbor.

Wayne and Blaine, about age 10.

                                           Wayne on left, What a hairdo?  Blaine on right.

Blaine, Aunt Jennie (Wallin, Roy's sister) Wayne, about age 15.

Blaine left, Grandma Gladys Eckman, and Wayne on right.  About 1950, just before missions, I think.

 Priest's Quorum.  First row from r to left, Blaine, Wayne, Richard and Rodney Hasler.  Two sets of

    identical twins in one ward!  Richard married Pal's friend, and they introduced Pal and Wayne on a blind       date when they got home from their missions -- in August of 1953.  Blaine was married in 1953 after              their missions, and Pal and Wayne were not married until they got home from the Army in Sept. 1955.

                            Blaine, left, and Wayne right, senior pictures in the Granite High yearbook.

Wayne, Tom Taylor, and Blaine -- Ronald must have been taking the picture.  Those four went on a road trip to Idaho after Blaine and Wayne graduated from high school.  This is a cartoon photo -- for fun!

    Another picture taken on that same trip to Idaho.  That trip was a highlight to boys who hadn't had                 much chance to travel before their missions to Sweden, 1950-1953.  Wayne still calls Tom Taylor at              times -- he lives in Salt Lake City.

                                              Same trip to Idaho !  They must have really had fun.

Blaine D Eckman, missionary picture to Sweden 1950.

                                 Elder Wayne D Eckman, 1950, missionary to Sweden picture.

This was a "Christmas Card" the twins sent home while on their mission in Sweden, 20 years old.

Wayne and Blaine worked one day together on their missions, and a family they met that day later joined the Church.  A funny thing happened that day -- They knocked on a door, and the lady that answered had a bit too much to drink.  Then the next day Wayne went back to his area, and Blaine saw the woman -- this time sober.  She said, "I just need to ask you one thing -- yesterday were there one of you or two of you?"

Blaine D Eckman, army photo, about 1955.

                                                Army photo, Wayne left, and Blaine right.

                                     Wayne, army photo, 1955, sent to Pal while writing to her.

Wayne, left, and Blaine in "civies", (civilian clothes) while in the army, when they were attending an LDS servicemen's retreat conference in Berchesgaden, Germany, in 1954.

The two of them acting out when they both graduated from Utah State University, then called the Utah           Agricultural College, in June of 1959, with their Bachelor's Degrees.  Both became teachers.

                                              Brothers and best friends, Blaine left, Wayne right, about 1970s.

Wayne, left, Blaine, right, sitting on our couch in the gold brick home, about 1988.

An article that was printed in the Spectrum, St. George hometown newspaper about the twins, about 1992.  Wayne and Pal had lived in St. George about 10 years, and then Blaine and Joyce moved here.  Someone got mixed up when they saw one, and then the other one a few minutes later in another part of town!

Blaine, left, Arlen Craghead, best friends from high school years, and Wayne, sitting on the love seat in our condo at Shadowbrook in St. George, about 1997.  Arlan and his wife (second) still come to visit us here when they pass through St. George.  This may have been the last picture they had taken together, as Blaine passed away suddenly on March 19, 1999, from what was diagnosed as an abdominal aneurysm..