Author: Greek Fighting Orange

Hi Family and Extended Family! 

7 + 3 Chemo started today! Same as what they did when we were at Toledo Hospital except one of the chemo drugs is a bit different. So 1 drug is ran through his IV and into his body for 24 hours a day for 7 days. The other is ran into his body for 10 minutes just for the first 3 days. When they first tried this round of chemo, almost 4 weeks ago, we had to stop after 3.5 days due to complications.  It is critical that he hangs in there all 7 days. I understand that his Leukemia should go into remission after this brutal round of chemo. We have a 70-80% chance! Very good odds if you’re playing blackjack, pretty good odds when you are dealing with cancer! Of course we will still have a way to go in our journey, but his success here is very important. 

We also moved to a new room today. We were waiting to hang our awesome pictures because they told us we would be moving last Tuesday.  As of yesterday no one had said anything else so we thought if we hang the pictures, inevitably they would say we were moving! It worked! 

I feel bad today because my honey irritated me! He can’t hear well and he hasn’t wanted to wear his hearing aids. The nurse practitioner had explained some things to us about some rules during chemo treatment. I was trying to correct him when he was telling others the information and he snapped at me. Am I awful to get upset with Chris when he is so sick?  I bit my tongue in the moment till I could talk some sense into him later!😊 I also had to remind myself that, in the whole scheme of things, it was really minor! All of us annoy each other from time to time but sometimes you have to stop yourself and put things into perspective. I quess we are only human. 

Hi Family and Friends! I’m writing this evening with a heavy heart! PLEASE PRAY! Pray that Chris’ body can hang in there for this next round of chemo! Pray for the doctors and nurses that take care of him! Pray for our children that are so far away and can’t be here! Pray for my Mom-in-law! (I couldn’t ask for a better Mom-in-law by the way!) Pray that the chemo does what is suppose to do without hurting his other organs! Pray for our grandchildren that bring us so much joy! We love you Jackson! Amalia! Zoe! And Teddy!

So I’m trying to think of something lighter, funny, or cute! This lead me to spring and flowers! Chris loves flowers as you may know! He brings me flowers randomly, about once a month! We can’t have any parties at our home until at least the end of June so he has time to plant, weed and mulch, etc. We’ve had wedding and baby showers, birthday parties and barbecues! Flowers galore! He has been known to load up his truck with every planter that can be moved and deliver them to a party that one of our family or friends is having. Helping to make their yard/party as pretty as ours.

We have two fig trees in our yard. We love the figs they grow. Every late summer/early fall we can hardly wait to enjoy our figs. After the first frost the leaves on our fig trees begin to fall off. Chris has been losing weight. Before winter we bend the trees to the ground and cover them to protect them from our cold winters! Chris’ disease has bent him down, we cover him with as much love and prayer that we can. Before Mother’s Day we uncover our fig trees. They are bare and bent over. Chemo will make Chris thin and broken. The son will warm our tree, buds will pop out. Chris will get stronger, he will begin to bloom. The fruit on our fig tree will begin to grow! We will again enjoy our wonderful figs. Chris and I will be standing by our beautiful fig trees enjoying each other and our delicious figs very soon!

 

Chris had his second bone marrow biopsy today. Preliminary results should be in Friday. The results will help our team decide how to proceed. WBC is at 14.1 today, pretty good jump from yesterday’s 9.5! Chris said it best when he said he is the healthiest sick guy ever! They ask him if he has diabetes, high cholesterol, smokes, etc. He doesn’t have any other health problems! For me, that is what still makes this so unbelievable. I guess his “good health” will help him in the days and months to come.

Our daughter Jan, brought my Mom-in-law down today to see Chris. I think his Mom needed to see him and see that he was doing okay! I’m not sure she understood why we were moving his care down here. I’m glad she was able to see him!

Today was pretty chilly. The sun was shining though, so Chris and I were able to sit in the sun for a while. A simple pleasure that I didn’t appreciate before. Do you appreciate the simple pleasures in your life? I hope you do! I hug my honey but he is thin and weak. I kiss him through my mask. We walk and hold hands, he use to hold me up and now I have to always be ready to help him. He simply wants to sleep in his bed. It’s been almost 4 weeks since he has seen our home let alone our bed. I love and appreciate my husband of 40+ years! Best husband I could have ever asked for!

So it’s the first full day of Spring! After a dreary foggy start to our day the sun came out and brightened our room and our day! White blood count continues to go up, 9.5 today! I’m finding out that there is another number that they look at in the blood that is called “blast”. If this number goes up in correlation with the WBC then this is a good sign that the white blood cells are healthy. Any doctors out there? Please correct me if I’m wrong or clarify. Platelet count is dragging behind and they would like to see them increase before a bone marrow biopsy would be done. They are thinking Friday would be the day!

My sister Cindy, and Brother-in-law, Clark, live about a 10 minute walk to OSU/James Cancer Center. This should work out perfect as the weather warms up. It will be nice to get a walk in, in the morning and then at night, weather permitting of course. We’ve found the Starbucks we can go to but you have to drive! Walk…no Starbucks! Drive…Starbucks! 😊 Can you guess what I would rather do?

Goodnight!  Don’t let the bedbugs bite!

Follow this link to learn more about our new home away from home: https://cancer.osu.edu/

Today was a long day!  A lot of hurry up and waiting. Getting everything coordinated between both hospitals took most of the day. I thought it would be quick and easy and we would be out of Toledo by noon! Silly me! OSU/James didn’t have a room for Chris until 6:30 pm. However his transport wouldn’t arrive till 10:45 pm!

Chris’ white blood count was 6.3 today! I’m praying they are the healthy white blood cells! He needed magnesium again today but we are working on adding foods with magnesium to his diet. Elaine hooked us up with almonds, walnuts and raisins today!

I  drove down to Columbus as soon as we heard everything was in motion! I got all the stuff from his room at Toledo hospital (which was a lot of stuff), I packed a bag for Chris, a  couple for me, lap top, iPads, etc. I was in a hurry this morning to get up to the hospital to help Chris bathe before I had to go to a 9:00 am appointment! Loaded up my car and headed out. It was a long day, I drove to Columbus, we unloaded most of the stuff at Clark and Cindy’s home and guess what I forgot!?!? My suitcase with ALL my clothes! OMG! How? Why? I’m officially a crazy lady! 🤣