Author: Greek Fighting Orange

My honey’s chemo treatment made his mouth sores worse as expected. He could only get two Ensures down and not much water today. Even that was a struggle for him. He hasn’t needed much pain medicine till now. It is helping to keep him a little more comfortable and continue to try to swallow.  Once his white blood count starts going up those mouth sore will heal up. Pray!  Also his hair is falling out again. For a guy that doesn’t have any hair he sure is covered in them. 

I went to a class today to learn how to care for his Central Venous Catheter or CVC line. I love learning this kind of stuff! The other part of the class was a little more scary, in that, they talked about the side effects of chemo, that we know of course. They also talked about “Graft vs Host Disease”.  It can be acute (sudden) or chronic (long term). It can effect the skin, the GI tract, the liver, the lungs or the eyes! Of course there are medicines my honey takes now to help with GVHD and some he may need in the future. My Superman!

Oh! My honey had to start using his “Chopstick” again! 😂

First I would like you to know that the site I use to post my blog, WordPress, has been giving me some trouble. I had written this blog and another one a few days ago and they are lost in cyberspace somewhere! This post I took a picture of so that is why I am reposting today. Sorry about that and I hope the problem is corrected now! 

My honey’s mouth sores have gotten worse and are moving down his throat. He isn’t able to eat so he is back to the Ensures that he loves to hate! He is sleeping more (probably a good thing) and not as lively and active. They started him on pain meds and antibiotics. Theses days are really tricky in that, when a symptom pops up they treat it, but sometimes the treatment causes something else to pop up. It kind of feels like a dog chasing his tail. For example, yesterday he needed platelets, then he became feverish. The doctors tell us that this should all be getting better soon. Hang in there my Superman! 

Elaine is doing good. She told me she was surprised that she didn’t bounce back quicker. I wasn’t surprised though because if she would have seen the amount of bone marrow she gave her brother, she really wouldn’t have been surprised either! 

A little funny for you……Chris’ pain medicine is called oxycodone but he keeps calling it oxymoron. We don’t correct him because it makes us smile every time! Even the doctors and nurses get a little kick out of it!

We hope you are all well! Today is day +10! That means that tomorrow is my honey’s last chemo treatment, thank you lord! He is on a Ensure only diet because it hurts too much to chew and swallow. He is exhausted after a shower but pushes himself to walk the halls a few times a day. The “oxymoron” 😀 is continuing to make him sleep a lot! As expected the pain meds are causing BM problems so the doctors are chasing that now too. That being said our days are pretty boring still.

 

Happy Monday! 

We haven’t talked about Chris’ blood counts in a long time because they were doing pretty good. However, with his last chemo treatment his counts are going down, which is the purpose of the treatments. White blood count is down to almost zero, where you and I would be over 900! Hemoglobin and platelets are low but not low enough to need a transfusion yet. We are told that, for the next 10-12 days all of his counts will be dropping. After the 10-12 days his body will start to build up his white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets. In the mean time, the Nurse Practitioner told my honey, that if he continues to eat and move he may be able to get out of the hospital by the end of the month! That would be over a week sooner than we thought! Superman!!!

A few people have asked about sending a card to Chris. Please send them to our home address and I will make sure he receives them. The last time we were here quite a few cards were returned for some reason. 

Love and hugs to all!

Can you believe summer is almost over, school is about to start, and the nights are getting cooler? All signs of the Fall to come.  Our fig tree, I spoke about, looks like we are going to have some great figs?  Of course I will make sure my honey will be able to eat some of our figs. We enjoyed some great plums from our plum tree too! I think it must be my green thumb, because we had the best plums this year ever! I can’t talk about how good our flowers and fruit trees look too much because I’m afraid Chris will say I can do the gardening from now on! Lol! 

We have about 98 days before my honey will be able to come home. It is a long time, not just because the number of days, but the quality of the days that will make this time seem long. So far he is still doing great. He is the healthiest, sick guy, I know! We have been told that the healthier a patient is coming into this treatment, the healthier the patient is when they leave. Chris knows he needs to move his body and he needs to eat. Moving hasn’t been a problem so far, eating has been a little harder for him, but he is trying. He is my Superman!

Stop and smell the flowers today!