At the Christmas parade

Jake: Jimmy's little clone

Happy 60th, Mac!

It makes you feel old when your younger brother turns 60.

The unexpected joys in life

I had expected today to be miserable, but it turned into something wonderful that I will cherish in my mental file of happy memories. The latest splinter of bone that has been plaguing me recently managed to work its way out of the gum during the night, to my profound relief, and I ended up going to Ocean Pond fishing with Jimmy, Rosey, the children, and Susan Kerns, Rosey's mother-in-law.

It was one of those picture-perfect fall afternoons: the fish were biting, the excited children beyond delightful, and we all had a marvelous time. It was the first time I'd been with the children since I got sick, and I didn't realize how much I had missed them. And to heck with germs.

Jimmy, unloading his gear in front of the beautiful old Ocean Pond clubhouse

***********************************************

When I woke up this morning, there was something sharp on my tongue, and when I fished it out, it was this piece of bone. It's the jagged little white thing to the right of the dime. It's called a sequestering bone fragment, or something like that, and don't ask me to explain this, because I can't. It is bizarre.

Update

I'm doing a lot better and my mouth is healing, although there's still some discomfort. That was SO not fun. I'm just surprised that it happened now, three months after chemo.

Jimmy caught a cold last week, and was getting worse, so he started on Levaquin Friday and we've kept the vaporizer running at night. He seems much improved today. I fret about his getting pneumonia again.

In August, his paraprotein level showed a slight movement, and Dr. Lonial put him back on a low dose of Revlimid, a chemotherapy drug. He's tolerating it well, although it has lowered his blood counts and made him more susceptible to infection. He loves the grandbabies more than anything, but small children ARE little germ factories, and we'd both like to get out more, but flu season IS starting. What does one do?

Pure Love

I'm feeling much better today and my foul disposition is sweetening. Jimmy and I were talking about it last night, and decided that in a lot of ways, our situation was easier when we were in Medical Land in Atlanta: we had a goal and a mission and were focused on that. You EXPECT to feel poorly in Medical Land. Now, we are so happy to be home in the Real World, and these medical annoyances don't have any place here.

Although I have been ailing a bit, Jimmy has had a fine time seeing the grandchildren often: they've been fishing at Ocean Pond, to the Halloween Carnival, to a football game at Valwood, and have had lots of lunches together.

Today when they met for lunch, four-year-old Jake handed Jimmy his favorite truck and said,"Here, Papa. I brought this truck for you."

"Oh, no," said Jimmy. "That's your Spiderman truck - I can't take your Spiderman truck."

"But I want YOU to have it, Papa."

"Ok. I'll take it home with me and play with it for a few days, then you can come get it and you can keep it for a while. We'll share."

That solution pleased Jake, and when Jimmy came home this afternoon carrying his new Spiderman truck, he was smiling like somebody had just given him a million dollars.

Ouch

It has not been a pleasant week - for me, anyway. Jimmy's doing fine. I think that the bottom line is that I'm having a hard time rebounding from all my cancer treatments, and that I'm just rundown.

The most bothersome problem has been mouth sores - ulcers, I thought, but it turned out to be small areas of exposed bone. At some point I injured my gum - maybe doing something like eating pita chips- and it couldn't heal properly because my of debilitated condition.

A week ago Fernando Alvarado removed a sliver of bone from an ulcer, using local anaesthesia, and we hoped it would heal but the pain kept getting worse and worse. Jimmy took me back yesterday, and Fernando put me to sleep with general anaesthesia, and cleaned out another piece of bone and some infection and sewed it up. I'm on penicillin and pain pills and feel better.

Fernando has strongly assured us that this is NOT osteonecrosis. The jaw looks very healthy and the tissue is healing.

Hair update

I have now entered the Sinead O'Conner stage in hair regrowth, only with a lot more gray and a lot more mileage.

What would Sigmund Freud think?

I know when people start telling you about their dreams, you probably say to yourself, "Yeah, yeah, yeah...ho hum," but Jimmy was describing the one he had last night to me, and it was a doozie. This is what he said:

"I was quail hunting, and the three bird dogs I was hunting with strayed off. I happened to be hunting that day with Steve Spurrier, and he said he'd go look for Suzy, the best pointer, if I'd search for the other two. There was a shopping mall across the road and so I went in and found my two dogs going down the escalator. I rounded them up and went back to see if Spurrier had had any luck finding Suzy. He was waiting, sitting on the tailgate of his truck, and said he'd located Suzy in a bar down the road; he'd fed her a bowl of bar cherries, and she had left. I was furious with Spurrier for losing my favorite dog, the maddest I've been in decades of not liking Spurrier."

Now, was that one weird dream, or what?

Painting

When our friend Leona Strickland Hudson died a couple of years ago, she left the bulk of her estate to charities, one being the Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts in Valdosta, and I was very pleased and flattered when commissioned to do a portrait of her. But after I got so sick last February, the director of the art center, Cheryl Oliver, my ex-husband Jack's beautiful wife, called me in Atlanta and graciously offered to let me off the hook. I declined because I loved Leona, and it was something I really wanted to do.

The dedication of the Dugald and Leona Hudson building is next Monday, and I actually finished the painting this past Sunday: quite a feat for the Queen of Procrastination!

There was already a portrait of her husband Dugald, painted about sixty years ago, when he was a young man in military attire. I wanted Leona to be about that same age in her portrait, as they are to be hung as a pair, so I chose this wedding picture of her, and just changed her outfit.

I haven't painted anything in quite a while, but I'm pleased with the result, and think Leona would be too.

Well, BOO.

We went to Valdosta's Pearlman Cancer Center today to get blood tests, and I was surprised and disappointed that my white blood count and platelets have gone down instead of up: the WBC is 2 and the platelets are 44. The red blood count is okay. We've been so happy and excited to be home and maybe I've been a tad too frisky. I was probably being overly optimistic, expecting to go from being a hyper C-VAD patient, to a normally functioning human being overnight.

Jimmy's tests for myeloma have to be sent off, and we'll know about them next week, but he's doing very well.

Settling in

We've been home a week now, and are settling in. I'm taking things very slowly, and am gradually getting my strength back. Jimmy, on the other hand, has been a busy bee, going to work and spending time with the grandchildren. Yesterday (our tenth wedding anniversary, by the way) he went on a dove shoot, the first one he's been on since 2006. He had a wonderful time, and came home tired but happy.

This is what the van looked like, packed for the trip home. I almost wish I'd just donated it all to Good Will, rather than having to deal with it when I got it here. Andy's the only keeper in the lot of it. He's squinty-eyed because he'd already had the doggie tranquilizer he has to take because he's such a bad traveler, hassling and whining the whole way.

All done

The race is run. I survived, and except for a checkup every now and then, this interesting little segment of my life is finished. We came up here in late February and will be leaving in the fall, so we spent all four seasons in Atlanta. The being sick part wasn't any fun, but all in all, we had a pretty good time.

Randy Crosby and Will Foss, who work for Jimmy, came up today to get the furniture and some paintings and things we had brought with us, and tomorrow Jamey will help us get the other stuff loaded in the van. It's amazing, the amount of junk you can accumulate in a few short months. Then tomorrow, maybe Sunday, we'll ease on down the road. It all depends on how we feel after trying to cheer UGA on to a badly needed win.

I got along okay with the radiation, except that it has knocked my all blood counts down again, especially the platelets, the bane of my existence. As they build back up, I hope my energy does too.

10 down, 5 to go...

...and so far, so good. If any cancer cells survived that tidal wave of chemotherapy, they should be thoroughly microwaved and incinerated by now. Next week should be the end of this marathon.

We've enjoyed being able to make the easy trip to Highlands several weekends this month, and plan to go back Friday to close up the house for the winter. The leaves seemed to have just a smidgen of color last weekend, and we'll miss leaf season this year, but that's okay.

I took a big step last week - I drove the car for the first time since February. Piece of cake. It feels good to be transitioning from "Medical Land" back into the real world.

Radiant

With five radiation treatments now under my belt (literally), so far I'm suffering no ill effects. I'm not sure what I expected, or why I was so uneasy about doing this, but compared to chemotherapy, this is nothing. It takes a couple of minutes, and other than a sensation of warmth at the site, nothing.

They caution you that you may develop side effects toward the end of the treatment, but at this juncture, my complaints are minimal.

Colonnade stories

This is the carry-out box of fried chicken we DIDN'T eat - four big pieces!

*******************************************************************************

Last night Jimmy said, "I'm going to take you to the Colonnade for supper tonight. It's been years since I've been there, and back in the early sixties we used to eat there all the time." That was when he lived at 430 Lindbergh, along with three of his fraternity brothers in a two bedroom apartment. Each small bedroom had two single beds.

His friend John shared a room with P.B. and P.B. snored so badly John couldn't get any sleep, so he took to pulling P.B. out of the bed by his feet and dragging him out of the apartment and locking the door. Jimmy says it got to be a nightly ritual: P.B.'s loud snoring, then a big thud when John yanked him out of the bed, the front door slamming, then...quiet, and everybody went to sleep.

Anyway, this is a restaurant where you order a meat and two sides - home cooking. No credit cards are accepted, and you pay up front where there is an ATM machine for those who didn't bring cash.

Jimmy and I ordered fried chicken - it was GOOD- and we couldn't believe how much they gave us: four large pieces EACH. We'll be eating out of that carry-out box for the next two days.

While we were eating , Jimmy told me the story of an incident that happened in late 1965. A young woman, Mary Shotwell Little, a C&S bank employee, disappeared while shopping at Lenox Mall. It was a highly publicized story, but she was never found.

One of Jimmy's roommates had been dating this woman, and they broke up and she soon after married another man. She had only been married for six weeks when she, as they say now, went missing. The ex-boyfriend was viewed as "a person of interest."

Jimmy was only twenty-one or two years old at the time, and had just started a new job when an Atlanta homicide detective came to his workplace to interview him. It just about scared Jimmy to death. " Mr. Dewar, where were you on the night of October x of last week?" "At the Colonnade, having dinner with some friends, " Jimmy stuttered.

The detective wanted to know who was there, what they had to eat, what time they left, where they went afterward. Jimmy confirmed that he and his friend had gone to the restaurant together, had eaten supper, then they all had gone back to their apartment together. So the Colonnade was Jimmy's friend's alibi. And the Mary Shotwell Little case remains one of Atlanta's big unsolved mysteries.

Tough decision

This was a decision NOBODY wanted to make. Jimmy talked with Dr. Lonial several times and with Dr. Esiashvili, the radiation oncologist (she's Russian and everybody calls her Dr. Natia, her first name, because her last name is so hard to pronounce), and they say my case is a toss-up, and it was up to us to decide.

I chose to have radiation. We are already six months into this enduro, and a few more weeks don't matter if it puts the final nail into the coffin of this nasty disease. Chances are that all the chemo I had wiped it out, and this doesn't insure that I won't have some sort of cancer again some day down the road. But I wasn't able to have Round 8 of the chemo, and Jimmy and I feel that this will give us more peace of mind.

We had the preliminary appointment this afternoon, and they drew all over my abdomen with an indelible marker so they can zero in on the cluster of lymph nodes where this all started. Wednesday we go back for my first treatment, and I'll go five days a week for three weeks, a week less than we had thought.

We came back from Highlands yesterday. Jimmy enjoyed going out with friends several nights, but I ended up mostly lying around the house, hacking and coughing every breath. That cold I caught settled in my chest and has been hard to shake, but the worst seems to be over.

I'm finally getting eyebrows again! They look like smudges of soot. I think my eyelashes and eyebrows falling out bothered me more than being bald-headed.

?????

I'm still confused. Well, confused isn't the right word exactly. We don't know yet if I'm going to have radiation or not. Jimmy talked with Dr. Lonial today (they've been extremely busy because of the Labor Day weekend) and Dr. Lonial is leaning toward NOT doing the radiation, but he wants to have another conversation with the radiation oncologist before he decides for sure. He said, and I quote, that the last PET scan looked "fantastic".

I appreciate their caution, but because of the area they would be irradiating, I could have some unpleasant long term side effects. I think that's where we are: weighing the benefits against the risks.

We're still in Highlands.

@#%&#!!!!!

We met with the radiation oncologist Friday, and I'm a little confused. She has an accent and I had trouble understanding what she was saying, and fortunately Jimmy was with me to help interpret the medical jargon. Bottom line is that she recommends radiation, but she is going to discuss it with Dr. Lonial, and we will have a telephone conference Tuesday and decide what to do.

I was shocked and demoralized to hear that I would have to have radiation five days a week for four weeks. Jimmy wants me to do whatever they advise, and, as always, I'll defer to his decision. He says that if Dr. Lonial recommends it, that's what we need to do.

We came up to Highlands late Friday afternoon, and it's cool and sunny. I'm still fighting the cold I've had for a week. It has gone to my chest, and I'm coughing my head off, but I should be better in a day or two.

No #8

We were at the lab this morning to see if my blood counts had come up enough for me to go into the hospital tomorrow for my last chemotherapy, the ever elusive Round #8. Then we went across the hall to hematology to see Dr. Lonial for the verdict.

"You're done," he said as strode into the examination room, brisk as usual.

Jimmy and I stared at each other with "Huh?" expressions on our faces.

"No more chemo; you're done," he said. " Your counts still aren't up high enough, and the dangers of more toxicity to your bone marrow outweigh the benefits. We've been hitting you pretty hard for six months now, and these last few rounds were precautionary anyway. We haven't seen any evidence of cancer in months."

So.

I have a PET scan scheduled for Friday, then an appointment with a doctor in radiation oncology. They think that peanut-sized thing that used to be a tumor is just scar tissue, but they may want to zap it with a pop of radiation. I hope not. I REALLY don't want any radiation, but I'll talk to them.

I guess we should be jubilant about this turn of events, but to tell you the truth, I think we're just numb. We're both pretty worn out, and have been dealing with nasty summer colds for the last week.

I'll let you know what we learn Friday.

One more week

Dr. Lonial doesn't want me to get any more chemo until my counts come up, and I have an appointment next Tuesday to get them checked... then MAYBE Round #8 can start next Wednesday, 4 weeks later than planned. But we think he's made the right call.

Another delay?

Round #8 has already been postponed for 3 weeks, so we felt certain I'd be admitted to the hospital tomorrow, but today the blood tests showed my platelets to be 66, still below what they want them to be for more chemotherapy. Dr. Lonial was out of town today, and Charise, one of the PA's, said he'd make the decision in the morning about whether to proceed or to delay again. On one hand, we are so anxious to get this over with, but on the other, it makes Jimmy and me nervous for me to take another hit when my bone marrow is obviously exhausted. I'll let you know.

One spoiled dog

Lupper

Jimmy and I get on the weirdest schedules, and lately we've had our days and nights turned around. We both have been sleeping a lot anyway, and when you combine that with the fact that we stay up into the wee hours reading, some days we sleep LATE.

Today Jimmy said, "I know you call a meal between breakfast and lunch 'brunch', so what do you call a meal between lunch and supper?"

I know the English call it "tea", but we've decided that, for us, "lupper" is more appropriate.

Another postponement

As you may recall, I was supposed to have treatment #8 last week, then it got postponed until today because of my low blood counts. Now it has been put off AGAIN because my counts are still too low. We hope that by next Wednesday I will have rallied enough for more chemo. All of this is cumulative, and I've been hit so much that it's getting harder and harder to recover.

My WBC and RBC are low, but as usual, my platelets are the main problem. They are still only 44 and they want them to be 75 at least.

I don't feel too badly, just lethargic, and ready to get this over with. Jimmy is fine - his usual sweet wonderful self.

And I apologise for not updating sooner. My chemo brain fog just gets worse and worse.

Andy guards my favorite Highlands perch

My 8th and last chemo session was supposed to start next Wednesday, but it has been postponed until the following week so my body can be a little more recovered before then. My counts are respectable, so they said we could go to Highlands.

We got here yesterday afternoon, and it is amazing how much better I already feel in this environment. It has been such a godsend, having the apartment in Atlanta; it's perfectly comfortable and so convenient to Emory, but you can't help feeling closed in, and the brutal heat deters going outside.

I've spent the day taking Andy for short walks, and resting in the swing, reading, and breathing the sweet cool mountain air.

Tuesday

We spent most of the day at the cancer center where I got a bag of platelets and two bags of blood - all of my levels are in the cellar again. I don't feel as badly as I did last round though. Maybe all the red meat helped, and the 40 mg of steroids I've been taking every day this week probably has me pretty wired, too. And I have bright pink chipmunk cheeks.

Don't peek: what do you call a group of foxes?

A few weeks ago, when I was having a good day, Jimmy and I went to a great restaurant, the Niko Bistro, for lunch. (As you have probably surmised, food has become our primary form of entertainment.)

On our way in, I was admiring a sculpture of a skulk of golden foxes, before I read the little sign that told about them. They were done by Michael Stipe, the weird-looking, bald, emaciated lead singer for R.E.M., that great rock band from Athens, Ga. Multi-talented guy.

Carnivore

After my appointments at Emory this morning, we went to lunch at Longhorns again, and as invariably happens, when the waitress brought our order out, she gave Jimmy the steak and me his Sonoma chicken salad. They always look so surprised that it's the wife eating like a lumberjack.

It's interesting, too, that my blood counts are higher than usual for Day 8 of chemo: maybe this carnivorous frenzy is paying off.

Where's the beef?

In my last round of chemo, I got Rituxan, 6 infusions of Cytoxan, 4 doses of Decadron, and 24 straight hours of Doxyrubicin, BUT they did leave off that nasty Vincristine - I was starting to develop some neuropathy in my hands and feet, so I guess Dr. Lonial decided to take it off the line-up. I'd had enough anyway. I know it may be a little early to tell yet, but so far, I feel better than average for this stage of the game. It HAS to be not having Vincristine. And I am starving.

My eating habits have changed profoundly . Before all of this, I lived on veggies and salads, cereals, little meat . I probably had not eaten 5 hamburgers in the last 15 years. Chemo has changed all that. After a week of chemo in the hospital, I CRAVE red meat. Yesterday, I got Jimmy to take me to LongHorns for lunch. I wolfed down a Flo's Filet, a loaded baked potato, and all the fresh bread and butter I could get my hands on. But by 5:30 that afternoon, I was famished again, so he took me to the Steak n Shake for a double cheeseburger and a bag of fries. That held me til supper.

Today wasn't so bad - I've only had one huge cheeseburger and a good-sized bag of sweet potato fries. I'll make up for it tomorrow - I want something BIG - like a 16 0z prime rib or a great big ribeye - don't gimme any green stuff - just meat and potatoes and lots of it.

Monday night

I finally got out of the hospital this morning - it was only for five nights, but it seemed like a month this time. Everything is proceeding along as expected, and we're now just waiting for my counts to fall. Only one more incarceration to go!

July 22

We spent a wonderful six days in Highlands, and it was just what the doctor ordered: I came back feeling like a different person. I just lay around and read, enjoyed the cool fresh air and looking out at the mountains. It was even enjoyable taking Andy for walks on the leash, away from the stifling heat of Atlanta.

Jimmy had me admitted to Emory yesterday, and Round 7 has begun, and so far, so good. Yesterday my blood counts were almost normal for the first time in ages, it's so good to feel good. I know I'm getting slammed again but it makes it easier to know that after 4 weeks off the chemo, you CAN start to feel like a normal human being again.

Ellen Van Winkle

Sometimes, after finding out what the next few months were going to be like, I'd think, "Wouldn't it be nice if I could just take a nice nap and wake up and have all of this behind me." Well, as they say, be careful what you wish for...I've been doing some marathon sleeping lately: Jimmy says it's been sixteen out of twenty-four hours at least. I guess that's what my body needs right now.

The recovery from Round 6 has not been as tough as Round 5's recovery ( but how would I know? I've slept through it.) I'm supposed to go into the hospital tomorrow to begin Round 7, but I can't because even after numerous bags of blood and platelets, my counts are still way too low, so yesterday they told us we could go to Highlands for a few days to mend. I can sleep and make platelets in much more comfort there than here in sweltering Atlanta. And the change of scenery will do us both a world of good.

I got the results of the PET CT I just had and everything looks great: I still show no sign of active cancer anywhere in my body, and the tumor has shrunken .2 more centimeters. It's so small that they say it may be just scar tissue.

I take back what I said about wishing I could sleep through this experience. It's a hard thing to explain. I think often about a conversation I had with a Highlands friend who was battling a form of leukemia, and who was about to have a stem cell transplant at Duke (he had underlying cardiac issues and did not survive) and I told him how sorry I was that he was sick. He thanked me and said," I'm sorry, too, but I'm not sorry for the things I've learned from it, about life and what's important, about faith, about myself and the people I love and the people who love me. It has been a rewarding, enriching experience, but I just wish I didn't have to have cancer to learn all these things." I've thought about that conversation a lot.

Overdue update

Tuesday

We finished Round 6 uneventfully, and in spite of my occasional whine, I'm doing very, very well. It's a tough regimen, but the hematology staff have all assured me how pleased they are with my response.

I cannot say enough about how wonderful Jimmy has been throughout all this. Taking care of me has been a full time job, and he has done it cheerfully and without complaint. I have not driven the car since February, after the exploratory surgery, so he has had to do EVERYTHING.

He had gone with me to every medical appointment, and they have been numerous and time consuming.


He has run all the errands, has bought all the groceries, and seen to it that we have three good meals a day.

He has even taken Andy on most of his walks!

What a guy!


Friday

Sorry I forgot to post this, but I have a roaring case of chemo-brain, which has manifested itself in forgetfulness and poor attention span. It's very normal and will go away. I hope.

Also my counts have dropped to nothing again, and I'm sleeping a lot, and don't feel like doing much when I'm awake.

I'm going to go ahead and post this before I forget to.

Having a good day,

which is not even diminished by this impossibly bad hospital food: if anything, it has gotten worse since Jimmy was a patient. It makes me laugh to see how they can outdo themselves from one atrocious meal to the next. How you can render a baked potato inedible is a mystery to me, but these taste like the skins are packed with bone dry sawdust.

Last night we had Mystery Meat, maybe a sort of pemmican, floating in a gelatinous goo that was dried around the edges, like a mud puddle long sitting in the hot sun; one of the sides was green beans poured straight from its industrial-sized can, and that other light orange thing? I couldn't work up enough nerve to taste it. Let Mikey do it.

Finally...

...I got checked in to the hospital. We showed up before 8 AM to see if levels were high enough, and it was mid-afternoon by the time I got to my room. But, hallelujah, Round 6 is underway: I've already had the Rituxan and Methotrexate is ongoing. This is the "B" segment of the treatment and in the past has not been as hard on me as the "A", with its Cytoxan and Vincristine. More tomorrow...

Waiting game

We got up early this morning and dragged my little suitcase to the hospital for me to be admitted, but, alas, my blood counts are STILL lower than they want them to be, and they sent us home again. We're supposed to try again on Wednesday. I know they're doing the right thing, waiting for me to get stronger before they blast me again, but it's demoralizing, losing so much time. At this rate, it'll be September before we get home; it was February when I was last in Valdosta. Today is the first day of summer, and we would so love to be home before fall.

Round 6 on hold

I was supposed to be admitted the hospital today to begin round 6 of my treatment, but my blood counts still have not come up enough, and they sent us home and told us to come back on Monday. It's getting harder and harder for my body to recover from the heavy chemo, so we weren't terribly surprised, but we hate it that it just adds more days to my sentence. We are SO ready to be finished with this.

Friday

Although there are no ulcers, my mouth has been very sore and was bleeding this morning, so off we went to the cancer clinic for even more platelets - the critical level cutoff is 20, and mine's only up to 17. They pre-medicated me, but I still broke out in hives anyway, and had to take 75 more mgs of intravenous Benedryl and two 50 mgs shots of hydrocortisone. I'm zonked, but the itching has stopped, and so has the bleeding.

Wednesday

I had to get platelets again today - they had dropped to 11, as usual lagging behind the WBC (1.6) and the RBC 3.2). We expected it, as I've been sleeping so much the last two days. This should pop me up.

Monday afternoon

My blood work today showed my WBC to be <.3, as low as they post, so as I have no immunity, we need to be especially careful the next few days. My RBC and platelets are still respectable, and I actually feel pretty good right now. They'll probably drop though - we'll see Wednesday when we go back.

Jimmy and I have been reading a lot lately. Jimmy was up until 2 this morning, finishing the third of the Steig Larrson trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. He loved it, and hated for it to finish, especially since the guy's dead and can't write any more. I've only read the first two, so I still have the third to look forward to.

5 down, 3 to go

I apologise for being so remiss in updating the blog, but have felt so mentally dull, and seem to be repeating myself, mainly whining about being so tired all the time. Jimmy and I are both doing fine, just a little weary of all this.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for helping us get through this little episode in our life: your love and prayers and support have sustained us. You must feel like you are whistling into the wind sometimes, we seem so unresponsive, but you have kept us going. Hang in there with us, just a little longer.

Busy, busy

Jimmy FINALLY got me admitted to the hospital yesterday afternoon - we had been packed and scheduled to go in Wednesday morning, but no rooms were available. Actually, I think Dr. Lonial might have been dragging his feet a little about admitting me so soon: my counts were still lower than they preferred, and they really popped up in just that 24 hours. My platelets jumped from 55 to a much more acceptable 97 (normal is 150-400).

After Jimmy got me checked in, he drove to Valdosta, where he spent last night, then went to Amelia today to be with the grandchildren for a few days. I am green with envy, but Jimmy badly need a break from all this 24/7 caregiving, and I am well cared for here at Emory. Plus, my children Jackie and Mary drove up last night after work ( got to Atlanta at 11) and are spending the weekend with me. We'll have some good long visits.

Since yesterday, I've had Rituxin, Decadron, a Methotrexate intrathecal injection, and am on my fourth round of Cytoxan. Treatment is underway in full force.

Oh yes - Tuesday's PET scan again showed no sign of active cancer, and the tumor has shrunk to 1.7 cm. It was initially the size of an elongated baseball, and with the second Pet scan down to 2.4 cm. I want it GONE. I did ask Dr. Lonial this morning, " You still say you're gonna cure me?" He answered with an unqualified, "Yep." A man of his word, he doesn't say things like that frivously.

Recovering

Jimmy waits patiently while I get my 4th infusion of blood products this week.

I'm finally beginning to feel human again - this has been a really rough week, with my blood counts dropping so low, then staying there. I had to get MORE platelets yesterday, but everything is finally moving up.

When I wasn't at the cancer clinic, I was in bed, some days too weak to even turn on my computer, which speaks volumes. The only thing I wanted to eat was homemade oatmeal cookies with glasses of almond milk, but I got plenty of calories.

With this heavy chemotherapy I'm getting, and every round becomes tougher to tolerate. It's like with a prizefighter: the more you get knocked down, the harder it is to get up.

Ugh

After I got a bag of platelets Friday, I thought maybe I'd feel better this weekend, but I didn't. I just felt worse and worse. This morning my nose was bleeding and my gums were bleeding and I felt terrible, so Jimmy took me back to the hospital for blood tests.

We weren't surprised that everything had dropped even lower: platelets 9 (normal 150-400) WBC .3 (normal 3.6-11.1) Hematocrit 20.7 (normal 33.3-41.4). I got another bag of platelets and need 2 units of blood, which I'll get tomorrow. We were there until 6 tonight and I don't expect tomorrow to be much better. Until I get that blood in me, I'll feel like dirt. All of this makes me look at Dracula with a more sympathetic eye.

Weighty matters

"What are you doing?" I asked Jimmy as he pored over his computer. When he finally answered me, he sheepishly said, " Ordering a couple of pairs of no-iron comfort-waist pants from Land's End in a larger size."

Poor Jimmy. He has worked so hard at trying to keep MY weight up that he's put on five or six pounds himself. Between take-out at several nearby restaurants, and having Whole Foods next door, we eat healthily and well, and my weight has been stable. I often don't have much appetite though, and get a lot of coaxing from Jimmy, "MMMmmmmm. Try some of this: it is SOoooo GOOD!" and he ends up eating two bites for every one of mine.

We finished up Round 4 at the hospital last weekend: 4 down, 4 to go. My counts are falling again, and I'm dragging around, but we're in good spirits, and very pleased with how well things are going.

Cinco de Mayo on 8E

Jimmy checked me into the hospital yesterday morning, and it's now almost midnight Thursday, and things have been going full-tilt ever since we got here. I've already had Rituxan, a 24-hour Methotrexate infusion, the dreaded intrathecal injection in my back, Methylprednisolone IV, and now we're waiting for the Cytarabine to get sent up from pharmacy. This place stays up all night, just like Las Vegas.

As I've mentioned before, our floor is 8E, where we spent about a year, fighting Jimmy's multiple myeloma, and despite the depressing circumstances, it's a wonderful place. The nurses and staff are so caring and upbeat, and try to do everything they can to make the atmosphere cheerful. It's great for the morale.

Since yesterday was Cinco de Mayo, the nurses station was all decorated for the occasion, and the nurses had on sombreros. (I missed getting pictures of the nurses in their headwear.)

You have to look closely, but balloons are on most of the doors for the patients who've just had transplants. I think I'm one of the few non-transplants on the floor, but my Hyper C-VAD status must qualify.

This is one of the banners over the nurses station; if you can't make out the writing on the left, it says no blood cancers.

The steroids gave me some energy today, and so I donned my favorite green print PJ's and my "Beth" wig and sashayed around the corridor with my IV pole in tow for 21 laps - one mile. I kept passing this sign on the wall that has been around a long time but I still like it.

It's 12:52 now, and the Cytarabine has arrived.

Old cars

Friday's infusion made me feel much better, so today Jimmy said, "We need to get you out of this apartment. We're going on an outing." There's a car exhibition at the High Museum, and although, unlike Jimmy, I'm not a car buff and my expectations were minimal, we decided to go.

It was beautiful. Forget the fact that it was just a lot of old cars: from the perspective of design and art, it was the best exhibit I've seen in quite a while. I can't decide which of the pictures I took to post, so I'm publishing them all.