Chemo: Week 19

 This is the picture in Jake's hospital room.

This is Jake telling me to quit taking pictures of him.

Well, it has been a long week...for me.  We were suppose to go in for chemo on Tuesday, but they asked us if we wanted to wait until Wednesday.  We had an appointment with the Radiology doc, which was not very productive.

Jake hates the overnight stays at the hospital so we inquired as to the possibility of him not having a hospital stay, but just getting chemo in the clinic.  We would have to stay all day, but that's a lot less time than staying over night.  They are going to try it on our next scheduled overnight stay.  We'll see how it goes!

The best news was that Jake gained a couple pounds!  He is really trying to eat more so he can heal faster!  He still has some color in his face from his last transfusion...oh maybe I didn't mention that.  Jake's counts were critically low a couple weeks ago.  His skin was so pale!  The nurse said he needed to come in for a transfusion on Friday, so since Dave was home, I let him have a turn doing the Jake-hospital bonding time.  They gave him 3 liters of blood instead of 2 and topped it off with a bolus of platelets.  Unfortunately, Jake spiked a fever while he was at the hospital so they made him stay overnight on a regimen of antibiotics.  Jake called me and begged me to get the doctors to release him to home.  He said he hated the food, so I made him a sandwich and some jello (his request) and made the 45 min. drive up the the hospital to comfort my poor Jakey.  I had to drive home in a big snow storm and only 2 hours sleep the night before, but Jake's worth it. 

 Here is Jake who wasn't happy because just he threw up the yummy sandwich I had brought him from home.

Chemo continues to damage Jake's body.  He continues to have more numbness in his hands and feet and is losing a lot of strength. He's trying to stay upbeat, but the treatments are getting tiring for all of us. (sigh!)  The doctors and nurses keep encouraging us to stay strong and the prayers are really helping, so thank you, all!  

Next week will mark the half way mark of chemo treatments.  April 12, 2011, is the last schedule chemo treatment.  That will be my new favorite day! (happy thoughts!)

Help!  I'm falling apart!  Today I was chewing on a tootsie roll and one of my crowns came out!  I'm going to put it under my pillow tonight and see if the tooth fairy will give me a refund!

My dryer broke so I had to replace it.  Did you know that not many stores stock gas dryers?  I finally found one at RC Willey!  Unfortunately, when we tried to hook it up, the fittings were different! (Why in the world do they not make these things universal?)  Well, as soon as we got it hooked up and turned the gas on, it smelled like leaking gas.  I called the gas company to come see why it was leaking.  I didn't want my house to blow up because I was trying to dry my clothes.  I got my hair permed that day so the combination of the two smells was giving me a headache!  I even had the gas guy put his meter near my hair to see if it was toxic!  He told me that the connections were fine and the gas leak was in the dryer.  I called RC Willey and they brought out a new dryer and switched them out.  The delivery guy put some goop in the adapter connection and now I don't smell the gas anymore.  Unfortunately, I now have a cold and I can't smell anything anymore.  (I think I caught it from my Uncle Bob after I gave him a kiss on the cheek at his 93rd b-day party and my Aunt told me later he had a bad cold...thanks for sharing!).

Today, I played Leon (age 72) and Dave racquetball (Dave was playing right handed this time) and I beat them!  OK, technically I was ahead and we ended the game early because someone else wanted to play with us, but still...I was ahead! hehe.  Well, Dave and I had fun playing today.  

I knew this was the last day to get the leaves cleaned up before it grew cold and nasty, so after I got home and Dave fixed me some nice breakfast, I changed and raked the leaves into piles.  The wind started to kick up so I asked Jake & John to come out and pick up the leaves for me, before they blew all over again.  To my surprise, they came out and got to work!  They weren't getting them up faster than the wind was blowing them so we had to call for back up!  We got Dave to come join in the "family bonding time"!  When Zack got home, he took my old dryer and the 6 bags of leaves to the dump and when Spence and Mike got home, they got to do pooper scooper.(Oh the fun times we have together!!!)