12/20/2010 Don't we live in the Desert?

We spent the night at Coral Canyon last Thursday and then on Friday we met with Dr. Te to go over some of the numbers from the Nov. blood results as most of the numbers from the 12/16 blood tests won't be available until this week. He told us the blood results that he and Salt Lake are looking at before I can move forward the rest of my treatments. The good news is that all the numbers are still moving in the right directions, but one of the things they are looking for is for some of the numbers to plateau at certain places and if they keep moving then the medicine is still working and I will have to keep up with the Revlimid. I am between my round 5 and 6 and will start round 6 of the Revlimid on Christmas evening or the day after.

It was a good meeting with Dr. Te and I think we have a better idea of when we might be heading for Salt Lake. Another good news we got was that my kidneys are working pretty well, so we don't have to worry right now about that as a problem. I will try to get this month's blood report numbers either this week if they are available and Dr. Te's Office is open or we'll get them next week after Christmas. I also had my Arida bone medicine treatment on Friday and Patty had to work for a while.

We went out and saw mom and dad for a while Friday afternoon after we were done with what we needed to get done, we took Josh's dog Addie with us as we had been watching her since Thanksgiving for him. It was a nice visit with mom and dad and then we hit the road to head back to Vegas. Later Friday Josh made it to our house for Christmas and New Years.

We want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year in 2011. 2010 was a very different year for our family. We had a wonderful experience with Amanda and Ryan getting married and everything leading up to and after that great time, and then we had our challenges. We are looking forward to a very good 2011 and are hoping for the same or better for all of you.

Merry Christmas

12/16/2010 Heading for St. George again

We took a trip to St. George on Thursday to give blood and we also both had appointments with a audiology doctor (hearing) to see how we are doing, the good news is that Patty has pretty good hearing and the other news is that I am pretty bad. I am scheduled to be fitted for devices the week after Christmas as they had to order the ones I'm getting. We went to Dr. Forbes because it was where Ruthann had gone and she is very happy with her devices.

I also did my every 4 week blood sampling as well as I had to keep a 24 hour specimen for them.

We had the Coral Canyon house to ourselves - which is not normal, but Lance and Suzy and family flew in from Florida so the Dickman family all headed for Parowan to spend time with them.

12/10/2010 Checking In

I have been chastised for not sharing my status a little more often, so here goes. I am in the second week of round 5 of the Revlimid medicine. Everything is going well, the medicine builds up inside and so the fatigue and nausea get a little more noticeable as the 21 days wear on during each round of the Revlimid. This time is no exception, not to any extreme, just enough to know that I have something going on. I'm still working about 3/4 of the time and am grateful that my bosses and co-workers are very accommodating of my circumstance, they have all been great through this.

Patty and I went to the NFR on Monday night with Amanda and Ryan, it was a very good show and we all enjoyed it very much, we saw some real good scores posted in all the competitions.

We are getting ready to go back to St. George next week and will post more of that later.