7/6/2010 Treat, ment after Holiday Weekend

I had Monday off work, Patty didn't, she had to work at two stores, should have been 3 but couldn't work the third into the mix - no time. So we got out of town a little later than we like to, but it was plenty early enough, I drove up to give her a rest. Josh left about 4:00 to head back to Phoenix, he got caught going over the dam and took him a while to get home, but he made it safely.

We had Pizza with Bruce, Cara and Tyler, Cara had to work on Monday also and so Bruce and Tyler were down, we had a pretty good night, but went to bed early.

Tuesday, this morning was treatment, Dr. Te's Office was busier than normal since they were closed yesterday. The nurses did a good job keeping up with the extra demands, but they were off their game just a little as it took 4 different tries before she found a good vein to give me treatment. Once they got me hooked up, everything worked real well and I was out of there in about an hour.

We met Mom and Dad for lunch at Applebees and talked with them for quite a while, they said they came down to see us and to make a summer run to Costco. It was good to see them and they brought us some additional information to send into the Downwinder's claim office, which was very nice.

Patty and I ran a a couple of errands, went back to Coral Canyon to pick up our stuff and then headed for home. We got home safe and then ran over to Amanda's to get Addie - she is so confused as to where she lives and who are her people, I think the only thing she knows is where her cage goes - so does she. One more treatment before we go to Salt Lake next week for our meeting at LDS Hospital.

7/3/2010 Treatment Report - Happy 4th of July

We made it up Thursday night to have dinner with Bruce and Cara and Kimberly for Bruce's birthday. Kim came down because she was on the way to the LV airport to fly to Mexico City to join her family which had been in Mexico for a couple of weeks.

Friday we all got up, Patty had to work with a new person at Smith's so she dropped me off at treatment, it was my long treatment where I got the Arida for bone repair and then the nausea, Velcade and then saline to mix it all up. The good news was that the Procrit that I was suppose to get was held back because it had worked so well that my numbers were up to a level they decided I didn't need it. Two weeks earlier my iron had been 27, last week it was 30 and Friday it was 32 which was good. The treatment was about 3 1/2 hours, but it all went well. Patty was still at work, so Bruce and Kim came to pick me up and we went to lunch with Cara.

Kim and I went back to Coral Canyon to wait for Patty to be done working, when she got done and got back, we loaded up and headed to Vegas with Kim. Then we went to dinner with Amanda, Ryan and Matt, showed Kim Matt's new house and then took her to the airport to catch her flight. She had about 10 - 12 more hours of travel ahead of her, hopefully it all went well.

Josh came up last night, Addie was happy to see him. He made pretty good time coming up, and got here safe. He has Monday off so will head back to Phoenix then.

Today we are going over to Amanda's to enjoy the 4th weekend. I'm feeling pretty good, but I am fatigued for some reason, hope not to be a drag on their fun today. I've got one more week of treatment until we take our trip to Salt Lake to check out the facilities for my treatment up there. Hope everyone has a great and safe holiday weekend this weekend.

6/30/2010 The morning after Treatment

We got out of town a little late on Monday, but still made it to the labs on time so it was no problem. Cara, Bruce and Tyler were at Coral Canyon so we enjoyed spending the evening with them.

Treatment morning went well, except Dr. Te was running late because of a procedure he was doing in his office that morning that made all of us run late to get to the treatment room. He went over most of my labs with me (all the results from Mon. night weren't back yet) and it looks like everything is moving in the right direction still. The Procrit is also helping my Anemia which is good. Anyway, made it through treatment by about 11:30 and then we ran a couple of errands and then I drove us home, I was still feeling really well since the side effects don't really hit until the next day or two and the Dex has me up and running.

As you can tell, I didn't need the alarm clock this morning, got out of bed a while ago and will go get ready for work in a little while. 3rd day of the Dex today, one more to go for this week, so by the weekend I'll start feeling the side effects from treatment and will slow down again. The last 4 or 5 days have been very nice, I've felt just about as normal as I can since this whole thing started. We'll see how today goes and tomorrow we get ready to go up for the next Treatment.

6/28/2010 Ready to begin Round 4

I wasn't looking forward to the weekend getting over, it meant getting ready to start Round 4 of the treatments and by the time Sunday came around I was feeling just about as normal as I have for several weeks, but it's Monday now and time to get ready for the next series of treatments. I started another 4 days of the Dex this morning (and I was sleeping so good) then we'll be traveling this afternoon. Last week's rest and recovery really helped me, so hopefully that with the Dex will keep things moving through this round of treatments.

Tonight's blood draw is a big one so they can have all current numbers for everything going into this round. In 2 1/2 weeks we'll be traveling to Salt Lake to meet with the doctors at LDS Hosptital so this blood draw will help them too, or I'll get to do another one before going up.

6/23/2010 Was it a week off? (late)

I'm writing this late, I just never got around to adding this information last week.

We made a quick trip to St. George to pick up the Hyundai from the dealer, so while we were there, I went to Dr. Te's office and got the second shot of Procrit, which is suppose to help my Anemia problems without giving me other peoples antibodies. Last week when they gave it to me I ended up with some pretty nasty side effects, but this time I took precautions and took a big dose of tylenol before getting the shot, so the side effects were very small - almost non-existent. It was a very quick trip. We took Addie with us, she was a very good traveler.

Then we went home and enjoyed a quiet weekend.

6/21/2010 More Interesting Days

Sometime Saturday, I think it changed from bone pain associated with the medicine - to kidney pain as the heat and maybe not enough water caused some real discomfort in my lower left back. I have a new found respect for those that suffer with kidney pain, I didn't recognize what was happening, so I kept medicating myself for bone pain side effects, but I think sometime around 3 or 4 am Sunday morning I recognized that it was a different pain I was suffering with. So after Patty did some reading Sunday morning and we recognized that it was probably a liquid problem, I set myself a challenge to drink my kidneys back to normal.

It's Monday evening now and I think I've drank enough water to float a ship, but the kidneys feel pretty good and I don't have the pain I had over the weekend. My insides are still recovering, but things are looking up.

6/19/2010 An Interesting couple of Days

We were a little late getting out of Vegas on Thursday evening, which normally wouldn't be a problem, the lab stays open until 9:00 pm. Well, we left town and headed up, somewhere around the Moapa Tribal truck stop the lights on the dashboard started coming on starting with the battery light. I figured that OK, the car is 3 1/2 years old, it's summer, we need a battery, so we started calling and found that the AutoZone in Mesquite had what we needed, so we limped into Mesquite and with the help of a nice kid at the store got the battery, got it changed and got on our way to make it to the labs with plenty of time to spare.

We thought that was the end of the problems, Bruce had a charger at the shop which he brought over to the house and we charged the new battery all night to make sure everything would be good. Well, that was the theory anyway. We got up Friday morning, Patty had to work at Smith's so I hauled her over there to work and went to my treatment, I was starting to get the idea that something else was happening because the batter light came back on, so we called Hyundai and got an appointment to have it looked at after lunch.

Treatment itself went pretty well, but I guess that I'm getting more anemic so they gave me some new medicine to boost me up rather than thinking about a transfusion. It all went well, but it has a side effect - it gets into the bones and has some pain associated with the after effects. They gave me medicine, but I should have taken it sooner, made it through, but wasn't much company for Patty for the rest of the day.

So, getting back to the car, we got some lunch and then went to Hyundai to have them look at it. They got it in pretty quick, and they found that the Alternator had burnt out - which happens so rarely, they didn't have a new one in stock, so they rented us a car to bring back to Vegas and the new part won't be in until at least next Tuesday, which also means that our week off, won't really be a total week off when we have to go up to get the Hyundai back. That will help the treatments, because they wanted the shots to be done once a week for 4 weeks - so this will work out.