Insomnia Ramblings

Insomnia...maybe. But since I'm up I thought I'd write some thoughts about the day. It was cold today and will be cold for the rest of the week. We may even get a little white stuff on Friday. We had a good day at school. The kids had Science and History tests today. The first Tuesday of every month is free at the Houston Zoo so we went to the zoo after school. We got there about 3:45 and stayed til 5:00.The kids have been studying about the different groups of animals, so it was good to hear them talking about some of what they have learned. Dave had a good day. We are still waiting to hear results from the MRI. I don't really like to wait. I start to get nervous when we have to wait a long time. My Mama is flying in tomorrow. We are excited about seeing her. Dave has chemo Thursday. We hope to throw a snowball or two on Friday.

I must tell you about this great website I have discovered. It is www.khanacademy.org . It is an educational site where this man walks you through any math lesson you can think of. It is WONDERFUL. I am planning to use it in the morning with the girls.

Dave had a really good day. We laughed alot and he even danced at the zoo with the kids. This silly song came in in front of the lion exhibit and they broke out with a dance. Wish I had gotten that on video :) If you are waiting with us on results from the MRI...I'll update when we find out. It is probably just the degenerative spine (which is not good) but better than it being something related to the cancer. Goodnight.

If you have checked in within the the past 24 hours....there is no telling what you might have found on this blog. I have been playing with it trying to make it look different. I have settled on this purple background for now. But just like I love rearranging the furniture in my house, I love changing and rearranging this blog. So don't be surprised if you come back and its different tomorrow. :) We are busy with school this morning and getting ready to go to the hospital for an MRI. I'll update later with the results.

This week has been busy with getting the scan results on Tuesday and having visits from friends all week. Seeing the doctor for scan results is a mentally exhausting task. After we get home from a doctor visit I just want to crash. Of course we do have these three little children that have school work to do....so no crashing here! John was here from Sunday to Wednesday and actually went to the doctor visit with us. He sacrificed time away from his family and really served us while he was here. One of my favorite things he did while he was here was to cook some yummy meals for us. I know Dave enjoyed having him here for a few days. Aimee, Carlton, and baby Hope got here on Thursday. While they were here we went to Chinatown. This was great. We ate there and explored some of the stores. They have an adopted Chinese daughter and were able to pick up some really neat things for her. We watched some movies and talked alot. The kids loved having Hope here. Both John and Carlton picked up from where we were in the Narnia book and read to our kids. Aimee and I met our sweet friend Sarah on Saturday morning for breakfast and the best coffee I have ever had. No really, it was the best ever. Roasted Cinnamon Coffee. Yum! Thursday night we got to meet a sweet young couple from Birmingham. He has just been diagnosed with desmoplastic round cell tumor which is a rare cancer. They were precious! He begins chemo here at MDA on Monday. They encouraged me with their positive attitudes and total trust in God's sovereignty in this cancer. I hope we will be able to be an encouragement to each other throughout this journey.

Another sweet new friend in Houston, Myra Sue (Sarah's mother in law), took our kids to the zoo and to a movie while we spent the day in Chinatown with Aimee and Carlton. They had a great time with her. I am thankful for the new fiends we have made in Houston.

Dave started his 5th round of chemo on Thursday morning. He has done really well. He has been nauseated a little but felt really well overall. Monday is the day he will have a MRI on his spine. He will have his 6th round of chemo in 2 weeks and his next CT scan is on Feb. 28th. I am not trying to wish the time away, but I am hoping for this month to pass quickly. We will make the most of it....but we can do it quickly.

Doctor Visit. Scan Results.

The news today was not the best news, but it wasn't the worst news either. The tumor did not shrink but it didn't grow either. Dr. Ravi wants to do two more cycles of chemotherapy. He will be using the same (Gem/Tax) as he used the last two cycles. If after this 6 weeks the tumor is shrinking, chemo will continue, if it is the same or has grown, he will have 4 or 5 weeks of radiation then surgery. The nature of this tumor seems to be that it divides slowly which is or could be a good thing because it is slow growing and may not spread. The down side is that it does not respond well or at all to chemotherapy. I asked Dave how he felt about it. He said he feels the same as yesterday....like he is still waiting. We are glad to be doing two more rounds of this chemotherapy. We still hold out hope that the tumor could get smaller. One thing we do know is that the tumor will be removed at some point. We trust Dave's doctor. He spent alot of time today just explaining the nature of this tumor....we don't understand it all but it does help us to better understand the treatment. So we are good today. We are hopeful. We are ready to tackle chemotherapy again. We are thankful for this report. God has been so good to us through all of this. Thank you all for encouraging us and most of all praying for us. We are reading through the Chronicles of Narnia. We just finished the first book The Magicians Nephew. Throughout this journey, I have found it hard to pray sometimes. I have even thought, why do I need to ask, God already knows what we need...what we want. So in the book Narnia had just been established. Aslan had sent The children on a mission to a garden. They stopped to rest and were hungry. This is a conversation between the Polly, Digory, and the horse Fledge.


"Well, I do think someone might have arranged about our meals," said Digory
"I'm sure Aslan would have if you would have asked him," said Fledge.
"Wouldn't he know without being asked?" said Polly
"I've no doubt he would," said the horse. "But I've a sort of idea he likes to be asked."

Thank you for asking on our behalf. We are so thankful for friends...old and new. Soli Deo Gloria.

Scan Day

Today is Scan Day. We are at MDA now waiting for Dave to have the CT scan. He had blood work and xrays already this morning. His platelet count has been very low for a few days which has caused him to have pretty bad nose bleeds. They were back up to 40 today so they didn't have to give him any blood today...thank goodness. Normal platelet counts are 140-440. His had dropped to 27 on Thursday. I guess the more chemotherapy you have the more worn down your body becomes. So now we wait until Tuesday to see Dr. Ravi and get results. Thankfully, John, one of Dave's buddies is coming in on Sunday for a few days. This will help to keep his mind off the scan results. It will also be great having someone with us on results day. That seems to always be a hard day for us. Right now I am watching Dave drink the yucky drink he has to drink before the scan. Our sweet friend Sarah is keeping the kids today. She lives here in Houston and has been such a help to us. She is a friend of Debbie who is our friend in Anniston. We met her after a couple of months of being in Houston. She and her husband invited us into their home for dinner. I will never take for granted how nice it is to be in someones home. After a couple of months of hotels and apartment living it was so nice to be in their home. Our kids love her which makes it so nice to leave them with her.

Before I leave you today, I wanted to tell you a story about our nurse in the ER the other night. Dave was in alot pain when we got there. The good thing about the ER at MDA is that you don't have to wait long. He waited maybe 10 minutes before they got him back. After he was all settled his nurse J gave him pain medication. She stood at the end of the bed and rubbed his legs for a few minutes afterwards. I had to leave to go back out to the waiting room with the kids. I guess it was around 2 in the morning she came walking by me and went out of sight for a while. A little while later she came back and leaned over my shoulder and said " I've been in the chapel praying for your family." Then she kissed my cheek and went back upstairs to Dave. He said during the night she would rub his head. She had so much compassion for his pain. What a blessing it was to have J as our nurse.

The "I can't think of a title" blog post

We are finally home (the apartment home not home home). We got here about 10 this morning. It was a long night. Dave is feeling much better. The x ray showed that he has degenerative spine. The doctor still thinks the pain was coming from the neulasta shot. She said she sees this alot in the ER. We are always hesitant about going to the ER but always glad we went when all is said and done. It was hard to see him in that much pain last night. We are so glad he is doing better this morning. His blood counts are really low, so he is going to take it easy today. We go on Saturday morning for the CT scan. Thank you all for praying for us last night. I will leave you with a couple of pictures of the kids in the waiting room.



Don't you wish you could sleep anywhere like that.

Another trip to the ER

Today Dave started having severe pain in his lower back. It got worse as the day went on. It was so bad around 7:30 tonight we brought him to the hospital. The gave him dilaudid and within minutes his pain was gone. It lasted for about and hour and a half and then the pain was back. They gave him more and now he is sleeping. The doctor thinks the pain is coming from the neulasta shot he got on Friday. I can't really explain it, but it has something to do with the shot and bone marrow. Friday was his 4th neulasta shot. She said it wears on your body just like the chemo. He is going to have an x ray and they are giving him phosphorus.....because it was low. I learn something new everyday. So the kids and I are in the waiting area....waiting! I have been going back and forth from the kids to Dave. Samuel just got his second wind so this could be a long night. Not crazy about the security in the waiting area.....that's another story!!! Have I mentioned lately how much I hate cancer? On the way to the hospital Dave was in alot of pain and Samuel was crying. He told me after we let Dave out at the ER that he didn't know why anybody invented cancer. So hard for little minds to understand....so hard for big minds to understand.

I'll update as soon as we know more. Hopefully he will get to go home tonight.