Sunday, January 25, 2009

Ups and Downs

Today has been a day of ups and downs.

On the upside, my mom and Glen got to visit Mike and I in the hospital. It was very nice of them to drive all the way out from Colorado just to be bored with us in the hospital. We had some great fun playing Farkle (a dice game), especially yesterday when I was at the peak of my energy burst.

That energy burst had me so buzzing that I couldn't sleep last night. Not a wink. Really. I was up the whole night. I took a bath around 2 am, which, though it was nice, didn't help my sleeplessness. The nurse even gave me a sleeping pill, which did nothing. I was that wired.

Then morning came, and with it came new bags of chemo and nausea. The lighter anti-nausea wasn't working, so they bumped me up to Adavan which works great and got me to sleep a little (finally). Good for me, but not so good for our guests. I was able to rouse myself for a last game of Farkle before they left.

After while after they left a new sensation started assaulting me -- nerve pain. There's a terrible shooting pain running down my leg and arm that the doctor says happens with people that have lengthy stays in the hospital. I'm doing what they tell me to do, adjusting the bed into a sitting up position, standing up, walking around, etc., but I don't have the energy to keep it up very long right now. Please pray for me about this because it is excruciating!

Tomorrow, I get my last bags of chemo which is something to look forward to getting over with. Unfortunately, that is really just the beginning of the danger for me. The goal of the radiation/chemo treatment is to wipe out my immune system, which should happen by Wednesday according to the doctors. My counts were down slightly today, but they should continue on their way down to zero. At that point they can administer the stem-cells. And then I will be surviving on blood transfusions while we wait for the fledgling immune system to take over.

I am in pain and distress;
may your salvation, O God, protect me.

I will praise God's name in song
and glorify him with thanksgiving.

Psalm 69:29-30

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