Long Week

John had a lot of visitors this week in the hospital.  Grandparents, a cousin, a co-worker, and family.  Our house also had some cleaning visitors.  I can't wait to go home and enjoy a clean house for a few minutes - thanks to all my Thomas relatives who helped with that!!!!

This round of chemo started Wednesday evening.  We saw the doctor late morning, then went out for lunch before getting admitted for 6 days.  We got to our room and had all the usual conversations during check-in about all John's symptoms and the plan for the week, etc.  In between those nurse visits, we had plenty to do.  John's sister had organized a count-down chain for every hour.  Each chain had something written on it for us to read.  It was a great way to pass time and now we are on day 5 and still haven't made it halfway through.  The first couple days are pretty ok for John, but as the week goes on he gets more and more sick and tired. It has been fun to read jokes from our nieces, conference talks, uplifting quotes or songs, stories from old friends, etc.  Thank you all who participated from the bottoms of our hearts!  The nurses here were all impressed too!

Wednesday morning we met with John's oncologist.  I think her main advice was don't break any more bones! She addressed all our questions, but overall she said "Everything about your case is unique." The game plan is:
1. Finish this round tomorrow and go home. (fluids will be delivered to help him not get dehydrated again)
2. Rest and get John's body feeling "good" by Christmas.
3. Enjoy Christmas and the weekend
4. Then John will start and finish his third cycle and then do scans sometime in January to see where radiation could be beneficial.

Radiation will be a lot more driving back and forth, but hopefully it will be a nice break from chemo for a while? I think they said it would be about 6 weeks of radiation.

Our boys are loving life with everyone else and their toys.  Whenever we all get home, they have to test the waters to see how much they can or can't get away with.  That's good, I guess; it helps keep me on my toes. Daniel is crawling now!