Thursday, October 8th

Boring is good... That's what the doctors keep telling us. As we continue with this first phase of Dad’s treatment, no news is good news, and I'm happy to report that we have no significant news and everything remains on track. True to form though, it seems that Dad (and his body) don’t actually know how to be totally boring; no matter how hard he tries! This week has seen a mix of infections (par for the course when you have no functioning immune system) and lingering pain from chemo related GI issues – no fun for the big guy. The great team of doctors here at Jefferson continue to address any issue that arises, covering all bases with an impressive cocktail of antibiotics, blood transfusions and pain killers. Though definitely not his cocktail of choice, we are reminded that this regimen and the ability for the team to monitor, react, and treat these things quickly is why we are here at the hospital and not at home. So while it has definitely been frustrating at times, Dad continues to roll with the punches and is pushing through in his signature style; with positivity, humor, some stubbornness, and a much shorter hair cut. 

For now, we continue to focus our efforts on keeping Dad infection free, and as comfortable as possible while we wait for the healthy white blood cells (also known as “neutrophils”) to return. While we’ve been told (repeatedly) not to fixate on one date since the timing is truly just different for each person, obviously each of us are confident that we have the answer. General (medical) opinion says it will likely be towards the end of next week... Naturally we quickly identified this guessing game as an opportunity for some friendly competition and we’ve now started to place wages on what day we will start to see the neutrophils come back... But its probably going to be on Monday the 12th ;)

Lots of love to all. GO BIRDS

xo,

Emery