Well, it's Saturday night, and I'm happy to report I am laying in bed next to Jonathan. They released him from the hospital early after his first round of chemo and he was able to come home Friday late afternoon. I could not be happier that he is home! We had a very long week...
Tuesday morning we checked into Holy Family Hospital for Jonathan to have his Hickman put in...
This is basically a central line right to his heart, and that big vein in your neck. This is placed so that they are not having to start an IV on Jon constantly. It took a while to get the procedure going, so I high jacked a blood pressure thing and practiced finding blood pressure on his leg, myself etc. Jon tried kicking me out for "dicking around" but I had him laughing! I'm going to need to know how all this hospital stuff works right?! (and will do anything for a smile) Pretty much as soon as he woke up, I had to get him out the door for his PET scan. He was pretty loopy, but nothing worth video taping. (No chance he is getting on Ellen) By this time it was 2:30 and the poor guy was still required to be fasting... Anyway, for this scan they had to inject him with a very very radioactive glucose. I was not allowed around him for 2 hours. This scan was requested by the doctors in Seattle to get a baseline of the tumor. They will do another scan just before surgery I think to compare.
Although Jon was pretty uncomfortable after his minor procedure, we had to prepare for war. So all the boys shaved their heads! The next morning was the big day that we start down this rough road. Jon checked into the hospital and they didn't have a room ready for him. So for most of the day we waited in a temp room on the 9th floor with a new friend Bill (a heart attack patient) and his wife Pam. Apparently you can only be administered chemo from the nurses trained for it on the oncology floor... so for most of the day we did nothing. They started fluids around 3 pm, moved him to his room around 5 and were starting chemo around 6:30pm. This was a little frustrating, as we were getting a little anxious to get the show on the road... Especially when we heard the news on the PET scan! At around 3:00 that day, the Oncologist called to tell us that the PET scan is showing another small hot spot on Jonathan's left pelvis. So they were ordering MRI scans for the next morning to explore what this new spot means.
On Thursday Jon woke up pretty nauseous, but slept good. They give some really good sleep meds to sleep off some of the side effects. They took him in for MRIs at around 9 am. Then we watched movies, snuggled and napped until they started his next round at 5 pm.
Jonathan is really struggling with the nausea. He also has a super dry mouth, no appetite and anything that I can get him to put in his mouth doesn't taste good. Then if he does get it down, it comes back up. We are at about day 3 of almost no food. He did have a small amount of smoothie and a couple pieces of fruit today and didn't throw them up. But I'm really concerned. Jon can't stand to loose 15 pounds, so I need to figure this out sooner rather than later. I will be having a chat with the doctor on Monday. I will also be asking more about what this other "spot" means. The doctor told Jonathan is wasn't a metastasized spot but that we need to watch it very carefully. (The dr. does his rounds at 6:30 am so I'm not there to get all the info) So, I would like to ask what that means?
Thank you to all the people that have brought food this week. Thank you to all the friends and family who have helped with the kids. I especially want to thank my parents, who have on numerous occasions now, dropped everything to help us since Jon's diagnosis. Thank you to the neighbors, for cleaning, washing, mowing etc. Thanks Brother for the doggie door! (Tuga thanks you)
Prayer requests: 1. Jonathan's nausea and appetite. 2. I need prayer... This is a lot to manage. 3. The boys... I think I'm going to pursue family counseling, play therapy etc. I'm beginning to worry about what kids are going to say to them about their dad, and what they will begin to see. I want to prepare them and give them confidence in knowledge. 4. This spot... Can we catch a break and maybe it can be just nothing? Something we don't even need to watch carefully.
Praise: 1. Jonathan mentioned that the pain in his leg is substantially less if not totally gone! I can't imagine this could be anything other than good news. Thank you God he has at least got some relief there! 2. One round of chemo down and finished.
I spent some time tonight in a Joyce Meyer study. I loved her book Battlefield of the Mind. (If you haven't read this book... You should!) I know that winning this battle for Jonathan is going to require positive thinking. This really sucks... It does! But if we live with that mindset, satin wins. Choosing right thinking and winning the battle in our mind is huge. Actually believing all these scriptures about God's healing power, trusting and knowing God wants to heal will help our fight. The only way we will win this war, is if we win as many of these little battles as we can.
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