I Did It!!!!!

I made it through my blood test, my IV, and the "minor surgery" of inserting the port!!! We're now home, and I'm ready to nap. More later...

Thanks sooo much for the prayers!!!!! :)

Encouragement and More About Today

Thanks so much for all the encouragement regarding tomorrow!!! I am quite nervous about it, but it makes me feel so much better to hear from so many friends in the medical field that this is truly for the best. But I'm still nervous.... ugh!!

Kien was sick all day, so I stayed upstairs as much as possible to avoid his germs. I felt so badly hearing him cry and not being able to help! I can't pick him up yet anyway. But this would be very bad timing for me to get sick, and I might be more likely to get sick since I'm still recovering from surgery and recovering from radiation. I do have an appointment for a flu shot next week though.

One fun thing... The medication which I will hopefully be taking as part of the clinical trial may cause sores and pain on my hands and feet. (That's not the fun part.) So they recommended that I get a pedicure before beginning the medication. So I followed the doctor's orders today! ;) And the timing was great, because my friend Jenny had given me a spa gift certificate for my birthday! So I had a nice, fancy, 1-hour pedicure this morning. Steve had to drop me off at the spa and pick me up. I'm not driving at this point, both due to all my medication and due to my arm not working. We realized as we were going out the door that my mom had taken the only car that has 2 car seats (the mini-van) -- and we were left with the SUV with only a seat for Kevin!!! But we had Kien, while my mom was on a preschool field trip with Kevin!!!! UGH!!!! Fortunately, we did have an extra car seat in the house, and Steve learned how to install it at lightning fast speeds...within an hour after Kien got sick! It was a crazy morning...but the pedicure was nice! :)

I also slept MUCH better last night!! I took the anti-anxiety medication again, and that may be why my sleep was improved. I'm also doing much better at getting myself up out of bed without Steve's help, so I don't always have to wake him up if I need to get up in the middle of the night.

On another note... my brother had surgery today! He had knee surgery. It went well, but he found out that he'll need a knee replacement in a few years. Not good. :( My sister-in-law (his wife) just had hip surgery 6 months ago. Kevin also had eye surgery in January! What a crazy year!!!

Thanks for the prayers for tomorrow!!!!

Port Tomorrow!!!

We had to get a bunch of stuff set up at Duke - the first of which was the port insertion. And it turns out that it will now be happening TOMORROW (Wednesday)!!! AAAACCCKKK!!!

I have to be there at 8:30am for an initial blood test. Ugh!! Please pray this one goes smoothly!!

Then at 9:30am, I will be at the hospital for the port insertion. I will be sedated, but not entirely knocked out. UGH!!! They said on the phone that it will take 1.5 hours!!! WHAT??? And then because of the sedation, I have to stay at the hospital for 3 hours for recovery. I also can't eat after midnight tonight.

I'm quite freaked out about this whole thing. Please pray for strength and peace - and that it goes well!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!

Uh oh!

Kien has a stomach bug!! Please pray that I don't get it from him!!!!

Back to Duke and Prayer Requests

We had another appointment at Duke today. It was to begin again with a "b...." test at 1:30pm, then my appt was at 2:30pm. We also signed the papers to agree to the clinical trial today.

The test last week went sooo smoothly! But today was a NIGHTMARE!!!!! I have been aware a couple of times over the past month that a nurse has had trouble finding a you-know-what (sorry, but I just can't "say" these words). One time was actually during surgery. After surgery, my right arm was a huge bruised MESS for a couple weeks!! It was really terrible. So anyway, today was terrible. Steve said the nurse did not do a good job. And she had to do it in my hand!!! EEEEEK!!!! I eventually had to ask to be taken to a bed to lie down for the remainder of the torture session. Ugh! And my hand actually hurt for a good hour after it was all done. Ok, change of subject...

So anyway, as a result... the current plan is now for me to have an IV port put under my skin, above my chest. AAAACCCKKKK!!!! Supposedly this will be done at Duke on Thursday. We will find out more about scheduling tomorrow. They will give me a sedative that will just make me really out of it, but it will not be general anesthesia. Oh my goodness.... I'm really going to need prayers for this!!!!!!

Anyway.... The doctor didn't expect my hemoglobin level to be fully to where it needs to be by today, and it wasn't. It was up a little bit though. But only about 30% of the amount that it needs to climb before I can begin the clinical trial. He said that the treatment I received last week usually wouldn't take effect for a week anyway, so hopefully it will take effect this week. After the IV port, I will have more testing done on Thursday and Friday this week (blood tests, CT scan, bone scan, etc.).

Soooo.... please pray for my hemoglobin level to miraculously rise by Thursday!!!! And please pray for the procedure on Thursday. I am sooooo not looking forward to this.....

Blog Comments

Thanks so much for all the blog comments! :) Several of you have now mentioned that you didn't know how to post comments though. I'm guessing that the trouble is happening at the point of signing in after writing your comment... If you don't sign in with one of the listed services, such as Google, you can just post an anonymous comment or select "name/url" and enter your name. If you choose anonymous though, please be sure to tell me your name within the comments box! :)

More Active Weekend

After feeling much better this past week, I had a much more active weekend. I spent a lot more time downstairs, and I even went out a few times!

Kien has recently decided that he LOVES trucks!! He kept giving me this truck book and saying "up" - wanting to get up on my lap for me to read it to him. :) I could slightly help him get up, although I couldn't pick him up myself. That was very sweet and fun!!

My dad was back in town, and we all went out to eat for Saturday brunch. That was my first time eating in a restaurant in over a month. And it went well! :) I brought my pillow to sit on, and I did fine. :) I did feel like I needed to stand after awhile, but that was ok too.

Then on Saturday night, we had our first meal as the 4 of us since August! My parents had a date night at Ruth's Chris, so the 4 of us ate McDonald's at home. :) Then on Sunday night, we switched. Steve and I had a date night at Ruth's Chris, courtesy of my dad!! And my parents took the boys to McDonald's. ha! So that was my first dinner out since August. Again, it went well! And yes, I did carry my pillow into Ruth's Chris. My dad had told the maitre d' about me the night before, so they gave us free dessert. :)

On Sunday, we were back at church again for the first time in a few weeks! Again, I brought my pillow, and it went pretty well.

Then later in the day, we went to pick out some pumpkins from a nearby "pumpkin patch." I squatted down to get some cute pictures, forgetting that I shouldn't be doing that - and then I had to call my dad over to get me up off the ground. ;)

I was in more pain over the weekend though and particularly didn't sleep well Sunday night. I did get hurt 3 times on Saturday from increased activity, so I'm guessing that I was in more pain due to the increased activity and from hurting myself (such as from Kevin banging a door into me! he felt soooo bad!!!).