There’s No Place Like Home! (click-click)

I•am•home! After two weeks in the hospital, I am loving being home--sleeping in my own bed, waking when I want, having my kitchen to decide what and when I eat, and showering-- little things I took for granted. However, I can’t say enough nice things about the nursing staff on 6th south floor at Banner Baywood. They are certainly some of the angels on my journey.

During the first week in the hospital I received continuous chemo for 6 days and nights. The nurses that hooked up the bags of chemicals wore a cover gown, heavy blue gloves, and goggles. I was blessed to have my body accept the chemo medicine without more than the expected side effects so it could attack the cancer. What they didn’t expect was my body to become so weak after the treatment. But now they know, the plan book is on the shelf, and we listen to my body. My blood count numbers took a dive (which they expected) but finally began to come up on their own after two blood transfusions and a platelet transfusion (which is yellow, by the way.) During my last few days in the hospital I became what they call, neutropenic. (With too much free time, I would sing the Mickey Mouse song with these letters--try it!) This meant my white blood count was below 2 and if I got an infection it would be hard to fight it on my own, so we all began wearing masks and I was content to confine myself to my room (which actually had a lovely window view of the east monsoon storm clouds.)

I have two weeks to get strong for my return on Aug. 31 for round two of the same chemo, if all continues to go well. So far, so good. I have even been able to stop my nausea medication. Sweet people are bringing me food, my lawn was just mowed, and I have two of my children (Russell and Aubri) at home with me until Aug. 25 when Aubri will return to BYU for her senior year, and Russell will return to his music and band in Nashville.

The best news is that the CT scan I had before I came home showed the chemo was doing its job to eliminate or shrink most of the lymph nodes. That helps motivate me to return for round 2.

Hospital Memories:
Two fire drill sirens going off twice in the same night. (Nothing soft at the bottom of my 6th story window--I checked.)
Mark’s regular evening visits.
My sisters and Dad coming to visit.
Singing Primary songs with Kathy (my sister) as they inserted my PICC line.
Eating a Chick-Fil-A lunch with Aubri when nothing else sounded good.
Talking on the phone with my mother during breakfasts to take my mind off the food.
Skyping on the computer with my granddaughters and singing, “Wheels on the Bus”.

The longer I go through this, the more evidence I see of the Lord’s hand guiding this journey. I’ve started a list (have you noticed I like lists?) and will share it another time.

I continue to feel of your love and support. Thank you soooo much.