Stumbles Along the Way

Well, we have had a few stumbles in the last few months. I have finished up all my chemo and we quit the radiation with one treatment left. When we added the chemo to the radiation, it really did its number on me. Got to the point we were doing lag work nearly every day and all of my counts were doing nothing but going down. Last Saturday I took another fall and it had gotten to the point it was all I could do to walk across the room. When I fell, I cut my lip open, bruised my chin and my right knee. On Monday when we did lab Dr. Adams decided it was time to put me in the hospital. My platelet count was 20, white cell count 1.3 and red count was 7.1. Potassium, magnesium, and calcium were completely depleted. Was seeing spots before my eyes 90% of the time and had a pounding in my head that sounded like someone putting a roof on next door. That was about 95% of the time on that. Was having nose bleeds again and coughing up blood again. So into the hospital we went.

By Tuesday am my counts were down even further. While in the hospital they gave me 6 pints of blood, 2 bags of platelets, 2 small bags each of potassium, magnesium and calcium. Tuesday night finally put me on oxygen as I was having such a hard time breathing and my oxygen level was way down. Finally released from hospital Thursday evening. Had to go back to lab and dr on Friday am to be sure they were still climbing and had not taken a downward turn again. They were up some more. My platelets count is now back up to 21. Yeah!!!!!!!!

Go back to the infusion center in the am, yes Sunday morning, and have lab and if the counts are not still coming up will have another bag of platelets. I don't know how I would have handled all of this had it not been for Leo, Lori and Liz. Lori stayed with me every night and Liz and Leo split the day shift. I do not remember ever being so sick in my life. I am still a long way from being ready to run any races but am so much better than when I went into the hospital it is amazing. I know I still have to take it easy and with all the help I am getting that is really the easy part.

I was supposed to have had my last radiation last Tuesday but with being in the hospital and only having the one, Dr Adams and Dr Lee agreed one was not going to make all that much difference. If my blood keeps going up and everything stays on track I will have a CT scan on my chest on 5-19, See Dr. Adams on 5-20 and see Dr Lee on 5-21. The CT scan will let us know if we have all the cancer that was in the lung. BUT then we can not do any further testing until 7-21. Insurance says we can not do any of the other tests until 90 days after the final treatment. The latter part of July we will do bone scan. MRI, Pet scan, CT scans and anything else the doctors can think of doing. Just keep praying everything is going to go according to God's will and we will be okay.

Last week-end Lori came over and planted my new flower garden. So many pretty flowers and such beautiful colors. Can't begin to tell you what all she planted but it certainly is enjoyable watching it grow. She also put pretty cooper colored markers with the names of each flower on them so I would know what I have. I had gotten my finch feeders hung and have so many beautiful gold finch flitting in my back yard. Counted 20 one afternoon.

Disappointing me so much was the fact that my cousin from Borger was in town last week-end and had planned to come over on Sunday afternoon and spend Sunday night with me so we could just sit and visit. However, when my blood dropped so low, I couldn't have any company. Was certainly upsetting since we have not seen each other since 05. But her granddaughters live not too far from here so perhaps it won't be long until she is in town again and we will be able to visit.

I read an article today about knowing what your rope is and holding on to it. You are each a thread in my rope. Your love and support are what is keeping me up and going. I also know God is the glue that holds the threads together. Thanks to all of you for your prayers, cards, calls, love and support. I know I would not have gotten this far without each and every one of you. I have about 100 messages in my mail box but wanted to get this off to all of you and let you know what is going on. Love all of you.

Charlie
Charlie's Journey