The M&M Story

This morning M looked at me and said, "You need a hair trim," and then went back to eating his cereal.

Sorry about the lapse in blogation. After another week in the hospital, I've been back home a week, but haven't been up to much. I'm self-administering IV antibiotics, and seem to be gettting a little better everyday. Keep praying for recovery from this pneumonia/lung damage. Kiddos are doing well. M has almost figured out the whole potty thing. Number 2 is about 90% there. So I guess that makes it about Number 1.8. Meanwhile, we reaced a particular goal (six successful poopers) and celebrated with a Potty Party. Cousin L came over and we had popcorn and pizza and watched a movie. We had rented A Bug's Life , which turned aout to be a mite scary for L and B. We turned it off and watched Peter Rabbit. M, however, watched the rest of A Bug's Life the next day and LOVED the scary parts. He keeps telling us his "favowite parts are the scary parts with the gwasshoppers!!" Still, we'll try to keep such fare to a minimum. I've been reading John Eldredge&

Brian was hospitalized on Tuesday for dehydration, following five days of fever related to pneumonia. I'll let him write his story when he returns home, but he did make a big production in the waiting room and passed out, causing the bigwig doctor to come running to revive him. So they put him back in the hospital. The doctors have spent the last couple of days figuring out why Brian's recovery has been so slow going. They found an abscess (not absolutely confirmed yet, but most probable - apparently it takes hours, sometimes days to get CT reports) in the right lung near the pneumonia. An abscess is a pocket of fluid caused by infection. The pulmonary specialist explained his theory on the slow recovery. He suspects that tumor is blocking a normal blood flow, which limits the amount of antibiotic that reaches the infection. Their first strategy is to up the anitbiotic to a high dose, hoping that enough will get to the infection and clear it up. They will watch it until

I was trimming my eyebrows this morning when M walked in to tell me breakfast was ready. He turned around and yelled to Susan: "Daddy can't eat breakfast! He's cutting off his eyebrows!!"

I've still been weak and coughing from the pnuemonia, although its been getting better everyday. Today I went in for a blood check, an appointment with the medical oncologist, and possible treatment. My liver levels are getting better, and should be within range next week to take treatment. They think it might be a dosing issue, so they'll just reduce the chemo dose next week and watch levels. My oxygen levels are good, and my immune system's at a pretty good place. In the meantime, it turns out I'm anemic, and was about 2-3 pints down. So that's a huge reason for my fatigue. They gave me a transfusion of 2 units of red-blood-cell-rich blood, and I feel a whole lot better. I'm at least 60% of my old self! They've also started me on a drug called Procrit, which is an anti-anemia drug. So I was at the hospital for most of the day, but I feel much better, and we'll see how it goes. We're just praising God that this fatigue was something that could

It's good to be home. I'm not up to doing any jigs yet, but the pneumonia's under control and I haven't had fever for a couple of days, so they let me out. My liver function levels were up for some reason during most of my weeklong stay, but they are declining now (which is good), and they think it's medication related. It does not seem to be cancer related. Thank you for all your prayers for our family--we know God listens to his children, and he acts. More later....

This is Susan updating Brian's blog. Brian was admitted to the hospital Saturday because of severe dehydration and pneumonia (that darn right lung). He is somewhat better but will remain in the hospital until at least tomorrow afternoon. Please pray for healing.