As mentioned, God willing, we are preceding toward a stem cell transplant which medically is the best shot we've got at keeping this thing from coming back. Of course we know that our wonderful Sovereign God has us and specifically my medical condition in His loving and perfect hands so His awesome will be wonderfully executed which, of course, is a great comfort to us as we look ahead to what is, humanly speaking, a rather scary process. First, next week I have a 10th "omaya" procedure scheduled to insert chemo into my spinal fluid on Tuesday the 3rd followed by an ekg, chest x-ray, lab work and a visit with my oncologist Dr. Smith on Thursday the 5th. Dr. Smith will go over all the recent labs with us and hopefully give us the green light to start on the road to the stem cell transplant.
Stem Cell Transplant
The particular type of transplant I am schedule to receive involves harvesting my own clean "baby" stem cells, as they've described by the Clinic staff, having me undergo an intense series of chemo therapy that will basically kill off my existing stem cells and hopefully any cells that will ever turn cancerous, and then re-introduce my own saved stem cells back into my body. The schedule right now looks like this:
Nov 9-27. Preparation for stem cell collection followed by 5 days (23-27) of the collection itself. The preparation will include the insertion of a catheter that will be used for the collection and future chemo as well as two weeks of treatments (16-20th) designed to ready my body for the harvesting which is to begin on the 23rd and last for 5 days. Assuming the harvesting goes as planned ...
Dec 1-24 I will be admitted on December 1 with chemo beginning then and accelerating on Dec 5. Great care is taken during the chemo part to insure that infection does not complicate things as the chemo will be destroying my natural immunity system making the dangers for infection increase. The return of my harvested stem cells is scheduled for the 10th followed by two weeks of monitoring and testing to assure that no complications are arising. If all goes well, according to the current schedule, I'll be released for home on Christmas Eve, the 24th.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
another overdue update
I'm really not being good and being regular with this, am I! I'll fill you in on what we've been up to the last few weeks:
Oct 5-7: Our last schedule chemo treatment at Cleveland Clinic. Nice to get this part of the process behind us. A little expected nausea for a couple days after returning home but nothing major.
Oct 12-15. We returned to Cleveland for a lot of meetings and tests for the purpose of restaging my cancer and getting us prepared for what all of this has been leading up to: A stem cell transplant. More details on that in the next post. Hopefully the scans, blood work, spinal fluid analysis and bone marrow biopsy will show that the cancer is no longer present and allow us to continue on our transplant path. We enjoyed the benefits of the Hope Lodge for the first time on this trip to Cleveland. Hope Lodge is a facility 5 minutes east of the Clinic near the campus of Case Western that allows cancer patients and their care givers free stay while undergoing outpatient procedures at the Clinic. It's a very nice facility and we enjoyed yet another way God is providing for us in every need with our stay there. We are hoping to stay there again in the near future assuming our schedule goes as planned.
Oct 16-present. We've enjoyed some quite down time since returning from Cleveland on the 15th. Kim has been using the time to catch up on stuff around the house and we've been enjoying the time together re-establishing a consistent devotion time together with the help John McArthur's online resources at www.gty.org Personally my legs and consequently my walking have been getting stronger. I've been wearing braces regularly once again that were created for me a couple of months ago and have been enjoying greater mobility - walking more with the walker instead of staying in the wheel chair. I've been also sneaking out and driving a little more often to Delphos and back mostly. I'm tempted to get that 87 diesel Mercedes out and have some fun but don't think I'd get away with that! Had a wonderful blessing yesterday, Weds the 28th, with visits from 3 wonderful friends. My oldest friend, Dan Gamble, who I've known since 2nd grade found an excuse to get over to this area from his Marysville to spend a few hours with me and then I was surprised and blessed with a visit from Celina friends Ken Lange and Aaron Beougher who were on their way to a girl's volleyball game in Findlay and stopped by. It was a wonderful day! and I enjoyed catching up with 3 great friends.
Oct 5-7: Our last schedule chemo treatment at Cleveland Clinic. Nice to get this part of the process behind us. A little expected nausea for a couple days after returning home but nothing major.
Oct 12-15. We returned to Cleveland for a lot of meetings and tests for the purpose of restaging my cancer and getting us prepared for what all of this has been leading up to: A stem cell transplant. More details on that in the next post. Hopefully the scans, blood work, spinal fluid analysis and bone marrow biopsy will show that the cancer is no longer present and allow us to continue on our transplant path. We enjoyed the benefits of the Hope Lodge for the first time on this trip to Cleveland. Hope Lodge is a facility 5 minutes east of the Clinic near the campus of Case Western that allows cancer patients and their care givers free stay while undergoing outpatient procedures at the Clinic. It's a very nice facility and we enjoyed yet another way God is providing for us in every need with our stay there. We are hoping to stay there again in the near future assuming our schedule goes as planned.
Oct 16-present. We've enjoyed some quite down time since returning from Cleveland on the 15th. Kim has been using the time to catch up on stuff around the house and we've been enjoying the time together re-establishing a consistent devotion time together with the help John McArthur's online resources at www.gty.org Personally my legs and consequently my walking have been getting stronger. I've been wearing braces regularly once again that were created for me a couple of months ago and have been enjoying greater mobility - walking more with the walker instead of staying in the wheel chair. I've been also sneaking out and driving a little more often to Delphos and back mostly. I'm tempted to get that 87 diesel Mercedes out and have some fun but don't think I'd get away with that! Had a wonderful blessing yesterday, Weds the 28th, with visits from 3 wonderful friends. My oldest friend, Dan Gamble, who I've known since 2nd grade found an excuse to get over to this area from his Marysville to spend a few hours with me and then I was surprised and blessed with a visit from Celina friends Ken Lange and Aaron Beougher who were on their way to a girl's volleyball game in Findlay and stopped by. It was a wonderful day! and I enjoyed catching up with 3 great friends.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Macedonian giving
Wow! Sorry it’s been so (too!) long since we’ve updated this page. We’ve been enjoying the relative calm of 2 ½ weeks at home. Kim’s been catching up with household stuff she needs to get done and I’ve been trying to stay healthy and gain strength walking on the walker, etc. Actually trying to gain weight in preparation for more treatments which is something I’ve never had as a goal before. It’s actually kind of nice! It’s nice to have a reason to enjoy a milkshake daily!
We continue to enjoy the many blessings we’re receiving from the many wonderful people God has placed in our lives. The students and staff at Apollo literally overwhelmed us by having a dress down day recently in order to collect money to help us out. Going from my love of the Cincinnati Reds, students and staff paid to dress down in casual red colored clothing. My supervisor, Natalie, brought the outcome to Kim and I along with a picture of the staff dressed in red in my classroom and brought us to tears. What a joy it is to see God working in so many ways! Other blessings of heartfelt entries in cards and letters along with numerous Scripture verses from so many of you have ministered to us in wonderful ways. It reminds me of Paul’s commendation of the Macedonian churches in 2 Cor 8:1-5:
8:1 Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia: 2 that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality. 3 For I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing, 4 imploring us with much urgency that we would receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. 5 And not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to us by the will of God.
Another thing God has worked on to both Kim and I through this trial is being on the receiving end of ministry. Kim and I share the trait of being private kind of people and while, I believe, God doesn’t want us to always be spouting off every little thing going on in our lives to others, we’ve been convicted of the fact that we’ve erred on the other end of the spectrum – being so private as to try to squelch the ministry opportunities God has provided to others in opportunities to minister to us. We’re both working on opening up our lives more and more to others – in fact this blog is an example of that – and welcoming the gifts others have in ministering to us. In the passage from 2 Cor above, I put myself in Paul’s position and think what a wonderful blessing the Macedonia giving was to him! I can’t imagine the encouragement that incredible giving ("beyond their ability" in verse 3) was to Paul and his crew during the trying times they faced in ministry. Kim and I are enjoying that same form of encouragement through the ministry of so many of you to us. You are not only ministering to us, you are teaching us many wonderful godly truths through your actions and we are very appreciative of it.
We head back up to Cleveland for 3 days of treatments this Monday through Wednesday (the 5th through the 7th).
In Christ’s love,
Rob
We continue to enjoy the many blessings we’re receiving from the many wonderful people God has placed in our lives. The students and staff at Apollo literally overwhelmed us by having a dress down day recently in order to collect money to help us out. Going from my love of the Cincinnati Reds, students and staff paid to dress down in casual red colored clothing. My supervisor, Natalie, brought the outcome to Kim and I along with a picture of the staff dressed in red in my classroom and brought us to tears. What a joy it is to see God working in so many ways! Other blessings of heartfelt entries in cards and letters along with numerous Scripture verses from so many of you have ministered to us in wonderful ways. It reminds me of Paul’s commendation of the Macedonian churches in 2 Cor 8:1-5:
8:1 Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia: 2 that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality. 3 For I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing, 4 imploring us with much urgency that we would receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. 5 And not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to us by the will of God.
Another thing God has worked on to both Kim and I through this trial is being on the receiving end of ministry. Kim and I share the trait of being private kind of people and while, I believe, God doesn’t want us to always be spouting off every little thing going on in our lives to others, we’ve been convicted of the fact that we’ve erred on the other end of the spectrum – being so private as to try to squelch the ministry opportunities God has provided to others in opportunities to minister to us. We’re both working on opening up our lives more and more to others – in fact this blog is an example of that – and welcoming the gifts others have in ministering to us. In the passage from 2 Cor above, I put myself in Paul’s position and think what a wonderful blessing the Macedonia giving was to him! I can’t imagine the encouragement that incredible giving ("beyond their ability" in verse 3) was to Paul and his crew during the trying times they faced in ministry. Kim and I are enjoying that same form of encouragement through the ministry of so many of you to us. You are not only ministering to us, you are teaching us many wonderful godly truths through your actions and we are very appreciative of it.
We head back up to Cleveland for 3 days of treatments this Monday through Wednesday (the 5th through the 7th).
In Christ’s love,
Rob
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