Monday, October 22, 2007

Bigger Update

First of all, for those of you who are concerned that you gave Andy a bug: unless you have a staph infection, took some of your own blood, and shot it into his port, then don't worry you didn't give him any bugs.

Andy has had 2 bugs. They were both staph infections in his port. The first was a pain in the butt. This second is a real booger. But the port is now out.

Andy will get a PICC line installed tomorrow and should be sent home. He will continue with the antibiotics but will discontinue TPN for the time being.

So we'll be in 4307 for the evening and probably most of tomorrow.

Andy's surgery is scheduled for.. you guessed it.. Halloween! This confirms the beginning of my prediction that "This is going to be the worst holiday season ever." So our family Halloween is blown. *sigh* One of us will hang with Andy while the other one takes Joey & Emma trick-or-treating. Joey will want his brother there, but oh well. He'll have fun anyway. It just won't be the same.

OBTW, when they remove the tumor, they'll also install a new port.

Andy's AFP count is 21,000. Remember it was 1.4 million when we started, 144,000 at the first check, and 44,000 at the last check. This is good news. It means the chemo really did its job. And it also points to the lung nodule being absolutely nothing. Ideally it would be about 12,000 when they did surgery, but this is fine. The surgeon is very confident about it.

Getting back to the holiday season... Depending on how things go, Andy will probably be in the hospital for Thanksgiving. If nothing else, he will definitely be on chemo. Which translates into no family functions... Same for Christmas. I expect him to be off chemo early January.

Not like I'll have any PTO left to be able to take off any of the holidays anyway.

All in all, everything's ok. Andy has his usual post-anesthesia fussiness, and is finally asleep. I was up until 2:00am because either Andy or Emma was awake and crying every 10 minutes from 7:00pm - 2:00am. Julie finally fell asleep at midnight but woke up at 2:30. However, we both have had a little time to nap.

I have a doctor appointment in an hour or so. I'm going to tell him I want a hearing test. I'm sick of not being able to understand what people say when they talk to me, or having to watch TV with close captioning if I actually want to 100% know what's going on with the plot.

I'm also going to talk to him about the possibility of anxiety meds, if only for a couple of months. Dunno. I'm not a huge fan of 'em.

I'm 6 months away from having to start getting annual (or is it semiannual?) cholesterol checks & other blood work. Gonna talk to him about my overall health even though I've actually been leading a much healthier lifestyle the last few months.

Gonna talk about a few other things that are absolutely none of your beeswax.

My dog bit my neighbor. He's become more aggressive lately. I'm guessing he'll be put down within the next few weeks. Trying not to think too much about it though. Whatever happens happens. And no, it's not the mastiff, it's the lab.

Hmm, what else is there to talk about. Oh yeah. Emma's sick. She has a little cold. So far I've been able to avoid it, as has Julie. I think Joey & Andy both picked it up though. Purell, Purell, Purell.

Getting concerned about sending Joey to school in less than a year. We can't afford private school, and St. Louis public schools is "shank or be shanked." (ok maybe not that bad but they're bad) Moving is not an option. Suggestions???

That's pretty much it. I'll probably post again tomorrow.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention, Andy's gonna get some Vincristine, just so we're at least doing something. Not gonna help nearly as much as Cisplatin would, but like I said it's something.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't think that your holiday's are ruined, you will be at home yes, and not really able to do much(save's $$$) but you will have your wife, your 2 sons and your little girl all together enjoying being on the road to a happy and healthy family, what is so bad about that. We all understand that you and your family have to do what you have to do and if it means all of us looking insidethe windows to keep everyone healthy that just means you need to buy more hot chocolate and blankets because we are not going anywhere!

andrew 4 life said...

I appreciate that. It's just that for as long as I can remember, the best part about the holidays was being with family. Not just immediate family, extended family. This has been especially true over the last year or so. It's just gonna really suck having to miss that.

But yes, you bring up good points. Thank you for the kind words, Favorite Great Aunt! (just taking a guess at who it was that wrote the comment, but I think I'm right on this one.)

Anonymous said...

wrong

andrew 4 life said...

dang i sux

Anonymous said...

Great News!

Anonymous said...

GREAT News!

Anonymous said...

One of Grandma Key's favorite quotes, "This too shall pass." One of my favorites, "God never gives us more than we can manage." They've both helped me through bad times and they can help you too. Be grateful knowing that Andy is being cured and that your family is here for you. 2008 is going to be our year! BTW, you have a new first cousin. Allison was born yesterday at 4:41pm. Jason and Amy are so happy.