Round 6

Before we get into chemo, just wanted to thank everyone for helping make my birthday trip to Disneyland a fun one. On the spur of the moment, Colby and I hopped a plan on the morning of my birthday, spent the day at Disneyland with grandma and grandude and then come home the next day. We had a real blast doing this:

Well this week of chemo seemed to go much like the rest of them, except the fact that we did it all without Rob. Rob is in North Carolina at a campus ministers conference so his mom graciously has come into to town to help me out with Colby and chemo. We went in like normal and sat and had drugs pumped in and then left and went home. This week they gave me an extra medicine for nausea before I left, because I had been sick the last few times. One of the drugs they gave me was supposed to make me drowsy and relaxed, unfortunately it only made me restless and I didn't sleep like I normally do after chemo. But I don't seem to be any worse for the wear.

The day after chemo Colby and I spent some time in the afternoon with my mom, she was in town for a meeting, before she headed back to palm springs. Now, we are all eagerly awaiting Rob's return. Thanks to all for the continued well wishes and support.

Facebook Connect

Some of you may have noticed the cool little "Wibiya" toolbar at the bottom of the page. This serves a few different functions. It has a Twitter feed, a Facebook Community area, a photo gallery, a post feed, a search box, and a way to translate the blog into different languages. I think the Facebook aspect is a whole lot more slicker than Google Friend Feed, so in a short while I am going to remove Google. If you want to make a comment that does not go with a specific post you can then use the Facebook Community area to do so. Otherwise you can still click on a specific post and add your comment to the end of the post. Anyhoo, if you have any questions just drop me a message. Hope this has been a helpful tool to keep you updated on family info!

Chemo Round 5

I wrote this on Tuesday July, 7 but forgot to publish it that night...

Well, Melissa has had two treatments since the last post. The after effects of todays treatment has probably been the toughest so far. Melissa had battled a little more nausea this time and basically went to bed at 4 p.m. today. I fully expect her to be up and about tomorrow morning, however. We last saw the doctor during the fourth treatment and he was pleased with Melissa's progress and the fact that she is showing no symptoms of the disease. He even noticed the lump in her neck that started this whole thing is no longer there. This is not surprising, however, because the treatment for early stage Hodgkin's is so successful. It would be extremely unusual if the treatment was not taking effect by now.

So what's next? Melissa will have a sixth treatment two weeks from today and then soon after will have a PET scan that will show how well the chemo has been working. Again, it would be extremely unusual for these scans to come back with an undesired result. If everything comes back the way the doctor hopes it does then Melissa should only need two more chemo sessions. Then we will hopefully be talking about wrapping things up with treatment. It is with cautious optimism that we hope at this point that we are entering the home stretch. We fully expect, however, that these remaining treatments will be the most difficult ones.

As always we would like to thank all those who are offering prayers, encouraging words, and meals. This has been an exhausting experience and we could not do it without our faith and an amazing support network.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Melissa spent all last week with the NSUMC youth group on the Navajo reservation repairing homes. Melissa led a team of youth in raising a ceiling for a family in need. She may not be superwoman, but I think she might be the next closest thing!