Hospital Update

It's the wee hours of Sunday morning. Stew's vitals have been checked and 3 am labs taken. Our room is quiet except for the soft clicking sound of the machines and his peaceful breathing. Hopefully we will be able to return home today.

He has done well except for some headaches, a reaction to the prep IV, and bone discomfort. The chemo protocol this time is called DHAP with Ritoxan and steroids. It has been a much longer treatment as the Carboplatin alone requires 2 ten hour IVs.

We did learn that normally no more than 3 cycles are given because as the doctor shared, "the body can not handle more than that." (That alone speaks volumes to us as to how strong this chemo regimen is.) So, after the next cycle a pet scan will be taken to check for the remission we are prayerfully seeking, followed by one more treatment.

Medical City Dallas is a new hospital for us, but the staff  here on the 12th floor cancer ward are so professional,  kind, caring, and helpful. They even sweetly tease Stew and I for being so "cute." Not sure what that means, but we will take it!

We have walked many times around the floor while here, and each time we pass the door for the stem cell lab hope springs up that one day soon there will be some healthy ones in there labeled with Stew's name.

As strange as it may sound, we do miss the infusion center. Not because of the chemo treatments we received, but because of the fellow cancer patients we journeyed with while there. There is a quick and close camaraderie that can happen when people are walking in a similar experience. Except for a few,  personal walls rapidly come down and hearts are bared. Relationships in that moment quickly bypass surface hellos, and connect in the laughter, tears, frustrations, encouragement, and joy that comes from a warring place of pain, hope...and for some, faith.

To Stew and I, it was a picture of what relationships can be in the body of Christ.

May your today be filled with hope.
Love,
Stew and Deb
Faces to the Wall