Yeah, right!

Blaine has decided that I am his 'Mother Hen.' Shall I tell you why? I said, 'You have a fever, and you're coughing up stuff.' He said, 'It's just too many blankets and a cold, I'm fine.' I called Huntsman, and they had him come in. He was NOT happy with me, but he went in, and guess what? He has pneumonia! Relax, it's not the scary, in the hospital kind. It's the 'he caught a bug that filled his sinuses, and got a secondary infection in his lungs that is responding to antibiotics nicely' kind. The fever has subsided, and the coughing has lessened. He's totally wiped out, but that's normal with pneumonia.

With chemo patients, there comes a point where returns are diminishing, in that blood counts don't recover as quickly, the body's reserves begin to be depleted, and infections come more easily. I think Blaine is there. His counts have been much slower to recover, and still haven't completely come back from the last round of VD-PACE, which is by the way, very heavy chemo. Therefore, the third round of consolidation VD-PACE which was scheduled for this past Friday was canceled. Restaging was also canceled. They are going to monitor his counts and start again after they have recovered. I think we will now be moving away from consolidation chemo to maintenance chemo, as that is what his body is indicating he can handle. We will speak to Dr. Tricot after his counts recover and they restage. So you understand, the docs pushed him very hard because he could take it, and knew that this was probable. It is not an unexpected or fearful scenario to them. They pushed him harder than most knowing that they could pull back if needed.

Kyle underwent a colonoscopy and endoscopy recently, and is now on medication that finally seems to be helping him with the almost constant pain he has had to live with lately. He has some serious inflammation in his bowel and sores in his stomach that seem to be responding quite nicely to medication. We have also altered his diet. He seems to be improving quite a bit. Phew!

Everyone else is fine. Dani is still working very hard, and having some fun as well, Josh is playing baseball and getting excited to go to Texas to work for the summer then off to Laie, Hawaii for school in the fall. He will be 18 in just a few weeks. Where has our time gone? Alexis is taking a sports season off, and is relaxed and seems happy. No major projects going on right now, and it looks good on her. She loved Disneyland with the Band/Choir/Theatre group.

I am breathing a little easier, though still working and on my guard. It has been over a year since Blaine started chemo, and many, many changes have occurred since he started having symptoms. I am getting used to the west again, as it is a big adjustment. It is good, just different. We look forward to warmer weather, gardens, fishing, etc. Hoping to see our dog soon, we miss her!

We will update again when his counts recover and he is restaged. For now, please keep him and Kyle in your prayers. We are as always, so very grateful for those. Take care
Marleigh