Many changes

So, I wrote the last post from Indiana- which was the last time and place that life was normal. 😔

John got very sick on the trip home. He was fine leaving Indiana, but by the time we reached Louisville, he was unable to continue driving. By the time we reached home, he had agreed to go to the doctor. 

We had three weeks where he was really sick- unable to eat, chills and fever, too weak to do anything but move between the bed and the recliner. We had several doctors visits and a bunch of tests, which led to a referral to Moffitt Cancer Center, and at our first visit on June 28, a diagnosis of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. 

He was admitted, within an hour of us seeing the doctor, in critical condition. He stayed in Moffitt for 8 days. There were multiple tests, two surgical biopsies, and the first round of chemo. 

He had the second round of chemo last week. We are waiting for the second session of "nadir"- the time between days 10 and 14 after chemo when all the side effects kick in. It means he feels really rotten, I have to be super careful about cleaning and sanitizing everything because he is at his most immuno suppressed, and we just stay in to avoid risking bringing in outside germs. 

The whole experience has been like no other. I keep walking the fine line of staying pragmatic and under control, while dealing with the life-threatening reality of his situation. We are still a long way from any resolution- if everything goes well, they will stop the chemo after the mid-October session, and we will know sometime between Halloween and Thansgiving if he is in remission. Another scenario has him in chemo until just before Christmas. 

The good news is that he is clearly feeling better and stronger now than in June. He has no hair, but that is temporary- although 6 months or more until it comes back does not seem "temporary" to him. 

So, that is life at the moment. I am getting far more knitting (a Christmas present for our son), cross stitch (also a Christmas present), and quilting done than I usually do- we spend so much time in the living room recliners that I just got determined to not sit unless I was doing more than just watching TV.

I am going to try to do more posting as we live through/work through this situation.