Weekend Wrap and Hyper CVAD Round 2

Wow, a lot has happened since my post on Friday, all of it good.  Friday night, Renee and Lisa Wetzel surprised me with a combination birthday party/sunday school class reunion at the Wetzels house - this is a dear group of close friends from our old church, the North Raleigh Church of the Nazarene.  We had a class called People Inc. that we were a part of for something like 12 years, and it was just wonderful to see everyone.  Thanks a million to Lisa for doing the heavy lifting in getting everyone there.

Good lung function, but only tested on 2 "representative" candles :-)

Saturday was our family birthday gathering, with Rachel home, my parents still here, Renee's parents, and Renee's sister Karen and her husband Scott, one of my best buddies - my brother-from-another-mother.  We also had a surprise special guest, another best friend, Jeff Williams, who has also graced the pages of this blog, most recently when he and I went fishing in California (Jeff's adopted home state) in June.  We grilled a whole tenderloin, for which my dad made a killer sauce out of shallots, red wine, and shitake mushrooms....oh baby....

Jeff crashes the party, bearing champagne - GREAT blessing / surprise.

Noshing, sipping, fellow-shipping

 We wrapped up the weekend with a great dinner over and Bob and Vaun's house - the weather was just spectacular Saturday and Sunday.  All these wonderful occasions, put into context - 3 weeks ago the doctor said that there was a 50% chance that I would end up in the hospital sometime this cycle with an infection - so we could not really plan on anything, which is why we kept everything small and modest.  I love how God's plan unfolded - the events were just perfect, and my health was as good as could be.  "And now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, throughout all generations, forever and ever.  Amen."  Ephesians 3:20-21, ESV.

At Bob and Vaun's Sunday evening

 So you facebookers know that I am in the hospital, but to update you blog followers, on Monday, Dr. Kritz was satisfied with my counts, though my neutrophils were only 1100 - up from 1000 on the previous Wednesday.  We decided to move ahead with Round 2 of the hyper CVAD, so I checked in to the hospital at about 4 pm Monday.  The treatment should take 5 days and I am hoping, best case, to be discharged Friday around dinner time.  So far everythig is going well, in fact my white cell and neutrophil count popped up this morning to almost 3000 - Dr Kritz says that's due to the prednizone I am getting with the chemo - in any case it's a very good thing.  I still feel OK and I am a lot stronger going into this treatment than I was my last, with pneumonia and all the weakness, breathing issues, fever, etc....so am am praying this cycle will be as uneventful as the first.

Preparations are underway for our long trip to Houston - it seems everyone is eager to keep treatments going without any unnecessary delay - now they are talking about getting me to Houston for Dec 5....we'll see....

Thanks as always for your prayers and support.  Let me and Renee know how we can pray for you.  Dan