Jill's Visit

Jill with a dwarf donkey we met on our walk

Hello Friends, it's been 6 days since my last post and I guess you could say they have been eventful....by far, the best part is that my sister Jill flew down on Friday and spent the weekend with us - we had a wonderful time, and Jill, Rooker that she is, cooked up a STORM for us.....wow, we had homemade biscuits, homemade chicken soup, homemade mashed potatoes, homemade butternut squash soup, homemade cinnamon rolls, etc etc - with Jill, you can drop the "homemade" and just assume it - she doesn't cook any other way :-)  YUM!!

It was beautiful weather and we walked 3+ miles each day on Saturday and Sunday.  I was in low-low blood count mode so we had to be very careful about hugs, doorknobs, etc.

Without going into a lot of unnecessary detail, there were two hospital stays interspersed over the last 4 days - on Friday, Dr. Kritz sent me over to the hospital to get 2 units of blood - my hemoglobin was down to 8.0 - so that interfered a bit with Jill's visit - she arrived at noon, I checked in to the hospital at 3, and I got discharged at 1 am.  No complications, just a comedy of errors at the hospital that dragged the process out.....

Then, yesterday morning, I was getting platelets at the REX Hospital cancer infusion suite (good outfit and process) and began to have severe pains in my lower back, legs, and groin.....I got myself over to Dr. Kritz' office (barely) and they gave me some morphine....they also thought I needed more blood so they checked me back into the hospital at about 2 pm yesterday - they did a few diagnostics, checked my counts again, decided that I didn't need blood after all, and kept me for observation overnight.  I've been discharged now and am waiting for Renee to pick me up.  Dr. Kritz is pretty sure the pain was from a shot I got a week ago - the Neulasta shot sometimes causes significant bone pain as the patient's white counts recover.  I had not experienced it before (and I don't care to again!).  You know the pain is bad when you start making involuntary noises.....the good news is that my counts this morning showed good progress in all areas, so Dr. Kritz pronounced me "recovering".

Time is getting short now as we prepare for our trip to Houston.  We will be having a small gathering at our house with a few close friends on Sunday evening for a time of prayer, healing, and fellowship.  Renee and I really appreciate your prayers for what is to come - we pray for healing, but above that we pray for God's will to be done in our lives, so that we might bring honor and glory to Him in all things. 

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!!  We all have so much to be thankful for!   Dan