The Long Road Ahead...

We met with J's doctor yesterday afternoon to get all the test results of his heart, lungs and brain. Everything came back really good. We also got the results of his CT scan which indicated that the cancer has been drastically reduced. Cut in half in fact after 2 rounds of Salvage Chemo. This is where they want him to be. It means his body is responding well to the chemo and is ready to start the Stem Cell Transplant Chemo. J starts this chemo on Monday the 20th at 8am. He'll check into the hospital and start his chemo that day. He has 4 days of chemo a day of rest then he gets some of his stem cells back another day of rest and then they'll give him the rest of his stem cells for that transplant back. They bring the bag(s) of cryogenic frozen stem cells to his bed side and thaw them there. They then hook him up and and transfer the stem cells. This process takes only a matter of minutes and is painless. They said if he nods off he'll miss the whole thing. Its very anticlimactic. That's the pretty easy part if you can call all that easy... The hard part is going to be J's recovery. He will then have 2-3 additional weeks where his body will take the stem cells and start to rebuild his immune system. They said he'll be very sick to the point that his throat will hurt so bad that he'll be on pain meds for that and they'll probably be feeding him through his IV. Once he can drink 2 Ltr. of liquids and keep that down and his whites are up they'll let him come home. The Doctor seems hopeful that he'll be home mid Nov. just before Thanksgiving. He'll have some time to recover from all of this and start his next round anywhere from 2-4 weeks after he comes home. Things seem so long, so far away. J's friend sent me a good quote the other day: "The test of character is not 'hanging in' when you expect light at the end of the tunnel, but performance of duty, and persistence of example when you know no light is coming." We know there is a light its just hard to see at times but J is so willing to fight and although he'll miss my birthday, Halloween and possibly Christmas his doctor said "I don't care about this Christmas, I care about the next Christmas and the next Christmas after that and so on. I want you to be around for the next one." We agree. This is what it is all about. Sure we will miss him and the kids will have a hard time at times (especially not being able to see him and I know how hard this will be on J) but we want him around for the long haul and if that means missing out on one Christmas then so be it. Please pray that J will be able to handle this next round that his won't have such a painful recovery and that he will recover quickly so that he can come home to be with us. Thank you for continuing to think and pray for us daily. We are so blessed.