Daniel

My boys! Thomas on left and Daniel.

I want to thank everyone for your continue thoughts and prayers for my son Daniel.

...we are now halfway through chemo treatments. We’re not jumping up and down about it, but glad these four months are now behind us and we're not looking down a dark six month tunnel anymore. Another twelve weeks and he will finish chemo and then have another round of CT scans and PET scans to make sure the cancer is GONE. Hodgkin's Lymphoma has a high success rate with 95% of the patients going into remission and then being cured. Remission is declared when cancer can no longer be found in the body; cured is defined as five years without any re-occurrence. We are praying for remission and expect a cure…God is good!
Last Friday Daniel had chemo. He is always wiped out afterwards and tries to eat a little something, if anything at all, and then goes straight to bed. He wakes a few times to take his anti-nausea medication, but other than that, he's out until the next morning. When he wakes up, he's usually just tired and weak. Everything has a metallic taste after chemo, so certain things don't sound good to eat. It's not until day five (after chemo) that his taste buds start working again.
After his first chemo treatment his white blood cells dropped dangerously low. He was prescribed, Neulasta shots. This is the liquid gold that increases his white blood count to keep him from getting sick. He started treatment getting the shot once a month, but it wasn't enough. On round four of chemo he started having the shot every treatment and he feels a big difference. Even though it causes bone pain, it's manageable with ibuprofen and rest. After two days, he feels his energy kick back up and he's the little energizer bunny until the next treatment. And he's going to need that energy because classes started again at Cal Poly.
He has 12 units this quarter, another full load, but his classes are only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so it is a little more manageable. God willing, he may not have to miss any classes if he continues to have his chemo treatments on Fridays. We'll see. We've learned not to plan too far ahead. We take it one day at a time. The winter quarter will be over the same time as chemo. That means his spring quarter will be packed to the max with his senior project and final units. But again, God willing, we will hear pomp and circumstance in June and see that diploma in hand!

Please continue to keep us in your prayers. Pray that chemo-brain goes away and he can think clearly, no set back from illness (colds, flu...), for good attitudes and cheerful spirits with a mind always focused on Christ.

Thank you my friends!

Brenda

My favorite picture of us. I couldn't love them more!