Surviving Life's Curves

Today, January 29, I received in the mail a card from my good friends Elton and Audrey from the church. It was such a neat card. First, it fits with my series I am bringing at the church dealing with Surviving Life's Curves. Also, it fits well with the theme of this web site. Maybe you noticed the straight lines coming off the bridge and then immediately going into the curves. (Scroll down and I will talk about straight lines and curves and bends in the road). On the top of the site represents making a straight line to the doctor. Do you see the Stethoscope on the far right of the road?

Koyce and I paid a visit to The Stanford Medical Center today to sign some papers and firm up some dates. Beginning next week, I get a catheter put in and placed, take a class on self-injection, take another class on "teaching for transplant," take chemotherapy called Cytoxan, get my mask and begin the shots of Neupogen and Antibiotics. We also learned that I will be part of a Research Study and that I will be monitored there annually for the rest of my life. It was a tough session and before we were through, they had Koyce getting a bit weapy. Then the nurse said, "Look, if I don't scare you, I am not really doing my job." Well, today, she was doing her job!

As to our schedule, the second week of February is a stay at home week just taking Nepogen and wearing the mask, thus no preaching for a few weeks. On the 16th I begin taking Apheresis that takes place at Stanford. On about March 17, I enter the hospital with the transplant beginning on the 23rd and I will remain in the hospital there for 2-3 weeks. Following this, I stay in the safe zone over there where I can be close to the hospital for daily check ups that will probably run about another two weeks. After this, I can return home and start the process of recovering. I will keep you updated along this part of the journey.

When I returned home from Stanford today, there was a letter from Kaiser that said, "No clear evidence of cancer on the PET scan." So, I am clean today but we are going ahead with the process in order to keep the cancer from coming back. There is only a 40% chance that the cancer will not come back if I stop the process at this point. We desire better odds than that so we signed unto the process today.