Day 3 - Radiation

First of all, a correction - Dad's numbers. He went into the hospital after getting a WBC reading last Thursday of 12 and his WBCs, two days later, were already at 46. Since then, after one day of chemo, they came down to 26 and then today were down to 16 (after two days of chemo). Those little bugs can multiply.

Okay, today.....Today, Dad was scheduled for a full body radiation treatment around 12:00. They took him down to radiation oncology at 11:30. Lydia, Quinn and I went up to visit and tracked he and Mom down there at 2:00. They were just finishing up with Dad. The 20 minute procedure took hours due to all the adjustments they had to make with him. It was very disappointing. By the time we got Dad back up to his room, it was quarter to three. He was exhausted.

Apparently, last night, they had him doing his second chemo treatment and then a blood transfusion until 3:00 am. The lack of sleep, on top of the anxiety and emotional toll this takes on you, made for a rough day for Dad.

Tonight, I know he was going to ask for something to help knock him out. He fell asleep while visiting with the girls and I (which was fine!), so we knew he was zonked.

Full body radiation. Dad asked how effective this treatment is in erradicating the leukemia. They told him that they only do this procedure on people who are receiving cells because it completely kills everything in the body - so it's very powerful and effective. GOOD. They said you can't take that much out of a person and not replenish some of it (hence, the transplant tomorrow). There are side effects such as nausea etc - but we haven't seen those yet. It may take a few days for the chemo combination and radiation therapy to kick in before we see any side effects set in (hopefully, they are minor).

Tomorrow the plan is for the evening shift to do Dad's transplant. I think they are waiting on it to arrive and the day nurse told Dad it wouldn't be until evening on Tuesday. That's fine. He can sleep afterwards, hopefully.

I am really hoping that once we put this transplant procedure behind us, we can focus on recovering and managing any little hiccups that come along in order to work towards Dad coming home for the rest of the summer. I think we've all built this up for so long - been working towards it for so long, that now that it's here, everyone is thinking - what next? What now? What if?

Please put in a few extra words with the man upstairs during your bedtime prayers tomorrow evening. Pray for the donor and his family too. My family is forever indebted to a stranger's selflessness and I know we'll be praying for them too.