make glemonade

Day 1, March 16th. The room is great because they change the air completely 6 times an hour. Seriously they do. Alright you can't tell, but still it's comforting to know that the air your breathing is so fresh and so clean clean. It's strange because we arrived and got settled and they say, okay you have chemo at 12... so we'll see you then. Then they leave and you are free to just do whatever you want, just have to stay here. Eric has compared it to prison and/or the MTC. Eric was really proud of how much he peed here. He is on the chemo now, it's a 4 hour one today, the rest of them will be 2 hours, and that lasts for the next 5 or 6 days. After that it's transplant time, but we'll blog then to update rather than now when I really still don't know exactly what it will be like for him. I'm trying to convince Eric to blog so if you want to hear directly from him you should raise your hand (symbolically, i.e. comment) and tell him so that we can convi...

Eric is going in on Tuesday, March 16th instead of Friday. They want his lungs and heart to be a little stronger first and they're wiped out from the CHOP. Good news for Eric, he's going to cruise on down to Vegas for the MWC Tournament with his dad and brother.

Before anything, we unbelievably forgot to mention that Bill (in the BYU Athletics Dept.) invited Eric to his office the other weekend and Austin Collie was there! You won't believe it, but he gave Eric his Super Bowl jersey. Yes, it's a real Super Bowl jersey. As some of you know, Eric and I have not had to go up to Salt Lake in one week! This has been a huge relief for now, and it is due to the fact that Eric collected on Monday last week. They needed to collect 5 million cells for his transplant, and after a long day of collection he produced over 9 million cells! If only we could sell his excess cells... haha. Actually we would willingly give them to anyone but I don't even know if that is possible or even useful in the medical world. All I know is Eric is a stud. He knows how to get it done. As for everything else, we have been waiting just like you have. Many people have sought me out looking for the next set of information, but I haven't had it to give yet. We h...

The last chemo was fine and dandy. We have had so much going on lately, so let's just have a couple weeks in review. Still flushing lines at home, Eric still isn't feeling great, but actually seems to be better than last time. I don't know what was the deal with that chemo #5 but it rocked him. It is hard to believe that the chemo part is already over. How can something go so fast and so slow at the same time?! Eric giving his biohazardous waste can some lovin'. With our good friends, Rosie and Josh. This is Eric getting in the shower (phwit phwew!). A helpful nurse had us switch from plastic wrap to ziploc sandwich bags with duct tape. I got tie dye to spice things up a little bit. John gets Visitor of the Week for last week (Feb. 7-13) because he came over and played board games with Eric all day. They set up Risk, Monopoly, and Ticket to Ride and set a timer every 30 minutes, rotating from game to game. I think they played for ten hours or so (Risk twice). It was on...

Just so you all know, the scan came back with very positive results. Our doctor said it is right where she expected it to be and that it bodes well for the transplant. Wheeeeeeeee! We are gearing up for the bone marrow transplant (hereafter referred to as BMT). It still isn't scheduled which is really pushing my patience. I like to have a plan of action and there just isn't one yet. I imagine it will go something like this: last chemo, 1 week recovery, 1 week shots, next week check in for BMT, Eric there for 3 weeks, I go up on weekends and stay at home weekdays for school. We're looking forward to chemo next week. Mostly because I love the Bistro at Huntsman Center (I highly recommend the roast beef and pepper jack panini)... oh yeah! And it's Eric's last chemotherapy session! No but really, let's look at the things we love about Huntsman: 1. the Bistro 2. the Infusion nurses- they are so much fun and they think we are hilarious, so of course we love them back!...

My last post was premature. We spent the rest of that night at the ER in the University of Utah Hospital because he was still bleeding out of his chest. It finally ebbed around 5 o'clock in the morning, but in typical hospital fashion we were not released until 11a.m.. They didn't clean it up because we had to head up to Huntsman to get it flushed and rebandaged anyway. * small sidenote * he actually got a central line placed, not a port . Apparently there is a difference and I think I've called it a port to a few people and possible on a previous post . ...now carry on... So we trekked up to Huntsman where they were not happy to see us. But they cleaned him up and stopped the bleeding that started again when they replaced the gauze and it hasn't bled since. We got home around 2 o'clock yesterday and I hauled over to campus to try to make it to my last class. Eric was exhausted , but apparently he could muster just enough energy to pay a visit to Camp Cougar and...