Hope�

2004-03-25

My time on spent on the computer has seriously decreased. Between going back and forth to the hospital, time spent on the treadmill and actually working on a picture there just hasn't been time.

Dad has been doing unexpectedly well. He seems to be slightly nauseous all the time, but that's been his only real problem.

The nurses said that ideally his white cell count would go down to 100 before starting back up again. He got down to 1,000 and then the count rose a little yesterday. It really worried us. Made us wonder if the doc had given him enough chemo. Then his doctor came around and said that he had done it on purpose and Dad is responding to treatment as expected. Mom and I have speculated that they probably gave him the low does because of his age. Extreme nausea is one of those things that can make you wish you were dead. Not a good feeling when you're fighting for your life. If he was younger or had not responded well to treatment so far, they might have been more aggressive. At this point aggressive treatment probably wouldn't add to his life span.

We've also decided that we don't visit to make him f eel better. We visit so we can nag him into doing the stuff that will help him get well, like eat. First we nagged him to ask for anti-nausea meds and then we nagged him to eat. It didn't hurt that the doctor came in and told him that it was very important to eat. It's not unknown for peoples' insides to just give up and stop working if they're not used. That got his attention.

I've been really impressed with the City of Hope. Not to mention the fact that I can't even walk into the hospital without tearing up. When this whole thing has turned out not to be what we expected. He thought from everything the doctor said and everything he read himself that there wasn't much hope. That he could expect a few more months and that was it. Now there's hope, and maybe China

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