As always with my long silence there has been a lot that has happened in the last few weeks.
As I previously posted, we discovered the bacterial infection from Joe’s new Hickman. The doctors started him on some heavy IV antibiotics right away. Unfortunately, because his counts have been so low that wasn’t enough to ward off the infection. We had to head back to the hospital for a few days to have the line pulled. This trip was particularly difficult because Joe’s shingles he required him to be in a contact isolation room. So for three days Joe had only the “freedom” of his room and bathroom. For those of you who know Joe, know this is most definitely not ideal. Thankfully after removing the Hickman the infection cleared up very quickly. They were able to place a PIC line (an IV line that stays in his bicep) and continue the IV antibiotics (for the infection) and antiviral (for the shingles).
The shingles on the other hand have been very stubborn. A couple weeks ago they removed him from the IV antiviral onto a lower oral dose thinking he was in the clear. Unfortunately they blew up again. He has been seeing infectious disease doctor weekly since then and we finally have them under control. He will be on the IV meds for a few more days before switching to a high oral dose to insure it does not come back again.
We have his third round of chemo coming up on the 7th. Thankfully he tolerated this last round a bit better than the first. We are all hoping that this round will be even easier on him since he’s going into it without an infection or active shingles. We will have to wait till after his fourth round to have the biopsy done and determine if this treatment has been working.
In the meantime you can please join me in praying for a few things. The two biggest prayer requests for Joe (outside of full healing) are for his platelets to hold more stable and for his nausea. If you would have told me a year ago that my husband wouldn’t ALWAYS want to be eating and that I would be asking for people to pray that his appetite would improve, I would have laughed in your face. But here we are in this wild upside down world. The issue with his platelets is they are low due to the disease and the chemo. The problem is that he has gotten so many transfusions that he has started building up a bit of a resistance. This is a totally normal occurrence after receiving transfusions for a long period of time. It shows itself by not giving the recipient a big jump in their platelet count post transfusion. Currently he is getting a bag of platelets about every other day. Please pray that each bag he receives gives him a huge boost. Please also pray for us as a family. Being apart this time feels infinitely harder than last. There’s not too much more to add to that. Just pray that Joe is healed and that we can be back together and whole once again. Thank you so much for your love and support.
The shingles on the other hand have been very stubborn. A couple weeks ago they removed him from the IV antiviral onto a lower oral dose thinking he was in the clear. Unfortunately they blew up again. He has been seeing infectious disease doctor weekly since then and we finally have them under control. He will be on the IV meds for a few more days before switching to a high oral dose to insure it does not come back again.
We have his third round of chemo coming up on the 7th. Thankfully he tolerated this last round a bit better than the first. We are all hoping that this round will be even easier on him since he’s going into it without an infection or active shingles. We will have to wait till after his fourth round to have the biopsy done and determine if this treatment has been working.
In the meantime you can please join me in praying for a few things. The two biggest prayer requests for Joe (outside of full healing) are for his platelets to hold more stable and for his nausea. If you would have told me a year ago that my husband wouldn’t ALWAYS want to be eating and that I would be asking for people to pray that his appetite would improve, I would have laughed in your face. But here we are in this wild upside down world. The issue with his platelets is they are low due to the disease and the chemo. The problem is that he has gotten so many transfusions that he has started building up a bit of a resistance. This is a totally normal occurrence after receiving transfusions for a long period of time. It shows itself by not giving the recipient a big jump in their platelet count post transfusion. Currently he is getting a bag of platelets about every other day. Please pray that each bag he receives gives him a huge boost. Please also pray for us as a family. Being apart this time feels infinitely harder than last. There’s not too much more to add to that. Just pray that Joe is healed and that we can be back together and whole once again. Thank you so much for your love and support.
