Thanks to everyone who helped make my birthday special. The baloons, flowers, phone calls, cards, e-mails, and gifts were over whelming to say the least. The leukemia seemed to take a day off yesterday and let me enjoy the whole day with family and friends making it even more special. Here is a rundown of how it all went. We headed to the clinic in the morning for my daily shot. My appointment was at 10 and we were out of there at 11:30. Not bad and no pain involved. We had time to waste before picking my uncle up @ the hospital so we went to a wig shop. Yes…a wig shop. Just let me say this……..Ya’all are just going to have to accept my bald head as is, cause I’m not wearing one of those contraptions. Ewww, they itch, and squeeze and look funny. Bald is beautifull I say. So off to the airport we went in the very heavy rain. I’m not sure what Texas has against headlights but someone needs to tell them to turn them on in rainstorms with low visibility. Yikes, that was some hairy scary traffic. My uncle took us to a little hole in the wall barbeque spot that was amazing. If you ever fly into Houston, you must stop in at Mo’s Barbeque. Some of the best barbeque I’ve ever had. We ate and visited and then headed back to LaPorte where Michael’s Dad (Tom) put together a barbeque to rival Mo’s. He made ribs, potato salad and some amazing beans. Mike’s brother & sister and families came over to help celebrate and we had cake and opened presents. (pictures to be uploaded today) My aunt sent several hats that she had made and we decided to take a group photo with everyone wearing one. It was great fun. Everything wrapped up around 10 and it was off to bed with memories of a wonderful day. Thanks again everyone.
This morning we went to the clinic for my shot and was in and out in under an hour. Yeah. We also found out that the doctor is working with insurance and my shots should be approved for home use by the end of the day and then I just have to mail order them (the only option they have) and will most likely be doing them myself (or with Amy’s help for now) by Monday. This will make like so much easier. I still have to go in on Sat. for a blood transfusion and/or platelets but that would be necessary no matter where I was. So my options are down to 1) Do chemo in Houston and recovery in Vegas, traveling approx. every 3 to 3 and a half weeks or 2) Do chemo in the Summerlin hospital, recovery at home, and travel down once every 6 weeks or so for check ups and bone biopsies or 3)Chemo @ MD, recover in LaPorte and go home at the end of the eight cycles. With the shots at home, all three options seem do-able. Again…..my recovery and strength of late I’m sure have to do with all the prayers you’ve been sending up so please keep them coming.
We may do some sight seeing today before I fall into the abyss of no white blood cells and if we do, I’m sure I’ll have some good humor for you tomorrow. Love all of you and thank you again for everything.
Ok….today was a very long day at the clinic and we were bombarded with more information than we expected. Long story short, my counts are still high but starting to slide. I should hit bottom in about a week and then start to climb back up. MD Anderson and myself are trying to convince my insurance company to let me take my nupegen shots at home so I only have to go back to the clinic every 3-4 days instead of EVERYDAY. As hard as they try to stay on schedule and as nice as everyone is there it seems we can’t get out of there under 3 hours even if we are just getting a shot. Add an hour of drive time and this becomes a long day very quickly. Some days I’m good and can ride very easily or even drive but some days, I can’t make it far with out my little pink bucket in tow and driving is out of the question as I am not 21 anymore or can’t spew from the window while driving with the same accuracy as the old days. (Nevermind that part Mom). Anyway, the main doctor and her assistants still seem convinced that I can do my chemo treatments here, fly home within 2-4 days of getting out of the hospital, do maintenance in vegas that includes nothing more than daily shots and random bloodtests (makes me sound like an athlete..ehh) and then when my counts are back to normal and I’m feeling good, I fly back to Houston for another round of Chemo. This was a plan we liked last week but then became a little fearfull of because the nurses and the hospital doctor were leary of flying so soon and we didn’t know who to believe. Heck we still don’t. Anyway, it’s an option ecpecially if I can’t get my shots at home because that would require 7 days a week at the clinic and that is just not feasible from the LaPorte area where I am staying especially on days that I can’t drive. Not to mention, I am borrowing my Uncle’s car right now and that may not always be an option so things could get more complicated. We see the doctor next Tuesday and I am going to try to pinpoint some facts and get some answers and get the real risk factor involved before I make a decision one way or the other. I agree the best care is desired but it also has to be feasible. So……lets just pretend to be on another hill of this wonderfull rollar coaster ride, throw our hands in the air, enjoy the decline, screaming our lungs out and we’ll figure it out on the upside when we can breath again. I’ve decided…….If I can’t get over the hurdles in this race, I’ll just try to limbo under them. (ha…I’m worse at limbo than hurdling…..we’re in trouble here people.) :) Where’s my tag team????
Dear Family and Friends,
It is Amy here and several people have asked me how they can contact Donna in Houston. If you would like to send anything by mail, it is probably best to send it to Michael’s parents house here in Houston and Donna will get it from there. The address is:
Donna Stralow
C/O Tom and Kay Handy
3105 Old Hickory Dr
La Porte TX 77571-4225
It looks like Donna and I will be in Texas for her 40th birthday so I’m going to have to get her a cake that’s pretty big because everything is bigger in Texas they say! Hopefully she will continue to feel well and besides the mask that she will have to wear, she can still celebrate in style. It will make for memorable photos anyway! Maybe I’ll have to decorate her mask to make it extra special on that day. I keep telling her that all that joking around for years to her friends in Vegas where she told them that she would be out of town on her 40th so they couldn’t pay her back for all the birthday pranks she has doled out has come true (although not quite like she had expected). But she is still in good spirits and responding well to the chemo so that is a positive sign for her future. She’ll just have to tie a big one on for her 41st birthday instead!
Love,
Amy
Ok I finally got a great nights sleep and even slept in to 9 am. My blood is looking good so I may be able bypass a transfusion and extra IV this go-round. Yeah!!!!! I had my first lumbar puncture this morning right here in my room. Amy not only watched the whole thing but she also took pictures. owww. Very simple and quite painless. Much different than in Vegas where I was trasported to x-ray and two doctors had to be present, one to insert the needle under x-ray and pull spinal fluid and one to insert the chemo and remove the needle. Much more complicated there. I had to lie flat for an hour afterward so I said what the heck take a nap…..stretch into 2 and half. It was great. I needed to catch up on sleep.
So the plan is, I’m going to stick around here for the next 5 weeks and try to drive the nurses crazy. (ok, just trying to get them to be more like me so we can all feel like we belong 
) I figure I’m here and most doctors have advised I stay for the whole round because there is a 60% chance of readmittance with a complication once I leave the hospital. Not a good time to get on a dirty plane. Then I figure since cycle 3 requires a bone biopsy, I might as well stay for that too because I refuse to do that test in Vegas as it was a completely bad experience and just a mild discomfort here. I also heal faster after the odd cycles, so I figure I’ll sneak home for a visit and check out some other hospitals while I’m home. If I’m more comfortable with one, I will consider finishing treatment at home and if not, I’ll come back down for 4-8 and move back home in late January. By then by kids ought to have been completely spoiled and I’ll have my work cut out for me on whipping them back into shape. They may be enjoying have mean ol Mom out of the house :) (just kidding boys, I know you miss me).
Anyway…it seems that things change around here on a daily so basis so that plan is as is for now. But 5 months in South Texas may have me speaking with an accent by the time I get home. Eghhhhhh. If anyone has any comments or advice I’d sure love to hear it because this decision of stay or go is a killer to me. Best medecine in Houston or best mental state of mind being home in Nevada.
Well I best get to bed. I promise to a better and more comical update tomorrow. Love Donna
Sorry for the delay in reporting. It’s been a bit crazy around here. We met with the doctor yesterday and found out a lot of information. Come to find out, we were a little mislead in Vegas. I guess with my type of leukemia, there is a specific protocol that is established and followed and I received a portion of that protocol but not all of it. I also found out that it is expected for a person to go into remission after the first round of chemo but that doesn’t mean that they are done being treated. Far from it actually. So…..good news, I’m in remission. Bad news……if I want to remain there I need to undergo another 7 rounds of chemo over the next 5 months and another 2 and a half years of maintenance chemo. Yes, that totals 3 years. Anyway, here is how it goes, it’s basically a 21 day process. Day 1-5 is chemo administered in the hospital. Day 2 and day 7 are lumbar punctures. Day 6-14 are spent at home wearing a mask and being very carefull that I don’t get an infection as my white cells will deminish down to 0 at this time. I will also be getting 2 stomach shots a day. Day 15 I should start to rebuild and by day 21 I should be back to normal (WBC wise anyway) and ready to go back into the hospital for the next round and start it all over again. Rounds 1, 3, 5, and 7 are identical and rounds 2, 4, 6, and 8 are identical. The evens seem to be the harder ones and the one with higher risk with 50-60 % of patients being readmitted with fevers or infections. The odds have a 30-40 % risk. This is why we decided to undergo round 2 here in Houston. We are here and under the impression that we shouldn’t delay anymore as I’m 2 weeeks off schedule as is and I missed a lumbar puncture and round of vincristine on my first cycle. The plan is to start chemo tonight (I’m waiting for a room to open up), get released on Sunday, recover at the Handy’s on Monday, come back for a lumbar puncture on Tuesday, and fly home Tuesday night or Wednesday morning (yes that’s my 40th b-day so what a great present). This can all take place as long as I don’t have an adverse reaction, or get a fever after release. Keep your fingers crossed and your prayers coming. Their are so many things here that are different, and I’ll try to do an update on it tomorrow with more details when I have more time sitting in the hospital bed. It has definately been a learning process. Amy has been a real trooper and is working hard at getting me organized (the good Lord knows that is a major project in itself) and keeping good notes when we meet with the doctors. She’s a Godsend. Well they just let me know that the patient in my new room has been transferred and they have called for housekeeping to clean it. It’s 9:41 p.m so hopefully by 10:30, I’ll be settled in. I’ll let you tomorrow what the phone number and room number is. Until then. Thanks again and I love you all.
So we have arrived in Humid Houston Texas and having a good time. Michael’s family picked us up from the airport, took us to eat and catch up on things, then made sure we got checked into our hotel all safe and sound. We walked around, swam, visited with other cancer patients staying here and then headed off to bed for the big day ahead. Got up at 6 to enjoy our free breakfast downstairs and then got on the 7:30 shuttle to the hospital. Walked around and found what we needed, checked in, and then waited….and waited…..somehow our paperwork was overlooked. For this, we got free meal vouchers, a little time for me to settle my anxioty, and a fast-track thru the rest of the day. Our schedule included a visit and exam with the nurse, vital checks (yes Amy, I am 5′-5″), blood work, (several tubes), a chest x-ray, and the forbidden bone aspiration AND biopsy (2 chips no less). By the time we had gotton to the bone biopsy, I was worked into a complete frenzy from nerves and wanted to run away. Everyone in the waiting room assured me it was no big deal and the people here do it so well, you don’t even feel it. I opted for the adavan anyway. Of course it was wearing off by the time I was called back. My sister was not allowed with me so I was truly on my own. I have to admit, there was a steady stream of tears that the technician took time to dry and then calm my fears and talk me thru it. It was definately a lot less invasive or painfull than the one I’d had previously. Kudo’s to the technicians, nurses and staff at MD Anderson. It is one of the happiest places I have ever been and just don’t realize that the people around you are sick because they are so friendly and happy. Several people waited around the waiting room to make sure that I was ok because they knew of my anxiety. They hugged me and comforted me when I returned from the test. Where else can you get this. I feel so very safe here. Earlier in the day, I was asked to sign some papers and consider giving my left over blood and fluids to the research team to help find a cure. Sounded great, so I signed up and my sister witnessed it for me and off we went. Looking back…….I know it was the right thing to do but what they didn’t explain is that it really wasn’t “left-over” samples, it was actually scheduled to get an extra 2 viles of blood, small bone chip, and 5 cc’s of bone fluid. If I’d known, I might not have been such a good samaritan so today the hospital actually scored on on “Ignorance is Bliss. ” A volunteer gave me a knitted hat with a flower on it that is just adorable. We had many many laughs thruout the day. I also got another comment on my age and how I don’t look much into my 30’s. I love this flaterry. Should have shaved my head long before this. We return tomorrow, for the results and possible treatment plan. It’s not until 3 pm so we had planned on just hanging out at the pool but low and behold that is not allowed for 48 hours afer a biopsy so it’s off to play tourist tomorrow and see what this city has to offer. We’re getting a chance to catch up with each other and do a lot of visiting and reminiscing which I believe was way over do. Sisters shouldn’t wait so long or wait for a situation to do this. I could tell you little stories from each of the tests that whould make you laugh but we’ll save it for another day or a weeks end funny recount story.
Please keep the comments and prayers coming. It’s all working as it looks like I’m going to get an excellent report tomorrow. I love you all and appreciate each and every comment, card, phone call, e-mail & gift.
Went to the doctor today for my blood draw. Everything is looking good. They gave me two shots in my stomach, one for white cell production and one for red cell production, more as a precaution for the upcoming trip than anything else. My sister and I have decided to stay at the Plaza Hotel next to M.D. Anderson as a precaution due to the Tropical Storm Erin that has drenched Houston. The news footage is amazing. 8″ is a lot of rain on allready saturated ground. I can’t even imagine. I guess we’ll pack our umbrella’s.
So today, I told my doctor there was a stitch still sticking out of my port and he decided he should remove it. Half way thru he says “oops”. I cast a glance at my sister and I said “well, that’s a word you don’t like to hear your doctor say while he’s working on you.” then I said “so, that must mean something different in Greek than it does in English “ and he says “No it means the same thing.” At this point I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what had caused this word to slip from his mouth but I decided to turn my head and look anyway.l Ohhhh, I turned away quickly again as I saw my skin being stretched and this stubborn stitch hanging on for dear life wanting to remain a part of my port forever. Long story short…it came out and all seems to be well and healing and it’s kind of funny looking back on it.
On a brighter side….the lady who drew my blood and regularly gives me my shots and draws engaged me in conversation today and was asking about my boys. She said “no way your son can be Jr in high school”. I said “yeah I’m going to be 40 at the end of the month”. She then informed me that she thought I was 30 at the oldest. I told her as I rubbed my bald head and did a little model pose, “it’ s the hair do….it can be deceiving”. She chuckled and said “no really, your face and smile look so young, I want to be just like you.” Crazy woman. :) Anyway, made me feel good and I realized once again, attitude is everything.
Well, it’s off to bed. Thanks again for all your support and prayers.
Ok…..vincristine administered and flying witch avoided. It took about an hour because I got a bag of fluids and some steroids along with it. The only side effect I’ve suffered thus far is some major cramping in my abdomen that put me in the fetal position for 5-10 minutes a couple of times. I know Michael and Amy were both very happy that I wasn’t barking orders as I walked in the door. I go in tomorrow to check my blood so I opted to have them leave the access in my port. Probally not a good decision as it requires a large bandage and a long tube to be wrapped up and taped to my chest, so I look like some kind of creature from outer space. I did this to avoid a needle stick tomorrow but looking back on it, 24 hours of carrying around this makeshift I.V. or a single needle prick? Not my best decision considering ….really what is one blood draw in the whole grand scheme of things? I really must figure out how to get past this fear of blood of needles. Go figure…A woman who can’t watch her own blood being drawn and has to lay down to avoiding fainting when needles are inserted, gets leukemia of all things. Who says God doesn’t have a sence a humor? I know a couple of nurses who have chuckled a time or two. Anyway, wanted to let you all know, I’m well and suffering very little from the chemo today and feeling quite strong. On to another day. Until tomorrow…..good night and thanks again for your prayers andd support.
Sorry it’s been a while. Who would have guessed there would be this much business to take care of while I’m at home. My sister and I have purchased our outgoing flights to Houston. We leave on Sunday and should be gone for 4-5 days unless they decide to keep me for a round of chemo and start working on the bone marrow transplant, which I understand could take a while. They will test Amy while we are there and send for my other sister to me tested in Kansas. Since it’s been a while from my last treatment, my doctor feels we should do something before I leave so he has scheduled a round of “vin christine” for today at 1:45. This is the nasty stuff that caused immediate reaction in the hospital. I went through about 8 different emotions in a period of an hour. There for a while, Mike and my parents thought they should hand me a broom so I could fly around the room appropriately. Hopefully, I will take it better today. At least skip the “witch” part of it. This dose is supposed to kill the bad lymphocytes without killing my white blood cells that have stabled off and remained normal without the stomach shots. We’ll see.
Yesterday, I went to Walmart to grocery shop. A task that I could not do last week. While in the produce section, a little girl around 8 years old came up to me and said “Excuse me” and I say “yes”, she replied with “I just wanted to tell you that I think you are beautiful” , I nearly choked up. I told her thank you and let her know how that made my day and then she gave me big hug and said “good luck”. I had forgotton that I didn’t put a hat on before I left and I was walking around bald. Kindness like that just makes a person smile and realize that life is good and people can be very understanding and mankind is not lost.
Well, it’s off to lunch and the doctor’s office. I’ll keep you updated on how that goes.
Hello to all and a Happy Birthday to my Love Michael. It is so great to be able to celebrate his birthday here at home.
Went to the doctor this morning and had my last stomach shot for at least 4 days and my last blood draw for 4 days. Woo Hoo, won’t know how to act with no needles for that long. Anyway, the blood count was great. The white cell was good, the red cells were good, the platelets were good and the lymphocytes were great showing that the cancer is not growing right now leading them to believe they can take this small risk of letting me stay at home until Houston takes me on early next week. I will be going down there and having a bone biopsy and if treatment is immediately necessary they will begin it and if not they will send me home with a treatment plan for my doctors to begin here. If it looks like a good time to to a transplant, we will start that process in Houston as well. It is all looking good and it seems all your prayers are workinng so please keep them coming. And to all my family and friends in Houston……I’ll see you soon.
Love to all of you. Thanks again for everything.
Donna