The Reed Report - Phil's Medical Journey

On Thursday, March 4th, we had a fairly long day at the University of Iowa. We arrived before 10 AM (it was so nice that we did not have to arrive before 8 AM!) - and got home about 5 PM. The only challenge that morning was that I could not eat after midnight because of the PET scan I would be having. My first stop was for an ultrasound. I thought that was strange, because they had done an ultrasound on my arms (which I questioned at the time why it was my arms and not my legs) about 5 weeks earlier. Because they did not find any blood clots, I was able to stop taking my blood thinner.  This time, my ultrasound was on my legs. There was a student who was learning how to do ultrasounds, so she got to work on part of my left leg while the tech watched. I assured her that I did not bite - hard. Of course, they could not tell me what they found (or did not find), but I learned later that I still had a partial blood clot where there had been one last fall. That just means that I am back...

My Dad went downhill quickly after we visited for a couple of days in mid-January. He stopped calling just to check on us. And he was in more and more pain.  I am so glad that we traveled to visit him when we did, even though he tried to talk me out of it. If we had waited three more weeks (which would have been necessary because of my chemo cycle), he would not have been able to visit with us because he was sleeping most of the time. By February 1st, he could not walk. Mom had died 13 years ago on February 4th, so I thought he might pass away on that day. Instead, he died at 9 AM on Monday, February 8th, at the age of 80. Both Mom and Dad died on a Monday morning - and both the day after the Super Bowl. I will never understand that one. Two of my sisters (out of five) are RN's. One of them helped care for Dad during the day.  The other took care of him at night for the last week, so our step-Mom could sleep. We are thankful that Dad did not suffer long - and now he is in God'...

This round of chemo was my best and easiest round. I was only nauseous the day following chemo and felt just a little off the second day. After that I felt better and stronger every day. I did not nap at all (though I had the usual problems sleeping because of the 100 mg of prednisone I took the first 5 days after chemo). And I was thankful that I was feeling so good. The last time I took my blood thinner was Monday evening the 25th.  Once again, on the evening of day 6, Tuesday the 26th, I was fever free. Such a wonderful thing. That means my last hospital stay was Thanksgiving weekend. I will be thankful for my health for a long time to come, that is for sure. The next day, one week following chemo, we went in for labs. As usual, my labs showed no surprises - the things that we expected to be low, like white blood cell count and platelets, were low and other things, like lower hemoglobin, were acceptable. I also had an ultrasound to check for blood clots. None were found (as expe...

Today was my 6th and FINAL chemo treatment. Praise the LORD! I felt excellent going into chemo again, even after our trip to visit my Dad and Step-Mom last week. We left home about 7:45 AM, and it was only 5 degrees. Denise has a pain in the ball of her left foot (learned the next day that it was gout, which her parents both have had multiple times). That meant that today I pushed HER in a wheelchair for my appointments at the hospital. That was a switch from two months ago, when she was pushing me. Shortly after 8 AM, I had blood drawn for labs. This time my PICC line flushed just fine. The dressing was also changed, and there was some debate about pulling the PICC line after this final chemo was finished. Today we talked to the doctor about when we could possibly plan on returning to Ukraine. He thinks that we should wait until June - which was what we were thinking. It is exciting to even think about the possibility. How we miss being among the people that we love so much. And they ...

The first couple of days after chemo, I felt off and had trouble with nausea. I am thankful that there is medicine to counteract the nausea, even though it does not bring me back to feeling 100%. My appetite is almost gone, food does not appeal to me, and I just feel "off" during this time. This time the nausea again cleared up before day 4. So thankful! This fifth cycle post-chemo was much like the other times around, only better. The first week following chemo I was tired (though I seldom napped) and felt a little lousy (though not as bad as previous times, probably because I was feeling so good before chemo). The next week I felt better, even though my immune system was recovering from being so low. The third week I felt even better, once my immune system was back and in preparation for the final round of chemo. During this time being home, I was able to enjoy most of the college football bowl games and all the NFL playoff games. What a treat for me to be able to watch foo...