Adventure Day One

May 18, 2008 – When you have an aggressive form of cancer, you don’t get to rest even on a holiday.  First day at the hospital Rickey started his chemotherapy treatment.  Neither of us had any background on how chemotherapy works and did not know what to expect.  The ideal way to survive is the kill the bad cells, but chemotherapy doesn’t discriminate between the good cells and the bad cells.  The doctors don’t know how to cure leukemia - that’s why it’s called medical practice – the best you can hope for is they can stitch together the latest research and make the best collective judgment – an educated guess, really, and then see what happens.  We heard that a lot “We’ll see what happens”.  Because Rickey’s leukemia was a rare and aggressive type they didn’t have a predetermined game plan – we would have to see what happened after each treatment.  The hospital staff put IV lines into Rickey’s arms and long term temporary connections into his neck, groin and chest during his hospitalization to ensure they had continual access for medicine and fluids depending on how the treatment progressed.  Rickey learned to hate needles – but that was the best game plan we had at the time.

 

Rickey writes October 15, 2002 4:44 AM to Chris, our son-in-law:

 

I’m settled in the room.  Yesterday was a day full of questions on both sides. (And quite a few needles).  I’ve started the chemotherapy.  This is intended to kill the bad cells, but it also kills good ones.  I should lose all my hair, but it will grow back.  Maybe I’ll lose a few pounds too.  All my brothers and sisters know.  Dana Lee called them.  She and maybe her daughter Lauren, will be in town at the end of the month.  If you and/or Laura are interested in seeing them (You’ve never met Lauren) that would be a good time to visit.

 

Thanks for being there.  You and your family bring such joy to us.  We are having phone problems in the hospital room.  I’m not suppose to use my cell phone in my room, new rule, but the room phone is broken, so I will cheat until they fix it.  I can go around the corner and use my cell phone, so I’ll start doing that.

 

Thanks for the email and keep up the communications.  I’ll ask PJ (she is being a real trooper through this) to send you the web site for info on AML.

Love, Rickey 

 

Until our next blog – remember life is an adventure, embrace the journey.  You can make a difference one day at a time. 

 

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